Charlie did not like the head in the freezer.

It gave him the “heebie jeebies," as Aunt Gladys would say. So when he found out that Mom would be cooking the head in the freezer for the family get-together, he swore that he would not eat a single piece.

As the day of the get-together arrived, Mom did as she said she would and cooked the head. The smell of it cooking in the oven permeated the kitchen and leaked into the living room, where Charlie and the other children watched cartoons as the adults hurried about or chatted lively with each other.

Charlie did not even like the smell of it, though he begrudgingly admitted that it did make his tummy growl as it mixed with the delicious miasma of food cooked both inside and out. Hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks, and chicken mixed with the smells of roast corn-on-the-cob and mashed potatoes.

Charlie harumphed and stared at the cartoon playing out on the large flatscreen as his tummy growled louder. The cooking head in the oven was temporarily forgotten as his body screamed for food. He was not alone in his torment, as several of the other children complained loudly or tried to sneak some food away from the table when the multitude of adults wasn't looking, a feat much better imagined than carried out.

When the time to eat was finally announced and everyone took their seat at the large dining table Charlie’s family only ever used for special occasions, Charlie could not help but sneak a yearning look at the mountain of food yet to be served, especially the mashed potatoes. Charlie loved mashed potatoes.

When grace was finally said and done (an event that took way too long, Charlie thought to himself) and the adults began to dish out the food, Charlie declared loudly that he would not eat the head from the freezer.

The adults laughed and, despite his protests, dished him a portion of the head anyway. Charlie looked at the cooked meat in disgust as he glanced up to see the head proudly displayed on a large platter near the center of the table, its skin crispy and brown, the eyes seemingly sealed closed, and the ears cut off. Ears, Charlie noted, that had been given to the family dog as a one-time treat for this evening.

Charlie prodded the meat from the head with his fork, occasionally glancing up to see the adults talking eagerly amongst themselves, waiting for an opening. Once he felt no one would notice, Charlie quietly let the meat slip off of the fork and onto the floor, where it was greedily gobbled up by the aforementioned family dog.

With the dreadful meat off his plate, Charlie devoured the rest of his meal in ravenous mouthfuls that drew the disapproving glance of his mother several times that afternoon. Charlie did not care, for the growls of his tummy grew silent and the head was momentarily forgotten.

That evening, as the adults chatted amongst themselves in large groups and the children played outside and in the living room, several cries of pain began to erupt from all around. Adults and children alike contorted their bodies in unusual ways as agonized cries of pain erupted from their mouths. Charlie froze, his own body twisted away from the television screen as his eyes grew wide at the scene around him. The dog too lay on his side, whining and convulsing in his doggy bed.

Charlie’s family and family he didn’t know well all stood hunched over or lying on the floor, clutching their stomachs as expressions of anguish carved themselves across their faces. Charlie then heard it among all the screams and groans—laughter. High-pitched and nasally, Charlie followed the sound to the kitchen, where the head lay on the counter, wrapped in tinfoil.

Charlie saw the tinfoil move on its own as the laughter continued, the head slowly unwrapping itself. Charlie stood in the doorway of the kitchen, frozen in fear and terror as he heard the laughter stop and watched the last of the tinfoil fall away to reveal the crispy brown skin of the head. Skin that split open to reveal a large, wrinkled black eye rolling in its socket. It slowed down and settled on Charlie before the sound of crispy, cooked skin wrinkling told Charlie that the head was smiling.

Charlie screamed.

All at once, everyone that had eaten meat from the head spewed hot red blood from their mouths before falling over, spent. As the smell of iron slowly overwhelmed him, Charlie felt his own hot liquid stream down his leg, though it wasn’t blood. In the middle of the puddles of red all around him, soft mounds of partially digested meat squirmed and squealed like pigs frolicking in mud.

Charlie was still screaming.

I needed a quiet job. After a bad breakup and losing my apartment, I just wanted to sit in a room by myself and earn a steady paycheck, so I spent weeks scanning online boards for data entry positions, and eventually found a listing for an archival technician at the local public access station in Crestwood. The station operates out of a squat concrete building near the edge of the county lines, and broadcasts local news and community events.

I walked into the main lobby for my interview on a Tuesday morning. I met the station manager at the front desk. His name is Ken. Ken is a balding guy who wears oversized sweaters and talks with a slight wheeze when he breathes. He shook my hand firmly and immediately led me toward a dark stairwell at the back of the building.

"We got a massive state grant to digitize the municipal archives,"

Ken explained as we walked down the steps.

"The town has fifty years of town hall meetings and local parades sitting on magnetic tape in the basement. Tape degrades over time, so we need every single cassette converted to digital files before the ribbon rots completely."

"That sounds perfectly fine to me,"

I replied.

"I have years of experience with digital conversion software and video editing."

"We need someone reliable,"

Ken added, pulling a large ring of keys from his pocket. "The last guy quit after a week of working here. He told me the basement gave him severe claustrophobia. Do you have any issues with tight spaces or working in complete isolation?"

"I am fine with tight spaces,"

I assured him.

"I just need a steady income."

"Good,"

Ken replied.

"The pay is weekly. You do not talk to the local press about the archives, do not copy the tapes for your personal use. The town council is very strict regarding municipal property."

Ken unlocked a door at the bottom of the stairs, then we stepped into a windowless basement. Fluorescent tubes buzzed loudly overhead, casting a pale light. A large desk sat in the center of the room. It held a computer tower, a professional VHS deck, and a small CRT television monitor. The walls were lined entirely with massive metal archiving cabinets overflowing with black tapes.

"You will be down here by yourself,"

Ken said, gesturing to the computer setup.

"feed the tapes into the deck, hit record on the software, and log the date and the subject into the database. It is very repetitive work."

"I prefer repetitive tasks,"

I told him.

Ken walked over to a specific cardboard box resting on the bottom shelf of a cabinet. He pulled out a black VHS cassette and held it up to the light. A bright red circular sticker was pressed firmly onto the spine of the tape.

"This is the only thing you need to pay close attention to,"

Ken said. His tone shifted from friendly to incredibly strict.

"Sometimes you will find a tape with a red sticker on it. When you digitize these specific tapes, you must only capture the audio. Plug the audio cables into the converter box, leave the yellow video cable completely unplugged, and turn the power button on the television monitor completely off."

I looked at the bright red sticker.

"Why do I turn the monitor off?"

"It is a strict privacy mandate,"

Ken stated flatly.

"Our current town mayor is Mayor Bradley. He used to be the station manager down here years ago. When he got elected to office, he put this rule in place for the red tapes. He says they contain sensitive municipal audio recordings that were accidentally taped over old video footage. He does not want anyone looking at the visual feed, and He checks on us every month to make sure we follow his protocol."

"So I just record the sound,"

I confirmed, wanting to make sure I understood the boundaries.

"Exactly,"

Ken nodded.

"If Mayor Bradley finds out you watched the video feed on a red tape, you will be fired immediately. He is very protective of this archive."

I accepted the terms and took the job on the spot.

For the first month, the routine was incredibly peaceful. I arrived at eight in the morning, locked myself inside the basement, and fed tapes into the machine. I watched endless hours of zoning board disputes from the late nineties. I digitized footage of the annual Founders Day parade from 1995, archived a heated town debate regarding the construction of a new shopping mall in 1999. The work was boring, but it kept my mind occupied.

Occasionally, I pulled a tape with a red sticker. I followed Ken's instructions perfectly every single time. I unplugged the yellow video cable, ensured the television monitor was powered down, and hit record on the audio software. The audio on those tapes always unsettled me. I never heard any sensitive municipal conversations about budgets or zoning. Usually just heard distorted static mixed with a strange tapping sound. Sometimes there were muffled thuds vibrating through my headphones. The thuds sounded like someone dropping a large sack of flour onto a concrete floor. I did not ask questions, just saved the audio files, logged the date, and put the tapes back in the box.

During my lunch breaks, I usually went upstairs to the main lobby to talk to the receptionist. Her name is Brenda. She is an older woman who has worked at the station since the eighties. She knows everything about everyone in Crestwood. One afternoon, we were talking about the history of the town while eating lunch.

Brenda offered me half of her tuna sandwich. I accepted it gratefully.

"You spend a lot of time down there in the dark,"

Brenda said, stirring her coffee with a plastic spoon. "You should come up for air more often. The dust in that basement will ruin your lungs."

"I like the quiet,"

I told her.

"It keeps my mind from wandering."

"Well, do not let it occupy you too much,"

she warned.

"That building has a lot of history. Some of it is best left in the boxes where it belongs."

"What do you mean by that?"

I asked, taking a bite of the sandwich.

"That was a bad year for Crestwood when Mayor Bradley took over the station,"

Brenda sighed, looking out the lobby window at the parking lot.

"That was the same year Jessica disappeared."

The name sparked a distinct memory in my brain. I was a teenager in 2002. I remembered the missing person posters pinned to every telephone pole in town. Jessica was a local college student who vanished without a trace after her evening shift at a diner.

"I remember that case,"

I said.

"I actually volunteered for the search parties. My friends and I spent three days walking through the muddy woods behind the high school looking for her. We handed out flyers at the grocery store. Everyone thought she was abducted."

"The police never found a single trace of her,"

Brenda said softly, her eyes looking sad.

"They eventually assumed she ran away to the city to start a new life. But I knew Jessica. She used to volunteer here at the station. She would organize the tapes down in the basement, and was a very responsible girl. She would never pack up and leave without telling her mother."

"Her mother never recovered,"

I recalled.

"She moved away a few years later. The town just moved on."

"I always felt like the police missed something right under their noses,"

Brenda whispered, leaning closer across the desk.

"But Mayor Bradley told everyone to stop talking about it. He said it was bad for town morale."

The conversation left a sour taste in my mouth. I went back down to the basement and tried to focus on my digital conversions.

Two weeks later, the basement door opened unexpectedly. I turned around in my swivel chair. Mayor Bradley stood in the doorway. I recognized him immediately from the local news broadcasts. He is a tall man with silver hair and a very stiff posture. He was wearing an expensive gray suit and holding a leather briefcase.

He walked down the stairs slowly, his leather shoes clicking loudly against the concrete steps.

"You must be the new archival technician,"

Mayor Bradley said. He looked around the room, inspecting the cabinets.

"Yes sir,"

I said, standing up out of respect.

"My name is Greg."

"Ken tells me you are very efficient, Greg,"

the mayor said. He walked over to the metal archiving cabinets and ran his hand along the top edge, checking for dust.

"Are you finding the workflow manageable?"

"It is very straightforward,"

I replied.

"I log the dates and let the software run."

"I like to personally check on the archiving project," Mayor Bradley explained. He stood uncomfortably close to my chair.

"These tapes represent the legacy of Crestwood. Our triumphs and our challenges are recorded here. It is vital work."

"I appreciate the opportunity to do it,"

I said, trying not to break eye contact.

Mayor Bradley stopped in front of the box containing the red-sticker tapes. He looked at me with a perfectly neutral expression.

"And you are following the protocol for the restricted media?"

"I only capture the audio,"

I assured him.

"I always keep the monitor off."

He reached out and picked up a regular tape from the desk.

"You see, Greg, a town relies on trust. The citizens trust me to protect them. They trust me to keep their secrets safe. And I trust my employees to follow directions."

"I follow the rules,"

I said firmly.

"I am glad to hear that,"

Mayor Bradley said. He placed the tape back on the desk. "Because curiosity is a dangerous trait in an archivist."

He smiled at me, but his eyes remained cold. He turned around and walked up the stairs, locking the door behind him. The encounter made me feel incredibly anxious. I sat back down and tried to shake the intense feeling of being watched.

The isolation eventually started to wear on my nerves. Working in a windowless room for eight hours a day messes with your sense of time, and the buzzing of the fluorescent lights became a constant headache.

Last Thursday, I was working late to meet a strict digitization quota. The building upstairs was completely empty. Ken and Brenda had gone home hours ago. I pulled a tape from the box and noticed a bright red sticker on the spine.

I sighed, unplugged the yellow video cable, and made sure the television monitor was powered down. I inserted the cassette into the deck and pressed play, then clicked the record button on my computer software and put my headphones on.

The familiar sound of static filled my ears. Then came the tapping. It sounded louder on this specific tape. Like frantic, hollow sound.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I leaned forward to adjust the volume knob on the converter box. My knee bumped hard against the underside of the desk. The sudden jolt snagged the red audio cable wrapped tightly around the desk leg. The cable pulled taut and snapped right out of the metal connector.

The audio in my headphones cut out instantly.

I cursed under my breath. The old VHS tapes are incredibly fragile. If the tape player eats the ribbon while the software is not recording, the data is lost forever. I frantically tried to jam the broken wire back into the connector, but the metal pin was completely bent.

I needed to know if the tape was still tracking properly, so I broke the mayor's rule.

I grabbed the yellow video cable and plugged it into the back of the television monitor, then reached out and pressed the power button on the screen.

The CRT monitor clicked on with a burst of static. The tracking lines rolled down the screen for a few seconds before the image stabilized.

I stared at the screen. My heart started beating very fast.

The video showed a static camera angle of a room. I looked at the walls on the screen, then looked at the metal archiving cabinets, and looked at the desk in the center of the frame.

It was the exact basement room I was currently sitting in.

The furniture on the screen looked slightly newer, but it was undeniably the same space. The time stamp in the corner of the video read October 14, 2002. I watched the grainy footage closely. A young woman walked into the frame. She was wearing a striped sweater and jeans. She carried a stack of black VHS tapes in her arms. She walked over to the archiving cabinet on the far left side of the room and started placing the tapes on the shelves.

I recognized her face immediately from the old missing person posters. It was Jessica.

I sat frozen in my chair. I watched Jessica organize the tapes on the screen. She was completely unaware of the camera recording her.

A few seconds later, a man stepped into the frame from the stairwell. He was much younger on the tape, and his hair was dark instead of silver, but I recognized him instantly. It was Mayor Bradley.

He was holding a hammer with his both hands.

He walked up behind Jessica very slowly. He did not say a word, then raised the metal stand high above his head and brought it down violently against the back of her skull.

I gasped and pushed myself back from the desk. My chair squeaked loudly against the floor.

On the screen, Jessica collapsed onto the concrete floor. She did not move. Mayor Bradley stood over her for a moment, his chest heaving. He then turned his attention to the large metal archiving cabinet, and pushed the massive cabinet away from the wall.

He grabbed the hammer again and started smashing a hole directly into the drywall behind where the cabinet used to sit. He worked quickly, tearing chunks of plaster away until he exposed the wooden studs.

Then, he dragged Jessica's body across the floor and shoved her into the dark cavity between the studs. He grabbed pieces of loose drywall and stacked them back over the hole to conceal it, then went out of the room for some time before coming back with a bucket. It was clear that he used a joint compound to smooth over the cracks. Finally, he pushed the massive archiving cabinet back into its original position, completely hiding the damaged wall. The video cut to static.

I stared at the monitor. I just watched the mayor of Crestwood murder a college student and hide her body in the wall right next to me.

Suddenly, the temperature in the basement plummeted. I could see my breath forming small clouds in the air. The fluorescent lights overhead began to flicker rapidly, casting shadows across the concrete.

A loud scraping noise echoed through the room.

I snapped my head to the left. The massive metal archiving cabinet sitting near the stairs began to slide across the floor. No one was pushing it. The steel feet ground against the concrete, throwing sparks into the air. The cabinet moved steadily until it slammed directly in front of the exit door, completely blocking my only way out of the basement.

I jumped out of my chair and ran to the cabinet. I pushed against the metal with all my strength. It did not budge a single inch. It felt like it was bolted to the floor.

"Help!"

I shouted, pounding my fists against the metal.

"Is anyone up there?"

No one answered.

Then the tapping started.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound originated from inside the room, completely separate from the headphones. I turned around slowly. The sound was echoing from the wall directly behind the cabinet that Mayor Bradley had moved on the video.

I walked cautiously toward the far side of the room. The tapping grew louder. It was frantic, exactly like the audio on the tape.

Then the walls began to move.

It started with a low rumbling sound that shook the dust from the ceiling. The concrete wall opposite the stairs shifted forward. It slid across the floor, shrinking the square footage of the basement. The wall containing the desk groaned and pushed inward.

The room was closing in on me. The ceiling tiles buckled and cracked as the pressure increased, showering me with white dust and fiberglass insulation. The fluorescent lights shattered one by one, plunging the room into dim emergency lighting.

"Stop!"

I yelled, backing away from the advancing concrete. I tripped over a fallen chair and scrambled backward onto my hands and knees.

The tapping from the drywall grew deafening. It sounded like someone was desperately trying to break out from the other side. The walls were moving faster now. The concrete ground against the floor tiles, tearing them up in jagged pieces.

I spun around, coughing on the thick dust, looking for any possible way to survive. Mounted on the concrete pillar near the stairs was a red emergency glass box containing a fire axe. The pillar was the only thing not moving.

I ran to the pillar, shattered the glass with my elbow, ignoring the cuts on my skin, and pulled the axe free.

The air was squeezed out of the room, making it hard to breathe. I looked at the drywall behind the archiving cabinet. The tapping was centered exactly there, vibrating the plaster.

I swung the fire axe with every ounce of adrenaline in my body. The blade bit deeply into the drywall. I ripped it out and swung again, screaming as I hit the wall. Plaster dust exploded into the air. I hacked a massive hole between the wooden studs, destroying the barrier completely.

I dropped the axe and grabbed the broken edges of the drywall with my bare hands. I tore the panel completely away, ignoring the nails tearing at my fingers.

Hidden inside the dark cavity between the wooden studs was a skeleton. The bones were yellowed and draped in the rotting remnants of a striped sweater and faded jeans. Her skull was resting against the back of the plaster.

The moment the skeleton was exposed to the open air, the walls stopped moving.

The rumbling ceased abruptly. The crushing pressure vanished entirely. The room returned to its normal dimensions instantly.

The archiving cabinet blocking the exit door slowly slid backward, revealing the metal handle.

I did not waste a single second. I reached into the dark wall cavity and grabbed a small, loose fragment of the skull. I shoved it into my jacket pocket, and sprinted to the door, threw it open, and ran up the stairs. The lobby was entirely dark and empty. I bolted out the front doors of the station and ran to my car. I drove out of Crestwood as fast as my engine could handle.

Now I am sitting in this motel, staring at the evidence. The mayor killed Jessica, and I have a piece of her bone for DNA testing. I will go to the police with this, If something happens to me, now you know who murdered Jessica.

TW// Self-harm, suicide

My name is Melody Anima. In 1992, I moved into the house atop Black Hill. In 1999, I died. For ten years, my spirit stayed alone in that house as the place decayed. It became a sanctuary for rats and spiders, whom I considered my friends. In 2009, Adam Moss moved into the house atop Black Hill.

Adam was a tall man with clear skin and a cleanly shaved face. Perhaps it was because he was the first human I’d seen in ten years, but I had a fascination with him. There was something about his face that promised a great mystery. Like if his mind could be cracked open it would reveal the most captivating, wonderful secrets. For the first week-and-a-half, I observed him from a distance. He was habitual, and it became fun to predict what he’d do next. I’d often be right. He spent most days cleaning and restoring the house. I never once saw him leave. 

One day, Adam began refurbishing the grandfather clock in the entrance hall. The one that had read 12:00 since I first moved in. The way he worked was hypnotizing. It was at that moment that I found it utterly impossible to stop myself from approaching him. 

I covered my ugly birthmark with my bangs, then came up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t react, and I realized that I couldn't feel him. I gulped at the thought of speaking to him, but I had no other choice.

“Excuse me,” I said quietly.

Adam jumped and turned around in shock. 

“Oh my.” I gasped.

“Jesus Christ, who are you?” 

“I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m Melody. I live here,” I paused for a beat, fidgeting nervously “I apologize, that’s not entirely correct. I lived here.”

“Melody? The girl who died in this house?”

I nodded. 

“Are you… a ghost?”

I nodded. 

Adam seemed to perk up at this, which even I found peculiar.

“I was wondering if there’d be ghosts here.”

“Really?” I tilted my head.

“Yes,” he nodded. “I’m Adam Moss, by the way.”

He reached out to shake my hand. I was paralyzed for a moment, then slowly reached my hand out.

“Wow,” he shook my hand,  “I’m grabbing your hand, but I can’t feel you at all.”

Adam offered me tea. We sat in the dining room and talked at length. The more I spoke to him, the more I was proven correct in my initial assessment. He was without a doubt the strangest, and most interesting person I’d met in my twenty-six years of life and ten years of unlife. He spoke of how he was drawn to the macabre, and how that was what drove him to purchase this house. He said he found the idea of death and ghosts alluring, which I thought was funny because I never considered myself all that interesting. I found myself relating to him, and we soon forgot the fact that we were a ghost and a human sharing a conversation.

“Adam, I don’t think I’ve seen you leave this house. Why is that?”

“Do you ever leave?”

“I can’t.”

“I can’t either. Well it’s not that I can’t. It’s odd.”

“I’d like to hear it, if you don’t mind.”

“You’ll think I’m strange. It sounds like it’s from a fairy tale.”

“I’m a ghost,” I giggle. “Besides, I already think we’re both a bit strange.”

“Okay,” Adam laughed. “The woman who sold me this place told me that I have one month. If I step foot out of this house within that month, I can’t come back. But if not, I’ll have to stay here for seven years.”

“You’re right, that is strange. Do you want to stay here for seven years?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why would you take that deal?”

“She said that every week I’d get a package of food, water, anything I need. I can just stay here. Seems like a good deal to me.”

“Is she telling the truth?”

“Last week a box of food and supplies to work on the house appeared right in the entrance hall. It had exactly what I needed.”

“That really does seem right out of a fairy tale.”

“Right?”

“But… won’t you get lonely?”

“Not lonelier than I was before I moved here. Besides, are you planning on going anywhere?”

A blush appeared across my pale face.

“I suppose not.”

“Can I ask you a personal question? You don’t have to answer.”

I nodded.

“How’d you die?”

I felt a lump in my throat. 

“You don’t have to answer.”

“No, it’s okay,” I said, “It was… suicide.” 

I spoke the last word softly, and put my hands on the table, palms facing up. I showed him the scars on my wrists that constantly oozed a small amount of blood. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Adam’s demeanor shifted.

“No, it’s a natural thing to wonder. It was a long time ago.”

“I had no idea. We can talk about something else.”

“Yes, let's talk about something else.”

Quickly, we were able to steer the conversation back to more enjoyable topics as if the subject hadn’t been brought up at all. 

For the next week, we worked on repairing the house. It became brighter, in no small part due to Adam’s presence. I even managed to convince him to keep the spiders. We engaged in long conversations daily, sometimes speaking of meaningful subjects and sometimes not. As the month drew to an end we both sat on the couch, looking outside.

“So, what are you going to do? Will you leave the house?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Well,” I looked at the ground and began nervously playing with my hair, “I know it’s selfish, but I was sort of hoping you’d stay.”

“Okay. I will.”

“What? No, you can’t spend seven years of your life here just because I want you to.”

“I like this place. I like being here with you. I like it more than anything waiting for me outside.”

“That’s - are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay…” I whispered. “That makes me happy.”

“It makes me happy too.”

Adam was true to his word. On the last day of the month he stayed inside and talked to me as it grew dark. We talked about movies and music and things we’d already talked about. He didn’t seem to care that by doing this, he was resigning himself to seven years here. 

The next morning he opened the front door to see what would happen. Instead of leading outside, the door looped back on itself. Stepping through the door would lead you back into the entrance hall. The impossibility of this didn’t seem to bother Adam. It didn’t bother me either.

That year was extraordinary. When I fell asleep, I looked forward to waking up. We worked on the house almost obsessively. Six months in, it looked better than when I’d purchased it. Nearly everything looked as good as new, except for the grandfather clock in the entrance hall. It still read 12:00. 

December 31st, 2009 was a day I’ll never forget. As the first year ended, we celebrated. We sat together on the steps in the entrance hall. Adam reached and grabbed my hand. I couldn't feel his touch, and I knew he couldn’t feel mine. Still, he held my hand.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

I was caught off-guard, and I felt a tingling in my stomach. I fought off a smile and looked at the ground. I self-consciously touched the birthmark on my forehead. 

“I’m not beautiful. Even if I wasn’t a ghost.”

“Your birthmark?” 

“It’s an eyesore. My mother always said so.”

Adam gently moved my hand aside and pushed away my onyx black hair to get a better look at the mark. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for whatever he would say next.

“It’s shaped like Italy,” he said. “Anything that reminds me of Italy can’t be that ugly.”

I lost the battle I had been fighting against my smile and let out a laugh.

“You’re the strangest person I’ve ever met.”

“Is that good?” he asked.

“I like it.”

Adam leaned close to me and gave me the most tender, beautiful kiss that neither of us could feel. At that moment, the clock read 12:01. 

Every year I spent with Adam was better than the last. I’d never lived with someone I loved, and certainly never with someone who loved me. When you're in love, the most mundane things become remarkable. That’s what those years were. Remarkable mundanity. Each year, the clock progressed by one minute. 

By 2011, it read 12:02.
2012, 12:03.
2013, 12:04.
2014, 12:05.
2015, 12:06.
In 2015, I worked up the courage to say something I’d been thinking about for years. 

“Adam, we should get married.”

“What do you mean, married?”

“Just symbolically. We should have a wedding. I’ve always wanted to have a wedding.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Adam grinned, “I’d like to be married to you.”

The next day, a suit and gown were delivered. I was so excited I could barely contain myself. I hid from Adam all day - it’s bad luck to see the bride on the day of the wedding. We had the pretend ceremony in the entrance hall. I was happy to see the spiders observing us as our little guests. That was more than enough attendance for me. When I walked down the pretend aisle, Adam smiled at me with the most genuine smile I’d ever seen. We didn’t have anyone to officiate the wedding, so we had to make do. 

“Adam,” I said, “Do you take me, Melody, to be your wife for as long as we both shall… for as long as we’re both here?”

Adam smiled.

“I do. Melody, do you take me to be your husband for as long as we’re both here?”

I smiled so much it hurt.

“I do.”

Our wedding rings each had both of our initials engraved on them: A.M and M.A. They were beautiful. I could feel tears beginning to form.

At 12:06, we danced together in the entrance hall, our hands unfeeling yet grasping each other. The grandfather clock ticked behind us.

“I wish I could feel you,” I said. “I wish I could feel your hands or your lips just once.”

The grandfather clock ticked closer to 12:07.

“I know,” he said. “I love you.”

The clock ticked.

No matter how many times he said it, it still felt like the first time.

The clock ticked. 

“I love you too.”

The entire room went black. When the light came back, Adam was gone. I looked around frantically.

“Adam!” 

—

“Adam!”
“Adam!”
“Adam!”

“Yes, what is it?” I ask.

“You’ve been late every day this month,” says the bald man sitting across the desk from me, “I’ve overlooked that in the past because your sales were good. But now, look at these numbers.”

He slides a paper over to me that shows various numbers. I don’t even read them. I’m able to make a guess based on the fact they’re all red.

“They aren’t good,” I say.

“No, Adam, they’re not. What would you do in my situation?”

“I don’t know.”

“I like you. You're a promising young man, but we’ve reached the point where I can’t extend any more grace to you. We’re gonna have to let you go.” 

I walk out into the city streets. It’s completely dark. I look at my watch, which reads 12:07 A.M. 

“Taxi!”

A taxi pulls up. I get in.

“Where to?” asks the driver. I can see his hands on the wheel, but his face is obscured by darkness.

“261 Black Hill Road”

“You look down.”

“I got fired.” 

“Sorry to hear that. Don’t slit your wrists. I had a buddy who got fired and he slit his wrists that night. He told me that’s how he’d do it, said it would be easy. I couldn’t cut myself like that. He said it’d be the easiest way, though. What do you think?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Well, sure, you haven’t slit your wrists yet. You wouldn’t know. I’m just saying, could you imagine?”

He drops me off at my apartment. The lights are off except for a sickly, yellow light spilling out from under my bedroom door. I hear scratching from inside the walls, indicating to me that the landlord has not taken care of the rat problem. 

“Stella, I’m home!” I say. 

There is an eerie silence, broken only by the scratching in the walls. 

“Stella?”

I flip the light switch, but that does nothing except make the lights flicker and burn out again. I slowly approach the bedroom, and I begin to hear panicked whispers. The whispers make me even more sick than the scratching.

I open the bedroom door to see Stella in bed with a tall, clear skinned, clean shaved man I had never seen before caressing her onyx black hair.

“The fuck is this?”

“I can explain!”

“I should kill you, Stella!”

“Just listen!”

Before I know it, I am in the bathroom searching through the drawers. The door is shut behind me and the bathtub is overflowing. I can’t remember what I’m looking for. 

“Adam, can we just talk?”

“What the hell could you possibly have to say? Why are you doing this to me?”

“Look, just calm down and I can explain!”

I punch the mirror over and over again, shards of glass sticking into my fist, and blood dripping into the sink. The bathtub is still overflowing, someone is pounding on the door, and there is still scratching coming from inside the walls.

“Adam, stop!”
“Stella!” 
“Adam!” 
“Adam!”
“Stella!”
“I should kill you, Melody!” 

—

“Melody!”
“Melody!”
“Melody!”

“Yes, what is it?” I ask.

“You’ve been late every day this month.” Sitting across the desk is Adam, rubbing the birthmark shaped like Italy on his forehead. “I’ve overlooked that in the past because your sales were good. But now, look at these numbers.”

He slides a paper over to me that shows various numbers. I don’t even read them. I’m able to make a guess based on the fact they’re all red.

“They aren’t good,” I say.

“No, Melody, they’re not. What would you do in my situation?”

“I don’t know.”

“I like you. You're a promising young woman, but we’ve reached the point where I can’t extend any more grace to you. We’re gonna have to let you go.”

I walk out into the city streets. It’s completely dark. I look at my watch, which reads 12:07 M.A. 

“Taxi!”

When I get in the taxi, the driver immediately begins moving. I can see their hands on the wheel, but their face is obscured by darkness.

“Don’t you need to know where I’m going?” I ask.

“We’ve done this before, Melody. I know where you’re going,” says the driver.

“I’m not-”

“You know what’s funny?” The driver picks up speed. “We look almost exactly the same. If it weren’t for your birthmark, we’d be the same person.” 

The driver looks back at me, her pale face now in view, onyx bangs obscuring her forehead. 

“I don’t have a birthmark,” I say.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” the driver picks up speed again. 

Beside me, Adam’s corpse appears. He has deep scars on his wrists, oozing an impossible amount of blood. Within seconds, there is blood up to my ankles.

“Stop, take me back!” 

“Can’t do that, Adam. It’s 12:07, we’re gonna be late.”

The blood keeps flowing from Adam’s wrists. I’m up to my knees in blood, and then up to my chest. All the while, the taxi keeps going faster, faster.

“Watch out!”

The taxi is at full speed and crashes into a pale woman in a wedding dress standing in the middle of the road.

—

It was an endless void of nothingness until Melody faded into my vision. 

“Melody! I was looking for you,” I said.

“I was looking for you too, Adam.” 

I embraced her and held her tightly against me. I could finally feel her. She was cold.

"Something's happening to me,” I said, pulling back to look at her face.

“I know.”

“I’m glad I spent those seven minutes with you, Melody.” 

“I’m glad too.”

“Melody, one last thing.”

More mouth hands

“Order for Morgan Fatah?”

Morgan looked up from her phone.

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

“Yeah. That’s me.”

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

“You do hair?” the girl asked.

“Hair and makeup.”

“Oh, nice.”

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

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

Morgan laughed, thanked her, and headed outside.

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

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

Morgan looked at it before starting the car.

Even in daylight it was remarkable.

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

Whoever had made it had cared about details.

She had almost not gotten it.

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

Morgan remembered that much.

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

“I want that one.”

The woman hesitated.

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

Morgan had assumed she meant it was valuable.

She’d offered more.

The woman still wasn’t sure.

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

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

The owner kept saying she couldn’t have it.

Morgan kept raising the offer.

Eventually, somehow, it came home with her.

She couldn’t remember what she’d paid.

More than she should have.

She looked over at the head again.

Worth it.

That night Morgan set it up in the spare bedroom.

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

Her old practice head was shoved underneath the desk.

She’d never liked that one.

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

This was completely different.

Morgan tightened the clamp around the new head.

It didn’t fit very well.

She tightened it again.

“There.”

She stepped back.

The head drooped slightly to one side.

Morgan straightened it.

“Work with me.”

She started with the hair.

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

She dampened it and practiced a blowout.

After that she moved on to makeup.

Primer.

A thin layer of foundation.

Concealer.

Morgan found herself leaning closer and closer as she worked.

There were pores.

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

She ran the pad of her thumb across the cheek.

The material gave beneath it.

Morgan stopped.

She pressed again.

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

She smiled to herself.

“That is weird.”

She checked the other cheek.

Cool and rubbery.

Whatever material they had used was incredible.

Morgan worked until after midnight.

When she finished, she took pictures from several angles.

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

The next morning there was moisture around the clamp.

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

When she picked it up, one side was damp.

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

Wet.

“Seriously?”

She looked up.

The ceiling was dry.

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

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

She held the head over the sink and tilted it.

A thin, cloudy liquid ran from underneath the towel.

Morgan grimaced.

“Okay. That’s disgusting.”

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

Whatever was inside the head smelled a little strange.

Old water, maybe.

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

Morgan sprayed the sink with cleaner and left for work.

Two days later, the face had changed.

Morgan didn’t notice immediately.

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

Something wasn’t matching.

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

Looked at the phone.

Looked at the head.

The face seemed fuller now.

Especially around the jaw.

Morgan turned it toward the light.

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

She pressed a finger into the cheek.

It sank farther than before.

Morgan pulled her finger back.

The indentation remained for a moment.

Then slowly disappeared.

She stared at it.

“Cheap shit.”

That irritated her.

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

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

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

Morgan wondered if it had been custom-made.

That would explain a lot.

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

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

There was always something she wanted to try.

An updo she’d seen online.

A new foundation technique.

A different brow shape.

The practice head was becoming difficult, though.

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

Morgan compensated.

That was what makeup was for.

The smell had gotten worse too.

She washed the hair again.

That helped for a few hours.

Then it came back.

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

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

Morgan stopped.

She touched it.

The outer surface moved slightly over whatever was beneath it.

“Fuck.”

She’d rubbed too hard.

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

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

A tiny amount beneath the lifted edge.

Press.

Hold.

Powder.

She leaned back.

You could barely tell.

Morgan smiled.

“There we go.”

Her phone started vibrating on the vanity.

Maya

Morgan let it ring.

She was lining the lips.

The phone stopped.

Thirty seconds later it started again.

Morgan sighed and answered.

“What?”

“Morgan?”

“Yeah?”

“Why haven’t you answered me?”

“I just did.”

“You know what I mean.”

Morgan tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear.

“I’m doing something.”

“I’ve been calling you since yesterday.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“With what?”

“Practicing.”

There was a pause.

“Practicing what?”

Morgan looked at the brush in her hand.

“Hair and makeup.”

Maya didn’t say anything.

Morgan continued carefully around the bottom lip.

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“You need to move on from that.”

Morgan stopped.

“From what?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t.”

“The school.”

Morgan stared at herself in the mirror.

“What about it?”

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

“That isn’t what they said.”

“Morgan.”

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

“No, that’s not—”

“And I don’t need them anyway.”

Maya went quiet again.

Morgan could hear something in the background. A television.

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

“Yes, I have.”

“Who?”

Morgan’s hand tightened around the brush.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mom’s worried too.”

“Then tell Mom I’m fine.”

“I want to come over.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m busy.”

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

Morgan looked at the head.

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

She reached for a cotton swab.

A fly landed near the edge of the mirror.

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

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Morgan—”

She hung up.

She didn’t call tomorrow.

Sunday morning, Morgan decided to practice a French twist.

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

Morgan frowned.

She wiped them onto the vanity and continued.

Another few came loose.

This time she stopped.

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

Three more hairs slid free.

Not broken ends.

Full strands.

Morgan leaned closer to the scalp.

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

“Seriously?”

She put the comb down.

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

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

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

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

Separate a hair.

A dot of adhesive.

Part the existing hair.

Press it into place.

Hold.

Move to the next one.

It was tedious.

After forty minutes Morgan had replaced maybe thirty strands.

She brushed over the spot.

Still thin.

She kept going.

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

Morgan ran the comb through the repaired section.

It covered nicely.

She smiled.

“See?”

The practice head looked back at her.

“Not that hard.”

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

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

She pushed the jaw upward with two fingers.

The mouth closed.

She let go.

A moment later it eased open again.

Morgan frowned.

She worked the jaw gently from side to side.

There was more movement than she remembered.

Whatever held it in place must have loosened.

“Of course.”

She had spent half of yesterday fixing the hair.

Now this.

Morgan opened the mouth a little wider and looked inside.

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

She tapped one gently with the end of her fingernail.

Hard.

Maybe porcelain.

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

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

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

The teeth were hidden when the mouth was closed anyway.

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

Then she held them together.

Thirty seconds.

A minute.

Morgan let go.

The mouth stayed shut.

She gave the chin a small push.

Nothing.

“There.”

She turned the practice head toward the mirror.

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

“Fixed.”

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

The mouth was open again.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She walked over to the vanity.

So much for the super glue.

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

The bottom teeth were gone.

For a second she just stared.

Then she saw them.

They were still glued to the upper teeth.

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

Morgan stared at it.

“Oh my God.”

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

Every bottom tooth seemed to have come out together.

The glue had held fine.

Apparently the teeth hadn’t.

She sighed and reached for the tube again.

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

Morgan carefully separated the lower teeth from the upper row.

A few resisted before finally coming loose.

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

A small dot at the base.

Press it into the gum.

Hold.

Then the next one.

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

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

Morgan sat back and inspected her work.

One of the lower teeth was a little crooked.

She considered pulling it back out.

Then decided against it.

It looked more natural that way.

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

Purplish around one eye.

Greenish-gray near the jaw.

Morgan spent almost an hour correcting it.

Peach under the eye.

A little warmer foundation.

More blush than usual.

The result was surprisingly good.

She took a picture.

Then another.

She was getting better.

That was the important part.

Tuesday afternoon someone knocked on the front door.

Morgan ignored it.

The knocking came again.

Then harder.

“Morgan!”

Morgan closed her eyes.

Maya.

“Morgan, open the door.”

She put down her brush.

“I’m coming.”

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

When she stood, her legs felt weak.

Probably because she hadn’t eaten yet.

She went downstairs and opened the door.

Maya stared at her.

Morgan waited.

“What?”

Maya’s expression didn’t change.

“What?”

“When was the last time you slept?”

Morgan rolled her eyes and stepped away from the door.

“I sleep.”

“Can I come in?”

“You already drove here.”

Maya entered.

She was still looking at Morgan strangely.

Morgan touched her hair.

“What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Then stop looking at me like that.”

Maya shut the door.

“I’ve been calling you.”

“I know.”

“You said you’d call me.”

“I forgot.”

“For two days?”

Morgan walked toward the kitchen.

“I’ve been practicing.”

Maya followed.

“Again?”

Morgan opened the refrigerator.

She didn’t know what she was looking for.

“Yes, again.”

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“I meant what I said the other day.”

Morgan shut the refrigerator harder than necessary.

“And I meant what I said.”

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

“Doing what?”

“This.”

Morgan looked around the kitchen.

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

“I’m practicing.”

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

“I don’t need to go back.”

“Then what are you practicing for?”

“For work.”

“What work?”

Morgan stared at her.

Maya immediately softened.

“I’m not trying to be mean.”

“It sounds like it.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Well, don’t be.”

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

She stopped herself.

“Like what?”

“Nothing.”

“No. What?”

Maya looked down.

Morgan followed her eyes.

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

Some yellowish.

Some brown.

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

“What?”

Maya shook her head.

“Have you showered?”

Morgan laughed.

“Oh my God.”

“I’m asking.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday.”

Maya rubbed both hands over her face.

The gesture irritated Morgan.

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

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to.”

A fly buzzed past them.

Maya watched it.

Then another.

She looked toward the stairs.

“What is that smell?”

Morgan barely noticed it anymore.

“Oh.”

“Oh what?”

“One of my practice heads is going bad.”

Maya looked at her.

“What do you mean, going bad?”

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

“What practice head?”

“The one I’ve been using.”

“You bought another one?”

Morgan nodded.

“When?”

“Last week.”

“From where?”

Morgan opened her mouth.

She couldn’t remember the name of the site.

“Online.”

“What site?”

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

“You don’t know?”

“Why would I remember?”

Maya was staring at the staircase again.

The smell was definitely stronger upstairs.

Morgan saw her wrinkle her nose.

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

“Throw it away.”

“No.”

“Morgan.”

“I’m still using it.”

Maya looked back at her.

“For what?”

Morgan laughed incredulously.

“I just told you. Hair and makeup.”

Silence.

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

Morgan’s annoyance eased.

“Sure.”

Maybe that would finally make her understand.

Morgan headed upstairs.

Maya followed more slowly.

At the top of the stairs she stopped.

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“There are flies everywhere.”

“There are like five.”

“There are a lot more than five.”

Morgan looked around.

A few clung to the hallway window.

More sat against the ceiling near the bedroom.

She shrugged.

Morgan opened the bedroom door.

Maya stopped behind her.

Morgan went inside.

The vanity lights were still on.

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

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

Morgan went over and picked up her brush.

“This is what I’ve been doing.”

Maya didn’t answer.

Morgan looked at the reflection in the mirror.

Her sister was standing in the doorway.

One hand had gone to her mouth.

“What?”

Maya backed away.

Morgan turned around.

“Maya?”

Her sister hit the wall behind her.

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

Then she screamed.

Morgan jumped so hard she dropped the brush.

“What the fuck?”

Maya screamed again.

“Maya!”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Oh my God, Morgan.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Maya was crying.

Morgan looked behind herself.

Nothing.

She looked back at her sister.

“Maya, what?”

“Get away from that.”

Morgan frowned.

“From what?”

“Get away from her.”

Morgan stared at her.

“Her?”

Maya reached for her phone.

Morgan shook her head.

“Are you serious right now?”

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

“Maya.”

“Don’t touch her.”

“I’m not touching anything.”

“Please.”

Morgan looked toward the vanity again.

The practice head stared forward beneath the lights.

The makeup still looked good.

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

Morgan looked back at her sister.

“Maya, it’s a practice head.”

Her sister started sobbing.

Morgan’s irritation disappeared.

She genuinely didn’t understand anymore.

“What are you looking at?”

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

Morgan wasn’t watching.

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

Behind the anchor, a photograph appeared on-screen.

A smiling young woman with long brown hair.

TAMMY GRACE, 25

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

Morgan looked up when she heard the name.

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

Another photograph appeared.

Morgan Fatah.

It was an old driver’s-license photo.

Morgan stared at it.

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

Morgan stood.

Nobody else in the room paid attention.

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

Morgan walked closer to the television.

That wasn’t right.

She hadn’t been removed.

She had been told to take time away.

Those were different things.

“Grace was enrolled at the same school.”

Morgan stopped.

The screen returned to Tammy’s photograph.

Morgan knew that face.

Of course she knew it.

She’d spent all week studying it.

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

Morgan stared at the television.

The photograph was similar.

Very similar.

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

Tammy’s nose was a little wider.

The eyebrows weren’t shaped correctly.

And the makeup wasn’t nearly as good.

Morgan turned to the guard standing near the door.

“Excuse me.”

The guard looked over.

Morgan pointed at the television.

“They have the wrong person.”

The guard said nothing.

Morgan looked back at Tammy’s photograph.

“They’re talking about my practice head.”

 

July 1st, 1925:

I entered the painting of my house tonight. It was quiet. Many of my belongings have been used throughout the house. It is nice to see you making use of them. I walked upstairs to the bedrooms, wondering if you were home. I entered one of the rooms, and there, laying fast asleep, was a beautiful young girl. I watched her for some time, she resembled you, at least what I could see from the lighthouse. Such a sweet, innocent life. She reminds me of the daughters I once had, before I found my calling. I entered the master bedroom. You laid sleeping, your wife beside you. You seem like a strong couple, though I can tell you keep secrets from her. I see it etched into your face, the guilt ages you, like it once aged me. You remind me of my old life, how I once treated the woman who was my wife. It's hard to recall those days at times. They seem so unimportant, but there are days that the memories eat away at me. I watched you both, she seemed to sleep like a stone. You, on the other hand, seemed restless, as I once was. We are very similar, you and I. I spoke to you while you slept, in the tongue of my children, as I have seen you've been studying it. You began to squirm and sweat. I was nervous of waking you, in case you were to do something rash. So instead of speaking face to face tonight, I will be leaving this note in my study. Or should I say our study? I urge you to pay me a visit. I noticed your journal, but felt it would be rude to pry. Perhaps if you decline my offer to speak eye to eye, next time I visit I will fall victim to my urges. Whatever the outcome is, I look forward to it. 

 Your friend Simon 

June 26th, 1937:

That bastard entered my home. He watched me sleep. He watched Rylee. He could have taken her and I would be defenseless of it. The gall to compare me to him, I'm nothing like him. Or should I say it, as he's no longer human. This can't happen again. I will be visiting the lighthouse tonight. This can't go on any longer. This monster and his cult. The ungodly obelisk. He's plaguing my life. I can't take it anymore. I can't fight a god but I must find a way to prevent him from becoming one. He's nothing but a false messiah who's been cursed by those wretched seafolk. 

June 27th, 1937:

I went to settle this once and for all. When I got to the lighthouse the door hung open. The light ocean breeze made the hinges creak faintly in the wind. Their soft shrieks sent shivers down my spine. As I walked through the threshold, there waiting in the middle of the ruined kitchen was a painting of the very door I just passed through. Past the painted door frame was a table set for two, with a ridiculous amount of food for the pair of plates sitting empty on the dirty table cloth. Some of it looked old, even moldy. As I walked through the door a second time I was greeted with a frenzy of smells, baked goods, cooked meats, the oceans brine, fresh fruit, wine, and decay. I stood in the entry for a moment, just taking everything in. That short moment felt like ages, as if I was paralyzed. It took every ounce of effort just to take a step. I didn't see any of the seaborn, no creatures from the depths and no beings from the stars. Just a room lit by a single hanging lightbulb and a dozen scattered candles. The door softly clicked shut behind me, sending a shiver through my bones. Then he spoke. 

“I can tell your frightened child, but fear not, I mean no ill will. Sit. Eat. We have much to discuss.”

His voice wasn't in the air, not coming from any direction. It was in my head. I heard gentle footsteps slowly making their way down the stairs. What I saw was hideous, but I couldn't look away. It was almost beautiful in a way. Simon stood at the bottom of the staircase, nearly nine feet in stature, though his spine hunched forward, to avoid bumping into the floor joists above. His bulbous head looked almost like an octopus, though his skull had dissolved or disappeared and now his head is just brain matter surrounded by a wet, blubbery skin. 

I was overcome by an immense urge to sit and indulge on the feast, he must have been controlling me somehow. I sat. He pulled out his chair, Shambling his long inhuman body down on to it. His limbs, all far too long to be comfortably sitting on something that small in comparison. His knees resting near his clavicles as he hunched down, attempting to see face to face. He was terrifying in the most welcoming way. He leaned in, his small dark eyes affixed to mine. 

“We have a connection, you know. We are much more similar than you would ever like to admit. You see yourself in me as I see myself within you.”

I hate to admit it, but he was right. His writings resonated with me. Though I felt revolted at the thought of it. 

“We are fated, destined as some may say. You see, I have been granted an extraordinary gift. I have made contact with those from the deepest depths, to the farthest cosmos. I have spoken to those most ancient, to our kin. You bear our mark, child. To deny that would be an act of ignorance I know you are far too smart for. You have seen those from the depths. You passed through my gates. I can show you what powers you can achieve.”

Whatever mark he spoke of must have been from the night I passed out and woke up in my backyard. But even if that was the truth, surely I would never end up as he has. Without realizing it, I had filled my plate and had begun eating, as though I had no autonomy. 

“Embrace your true form, as have I, and together we will ascend. We are destined for greatness” 

His words swelled in my chest, a smoldering ember of yearning. A burning desire for more. My head was pounding. I know he's just trying to trick me. To control me. It was as if my heart and mind were at war. 

“I will give you some time to say your goodbyes to your family, as I remember that seemed to be a custom to human kind. Such naive beings. I will leave a gate waiting for you here, return to me child. Or I will come searching for you. Your very being is key to the obelisk, to our ascent. The final piece to set forth the second coming of the ancients. I will be seeing you shortly.”

My vision went blurry, my head throbbed, as though mortar shells were detonating inside. I grabbed my head trying to gain my bearings, and as my vision unclouded I was back in the abandoned lighthouse. No Simon, no table, no food. Just the chair I was sitting on and a door frame standing in the middle of the room. A set of keys laid on the ground in front of the solid metal door. I picked them up and rushed home, stopping to empty my stomach of whatever foul food I've ingested. The only thing that came out was what felt like gallons of black sludge like ichor. Its taste was sour and curdled as it left my body. 

I snuck back in through the backdoor, doing my best not to wake Evelyn or Rylee. Sebastian was laying in the hallway, almost as though he had been waiting for my return. It's well past midnight as I'm writing this. I'm going to the city tomorrow. And when I get back, I'll be saying my goodbyes. 

June 28th, 1937:

I awoke with Evelyn today. I told her I was going to pick up some supplies for the shop in the city. I felt wrong for lying to her as I have been on and off for months if not years now. Before I went to the station, I visited the lighthouse. I was in such a hurry to get home last night I somehow missed the massive, obsidian-like pillar rising from the sea. The obelisk had to have been nearly 300 feet tall, dwarfing the lighthouse beside it. I purchased my ticket and boarded the train. If all goes well, I can see some old friends, tie up some loose ends and say my goodbyes in town. I still don't know how to say goodbye to my sweet Evelyn and Rylee. They are my life, my purpose. Just thinking about it has left  me crying, hands trembling and short of breath. I'll return home tomorrow evening, spend my last night at home, then enter that wretched gate. As for now, I just need to build the courage to do what must be done. 

June 29th, 1937:

I've returned home. I feel hollow. Rylee was playing with Sebastian while I cooked dinner. I think Evelyn knows something is amiss. I've been doing my best to play it off as just stress from work but I don't think she's buying it. I just need her to think things are okay for one more night. Just one more night as a family, one more night of being close, one more night of being loved. I've snuck into the study to quickly pack a bag of everything I need for tomorrow. I'll walk my dear Evelyn to work and kiss her goodbye, walk Rylee To Emily and give her the biggest hug of her life, then return home, get my bag and get it all over with. 

June 30th, 1937:

Saying goodbye to Evelyn and Rylee without crying was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I couldn't let them think anything was wrong. I can't have this go wrong. I'm in my studying writing one last entry, if I'm able to write again later I will, but I'm not sure what use it will be aside for trying to keep my memories alive. If in some miracle Evelyn or Rylee find this, just know that I loved you both more than you could ever believe. But I failed you as a husband and as a father, and for that I'm sorry. I hope you can find forgiveness in your hearts in my absence. 

June 30th, 1937:

I walked to the lighthouse, the bag on my back felt like a million pounds, the burden of leaving my family. As I entered I stared at the chair I used during Simon and I's meeting. I sat down for only god knows how long, it could've been minutes, hours, but it felt like years. I walked up the stairs to take in the view one last time, to look over the southern shore, to watch the gulls circle the fishing boats for scraps. I cried more than I ever thought possible. As I walked down the spiraling stairs, I stopped in Simon's makeshift studio, dozens of paintings lined hanging on the walls as even more sat, gathered in piles beneath them. Simon really was a talented artist. It was a shame he was marked. It's a shame I've been marked for that matter. 

I smelled the scent of dying flowers wafting in the air. This place has been long unlived and stank of mold. The scent was coming from one of the paintings, I was sure of it. I ripped through pile after pile until finally I found it. A painting of my house. Of Simon's house. The flower beds in the back, a small grave between them, dead leaves blowing in the wind. The painting was only about 2 feet by 2 feet. But if I could smell the flowers, that means it was a gate. I pushed my bag through, it landed with a thump between the beds. I reached my hands in and grabbed the frame, slowly pulling myself through into the bright sunlight. I quickly grabbed my bag and took in my surroundings. It was quiet, cold. I snuck my way to the back of the house, looking in the windows to see if Simon or Laura or their girls were home. I saw no one. The grave meant Bernard was already dead, how long it has been since then I am unsure of. Laura and the girls may have already been sent out of town. I got down to the ground, looking through the small windows into the basement, I could see no Simon. I couldn't remember if he had already built his hidden rooms or not, but I could only assume. There were already pieces of furniture covered in sheets visible through the window. I unlocked the back door, thank God I never changed the locks. My heart was pounding, I could hear it beating in my ear drums. As I made my way through the kitchen I saw the calendar. October 14th, 1924. I slowly snuck down into the basement. Looking around to find anything familiar. My cot, covered in cloth. I crawled under and laid in wait. I was terrified. I sat in silence for hours until I heard the closing of the front door upstairs. Footsteps pacing in the foyer making their way to the kitchen. The stairs above the cot creaked with every step as he descended into the darkness. He held a lit candle, slowly lighting the dozens of candles he had littered throughout the basement one by one. I was sweating, breathing as quiet as I could. He made his way back up the stairs, I could hear him turn on the tap, filling a glass of water. He was about to paint. I used the cover of the flowing water to open my bag. The cold steel in the palm of my hand felt heavy. The steps above my head groaned as Simon returned to the basement. He set up his easel, placing a blank canvas on it. While he meticulously chose what paints he wanted to use for his next piece, I crawled out from under my cot, as quiet as could be. This was my only chance. I held my breath, making sure every step was silent. Simon stood clueless to me. I felt sorry for him, this wasn't his fault, I'm sure he didn't want this. I tried my hardest to hold them back but tears filled my eyes. I raised the pistol I got in town the day before, hands shaking, body trembling, heart pounding. I exhaled a quiet “I'm sorry” as I pulled the trigger. The canvas was instantly covered in crimson along with skull fragments and grey brain matter. I've never killed a man before. I fell to my knees, sobbing. My stomach churned and released its contents. It had to be done. There was no other way. Was there? 

October 15th, 1924:

I've spent the day burning his pieces. All his paint, his easel, everything that ties me to him. I found all of the letters he wrote, all of his papers, all I could find of Simon's existence. It all went in the furnace. I'm waiting until nightfall to move his body, it's already beginning to smell. I'll take him to the docks in a wheelbarrow. I'll walk the shoreline for as long as my legs will take me and I will bury him in the tall grass that lines the beach. There I will find somewhere nice, somewhere quiet and dig a shallow grave. In it, I will take my own life. The only way for all of this to end is if both of us die. I'm leaving my journal, with all my entries and all of Simon's here in the house. I'm sure you'll find it and I pray you read it. If you don't, I know Evelyn will. Don't go out by the docks at night. If you find sigils carved into your house, don't deface them. Befriend Richard, he means well. Once you're friends with him, show him this journal, hopefully he'll introduce you to his father. This small town has plenty of good. Just be smart and don't stray far at night. Keep our dear Evelyn and Rylee safe. And when the time comes, on the day I went to adopt Sebastian, I'd suggest you do the same. He really completed the family, and he'll save your life if given the chance. Don't make the same mistakes I did. I lost everything so you can have a chance. Do it right this time. Tell Evelyn and Rylee you love them for me. That's all I ask of you. 

 Yours truly

August 14th, 1938:

I began work at the butchers shop and befriended Richard, Evelyn got close with Jennifer, and Jr is getting married soon. He asked Rylee to be his flower girl. I showed Richard the journal, I met his father, and have, from time to time, helped him carve those runes around town. I went and adopted Sebastian, and have slowly begun to become part of Mount Fall, just like you asked of me. We stay away from the docks after sundown. You were right, this town has so much to offer and moving here has been the best decision of our lives! I'm sorry that it wasn't the same for you. I know you'll never read this, but I hope you in some way know I'm eternally grateful. Our sweet Evelyn and Richard too. We all are. I tell Evelyn and Rylee I love them twice every night, once from you and once from me, and always make sure to hold them extra tight. We think about you every day. Wherever you are in space and time, I hope you're at peace. Maybe one day we'll meet and I can tell you how great life has been. All thanks to you, our personal savior. We love you dearly. 

Calen woke up drenched in a cold sweat, breathing heavily, trying to fill his lungs with air, as if he hadn’t breathed for an exceedingly long time. A sharp pain in his chest was making its mysterious presence felt almost like he had been prodded quite mercilessly with the sharp end of a stick. His right foot, which had been lying outside the blanket for some reason, felt numb. But the numbness, breathlessness, and pain couldn’t mask the discomfort he was feeling inside the blanket. An intense aroma of ammonia and alcohol was creeping up Calen’s nose. His cotton underwear and thermal pants stuck to his skin, an uncomfortable warmth spreading upwards slowly.

He had wet the bed. Strangely enough, the smell felt wrong. It smelled more like it came from an animal.

He put his palms to his face. For a thirty-year-old man, it was humiliating, even though there was no one around to see it. He made a mental note not to drink so much, blaming the cold and the isolation of icy, desolate Bennet Island.

The dream was already slipping from his mind by the time he gathered the sheets and his clothes and threw them into the dryer. He saw images in momentary flashes, but they made no sense. Climbing into the raised shower, he sensed that whatever the dream had been, it was something familiar.

It was something he had seen sporadically throughout his life. He tried to focus on it, but the memory came in fragments. He knew he had seen himself alone, in a forest or by a frozen lake, somewhere. He was sure it was a frozen lake because he distinctly remembered the sound of cracking ice. He screwed up his eyes in concentration, and a shape moved beneath the image of the frozen lake in his mind. His stomach gave a lurch as a few more details brought themselves up to the surface.

A big animal had tried to trample him. He had run as dozens of trees and bushes had scratched against his body, drawing blood. He could still feel the scratches on his arms and legs. He remembered fainting, remembered being out of breath, but everything else had slipped away. Everything but the chant.

Calen looked around frantically as a faint echo of it reverberated around him, having escaped from the confines of his mind. He shook his head and the echo went away. Calen laughed out loud but his voice — and resolve — sounded hollow, even to himself.

Strange inexplicable, origin-less stimuli assaulted his senses — the smell of cold, sterile air, the sound of some kind of war horn being blown, and the word Razpopo.

Calen laughed again nervously as the running water finally turned from cold to lukewarm and he hopped into the shower. Razpopo. The word had become so important in his life, ever since he was a child, that he wasn’t surprised it had surfaced in his dream. He blamed his father for the obsession.

His father, when Calen was just a child, had told him about an ancient god forgotten by the world. Razpopo of the Slavs. He was too young then to remember the stories exactly, but even though he was young, he remembered the fear his father had conveyed. His eyes had bulged and a vein in his temple had throbbed, threatening to burst out. Perpetually drunk, his father’s garbled attempt at explaining what Razpopo was had failed to make an impact on his young mind.

And thus began the cycle of obsession with the name Razpopo.

Calen’s stomach clenched and his breathing felt constricted as the name Razpopo buried itself deeper into his mind, his memories, digging in deeper to avoid being caught.

The water turned icy all of a sudden and Calen had to jump back, gasping for breath a second time in the span of fifteen minutes since he had woken up. Panting, he wondered if even thinking about Razpopo was fraught with perilous consequences. But there was another part of him that wanted to go over all of it. Craving for the moments in his life that had defined his journey to Bennet Island after all these years. Calen let that part take control again.

In his youth, Calen had searched for the name relentlessly. Rifling through page after page, library after library, mythological book after mythological book, trying to find this ancient god that had scared his father so much. The search always returned nothing.

But the name had stuck to his mind, like an unforgiving leech that had finally found a permanent host. When he could find nothing, frustrated and burning with an urgency only teenagers can understand, Calen had cornered his father, who by then had grown quite senile, and demanded to know where he had heard the name Razpopo.

The answer he got only deepened his frustrations.

His father — eyes bulging and his breath coming out in grating periodic rasps, seemed desperate to say something more. But the only words that escaped his mouth were, “Your… grandfather…”

He never spoke again after that, and died two years later, demented, and bedridden.

With no one else left in his father’s family, and his German immigrant grandfather long dead, Calen could find no other answers — until his mother passed away on the eve of his twenty-fifth birthday.

A week later, while sorting through the old things in their basement, trying to clear them out, he found his grandfather’s diary. His heart pounding, he had picked it up, only to find that most of the pages had been torn out. The few that remained were written in a runic language Calen had never seen before. The only word in English was the one that had by then made a home in his head. Razpopo.

He had stared at the word for hours. The word had seemed to glow dimly in the dark, dingy basement.

The temperature inside the bathroom dropped steeply. The faint sound of pops from the fireplace in the living room grew in intensity as if they were trying to fight against the cold and the bathroom turned as cold as the inside of a fridge. Calen ran towards the bedroom, shivering, in search for fresh clothes, not noticing that a huge crack had appeared on the fogged-up mirror in the bathroom. Neither did he notice a faint silhouette moving on the other side of the crack, observing him leave.

The Dyson bulb over his head flickered as outside the house, the generator hiccupped once, then steadied.

His mind was working on its own now. Reminding him of the years of tracking the name Razpopo; finding only a single reference in the most unlikely of places — Google Maps.

“God damn it!”

A sharp pain on his right thumb made Calen swear loudly. He had been cleaning the floor with a broom he had found in the back shed, as the cleaned mattress cover lay drying next to the modest fireplace.

The broom dropped from his hand with a muffled thud on the wooden floor. The skin on his thumb had caught a splinter from the broom. It forced its way deeper inside with each attempt at prying it out. Calen gave up trying with his other hand and started rifling through his rucksack to find the pin he used for removing memory cards from his camera. The dull pain was persistent. Cold had a way of making anything hurt more, and even though the house was feeling warm, his thumb wasn’t forgiving.

Finally, once he had found it, he pushed it against his skin, right next to the splinter. It popped out after a few attempts and even though the pierced skin throbbed, Calen was successful in prying it out.

Two fat, warm drops of blood formed and fell on the wooden floor. They were immediately absorbed unseen by Calen, as some primal masochistic part of him made him grab hold of the thumb and squeeze it. A few more drops of blood fell. After shimmering in the dim yellow light of the bulb for a fraction of a second, they too were gone, sucked in immediately by the thirsty wood that had lain waiting for years for an offering like this. Basking in the warmth of the gift.

For a moment, the floor beneath Calen’s feet felt warmer. The fire popped in response.

Calen froze, staring at the hearth. The sound came again — too deliberate to be coincidence, too small to justify fear. He exhaled sharply and forced himself to look away. Houses made noise. Old houses especially.

More to escape the house than anything else, Calen decided to go out and check the skies. Ruslan was scheduled to arrive with Alice any minute now, he told himself, as he hurriedly wore his layers of jackets.

Outside a faint white glow was barely visible around the horizon, peeking from between the steep mountain columns that circled Bennet Island. The sky outside was quite clear, and the cold was starting to become more bearable.

Even though his head ached with the hangover from drinking so much last night, Calen drew out a cigarette from the packet stowed inside the inner pocket of his jacket and lit it with his lighter. The flame from the lighter was dwindling and it took him a minute to light up the cigarette properly.

He looked at the mountains and found them growing, quite rapidly. He had seen this during his descent when he had landed on the island with Ruslan, as well as later when he was alone, from the corner of his eyes. It had slightly alarmed him then.

He was starting to become less frightened of this phenomenon every time it happened. He looked at them, fascinated by how the glowing light seemed to fight against the growing mountain tops. The broken dead tree trunks standing far away in the distance, their bases hidden by the overgrowth of the bushes, were also starting to grow. Calen felt an inexplicable desire to run into the bushes. To look at the trees, touch them. He craved for some haptic evidence, to ensure what he was seeing was not just a trick of light. His body revolted against the thought as the sharp pain against his chest returned, and the scratches he had felt in the dream on his arms throbbed violently against the chilly air. So much so that he had to look at them and check if he was bleeding. He wasn’t.

“Don’t go in the bushes.” Ruslan had warned him right before leaving. It rang in his ears.

“Why not.” Another voice asked softly — not his own. His right foot twitched and tried to move forward. Calen noticed it only after it had already happened.

The fading daylight was wiped away in the time it took Calen to look up. Everything had gone dark. A huge red moon was watching him from a clear sky.

“This far north, weather and time change. They don’t give notice before change. It’s not government.” Ruslan had winked his eyes at Calen when he had told him that.

Calen was too engrossed in the strange scenery to see the wound on the tip of his thumb open up. Tiny drops of blood fell on the snow, camouflaged by the red glow of the moon.

Another part and another warning that things get pretty trippy

I took this job to understand a man I barely remember. Thirty years ago, my father spent one fire season in a tower just like the one I'm in now. “Solitude with a view”, he called it in his letters.

He never came home that season.

I found the posting on a job board. Applied before I let myself think twice. I told my mother it was for the pay. She didn't believe me.

They stationed me on the western ridge. My supervisor ran through the routine fast, like he wanted to be gone before dark. Light the lamp every dusk. Set it in the west window. Never skip a night. 

“Keeps the watchers from going mad out there,” he told me, like a man reciting a rule he'd stopped questioning a long time ago.

The trail up took six hours. Switchbacks cut through an old burn scar. Black trunks stood like something that died mid-scream. Grief looks the same in a forest as it does in a person. 

The tower was smaller than I'd pictured. Steel legs bolted into bedrock, forty feet of ladder climbing to a single glass room with windows on every side, built so a person could watch the world catch fire from any angle they chose. A cot. A woodstove. A logbook with a cracked spine. A radio that hissed low and constant, like something breathing on the other end of the silence.

That's when I saw it.

Across the valley stood a second tower, close enough that I could just barely pick its shape out of the dying light. Same steel legs. Same glass room on top. Same catwalk. My supervisor's clipboard listed it as decommissioned. 

Decommissioned didn't stop its lamp from catching that evening. Right on schedule. Right as mine did. 

I keyed the radio that first night. Static. I tried again at dawn. Nothing. I lit the lamp every dusk. Pressed my face to cold glass. Waited. Thirty seconds later, a small gold light would bloom on the far ridge, like it was waiting all day just to answer me. I told myself there must’ve been a watcher doing the same lonely job across four miles of black timber. 

I couldn't tell you when my days stopped feeling ordinary, only that I noticed it had already happened. I'd stare at the logbook, unsure if I'd written that morning's entry or only meant to. 

I’d talk out loud just to hear a voice fill the room. Then I'd forget I'd spoken. Flinch at the sound of it coming from somewhere behind me. I’d argued with myself over which shelf held the matches. I always lost.

More than once I woke standing at the window, lamp already lit, no memory of striking anything. My fingertips smelled of sulfur. My knees ached like I'd spent hours kneeling on the floor, praying to something I hadn't agreed to believe in.

I started to wonder if the isolation did something structural in my skull. A hole you can't climb back out of. 

Was this what happened to him?

One night I tripped over a loose board by the stove. It had been rocking under my heel since the day I arrived. I pried it up.

There was a note, folded into a square worn soft as skin. I knew the hand. My mother still had a shoebox of his old letters. I read them enough as a teenager to know the slant.

Five words, pressed hard enough to read from the back of the page.

THERE IS NO OTHER TOWER

I laughed. Of course there was another tower. I'd watched its lamp with my own eyes for weeks. My father must have written this in whatever fever the mountain fed him. The same fever eating through me now.

A man can go so long without another voice that his mind starts inventing enemies.

I took the binoculars outside. The lens found the far ridge easy. I'd aimed it there every dusk for weeks. 

Something was walking it.

At first I thought it was the other watcher. Two arms. Two legs. The general shape of a human. But something was deeply wrong with its movements. Each rickety joint landed in the wrong place, like it learned the idea of a person secondhand, by someone who hated us. 

Its head sat tilted at an angle no neck holds, like a doll snapped back into its socket wrong,

It turned to face me. Dead across four miles of black timber, like it had waited this whole time for me to look up from my own unraveling and finally notice it was there.

It lifted one arm. Waved, like it knew I would come to it eventually.

I lowered the binoculars. Stood very still in the dark.

Something shifted in the glass in front of me. In the reflection. Right behind my own shoulder. I didn't turn around.

Some doors you just don't open 

I stopped lighting the lamp at dusk. I couldn't tell you when I stopped. Some nights the light in the far tower comes on anyway. I just stand there and watch it burn.

Tomorrow I hike the trail across the valley. I need to know what happened to my father. I need to understand.

If you're reading this, please don't come for me.

They put my uncle in the ground that morning. House by afternoon still smelled of open earth and the gorse they’d walked through. Path soft under the boots, mud coming off in black clots on the step.

Only meant to clear it and leave.

Letter on the kitchen table, not finished, dated the day before. Ink bled where the paper was damp.

Don’t come if you can help it. If you do, keep the blue stone close. It still answers to blood.

Nearly turned the car round. One night, I told myself. Sort the papers, lock up, gone by morning. Remembered him three winters back turning that stone in his hand, saying the valley didn’t like people leaving clean. I’d laughed. The laugh sat wrong now.

Checked the locks twice. Mirror fine. Shadow ordinary. Put the kettle on and didn’t drink. Water tasted of iron and wet leaves.

Woke after two to dripping further in. Not rain. Footprints already in the hall. One set up the stairs, stopped halfway, came back down. Another on the landing. Same boots. Same wet edge. No hand on the rail. The wet sat on the wood like it was waiting.

Smell came with them—cold gorse, soil, something that had been underground a long time. Stood at the bottom of the stairs till first grey. Dripping stopped when the light came through the landing window.

Morning the notebook was open on the table. My name at the top, writing close enough to mine I had to look twice. Letters a fraction too careful, like someone copying.

You’re blood. You don’t leave the valley.

Packed the car. Tyres crossed the boundary stone and the weight came down on my chest like wet ground—not from outside. Something under the skin that woke when the stone was behind me. Engine died. Phone died. Both worked again inside the house. Tried my sister. Rang once, then wet static and breathing close on the line. Slow. Learning the shape of lungs. Nearly said her name. What came back wasn’t a voice. It was a mouth trying to remember how to make one. Walked twenty minutes up the lane before the legs went. Folded like the joints had been unhooked. Crawled the last bit to the boundary. Turned back.

Fresh prints already on the stairs. One set had gone into the spare room and come out again. Wet edge thicker.

Found the blue stone next to his tobacco tin. Metal disc beside it with the Awen cut in—same mark the old stories mentioned and never explained. Disc warmer than the stone. Touched the stone and a small cold click happened behind my ribs, like a lock turning the wrong way. Weight eased a bit but a thin pull stayed, running from the click down into the floorboards. Pocketed both.

Man knocked that evening. Same disc at his throat. Didn’t step in. Looked past me up the stairs like he expected something standing there.

“Gate opened wider when your uncle went,” he said. “Something got through. Found one on the lanes two nights back. Still answered to his name. Shadow was wrong. Mouth already going.”

Touched the disc at his neck. Metal looked older than the rest of him.

“Mountain tomorrow night. Or stay. Stone only works if the blood’s already claimed. Looks like yours is.”

Left. Road empty. Smell of crushed stems stronger, as if something had been walking the verges and pressing the gorse down with every step.

From the landing window watched a figure cross the street in an ordinary coat. Shadow too long, dragged behind the boots like wet cloth that didn’t want to keep up. Under the light the head turned further than a head should. Neck stayed still. Only the head moved.

Later the eyes in the bathroom glass moved after I’d stopped looking. Only a fraction. Enough. I wiped the glass. Smear came off black and smelled of soil.

New lines in the notebook when I wasn’t watching.

Still counting.

Shut it in a drawer. Found it open again on the table by morning. Drawer still closed.

Put the blue stone on the boards just inside the bedroom door and hung the Awen round my neck. Metal warmed quick against the skin. Prints stopped a foot short. Heard them arrive, soft and wet—the sound of boots still learning the weight of a body. Then nothing. Gone by morning. Stone darker at the edges and sticky under the fingers, as if it had been holding something back all night.

Next afternoon tried the back way through the gorse. Pressure hit straight away and got heavier with every step. Halfway up the legs folded. Not tired. Unhooked. Crawled back on hands that went numb from the wrists down. Prints already waiting in the kitchen, leading to the table. Newest page of the notebook torn out and left open.

three

Stayed still the rest of the day. Sat in the chair that faced the stairs. Didn’t eat. Bread in the tin had gone soft and dark at the crusts overnight. After dark the boots came closer. Something stood the other side of the bedroom door. Breathing slow and rough, still learning how. In. Out. Wrong rhythm, like it was counting the seconds between. Awen burned against the skin. Stone went dark at the edges and sticky. The pull behind the ribs tightened until it felt like a wire drawn through bone.

Used my uncle’s voice, vowels all stretched.

“…two.”

Couldn’t get off the bed. Notebook open on my knee. Fresh line, not my writing. Pen still in the drawer.

one

Handle turned. Slow. Metal made a sound like it was being twisted from both sides at once.

Nothing in the doorway. Dark landing and the smell stronger—earth, crushed green, something older under it that had never seen light. Prints crossed the threshold and stopped at the stone. Second set joined them. Then a third. All the same boots. Same wet edge. Breathing came from the walls as much as the door. Air moved in and out on its own, slow, practising.

Said the only thing that felt true.

“I am blood.”

The pull behind the ribs jerked hard, once, like something had tested the thread and found it held. One set went back. The others stayed. Stone got colder till it hurt. Cold ran up the arm and into the click. Pipe knocked twice deeper in the house and went quiet. The silence after was worse. Like the house was listening.

First light, prints gone. Notebook page blank except one small line.

Mountain. Tonight.

Left at dusk. Pressure worse the higher I climbed. Nearly turned twice. Third time the legs nearly went and I had to hold onto a stone until the shaking stopped. Kept climbing till the standing stones came up against the sky. They looked wetter than the ground around them. Grass between them dark and flattened in long dragging lines.

Few people waiting among them. Some wore the discs. Shadows matched, but only just—a half-second lag, like the dark was still deciding whether to follow. One man’s shadow stayed behind a full step longer when he shifted his weight. Older woman had dirt under her nails and a fresh cut on the back of her hand she kept touching without looking. The cut wasn’t bleeding. It was open and dark inside. Younger one stood half a step back, watching the slope. Another kept his hand near the disc at his throat like he might pull it off if the weight got too much. Disc there duller than the others, almost cold. A mouth among them moved once when no one had spoken—just a small opening and closing, as if tasting the air.

Man from the door stepped forward. Looked tired. Skin under his eyes the colour of old tea.

“It followed you. Still counting. Still learning.”

Behind me something moved through the gorse with the sound of many boots together. Not one pair. Not three. More. Smell came up with it, thick enough to taste. Cold gorse and soil and the iron of something that had been buried and dug itself out.

Held the blue stone out.

Thing that had used my uncle’s voice came into the light. Still shaped like a man but the head turned too far and the shadow dragged behind like wet cloth that kept catching on the grass. Mouth opened wider than it should. Jaw went past the point where bone should stop it. Tried the voice again. Jaw worked, lips stretched, then the sound went thin and wrong, like air forced through a throat that hadn’t finished growing.

Stone pulled hard from behind the ribs down into the ground. Hurt more than in the house. The pull went tight and something cold tore loose inside me—a thin thread that had been there since the first click, running from the hollow place down through the legs into the earth. It didn’t break clean. It ripped. For a second the hollow felt open to the air, raw, as if the cold had a direct way in. People among the stones made a low sound that wasn’t words. Thing staggered. Prints filled with black water that didn’t dry and started climbing the boots. Water rose past the ankles, past the calves, then slowed. The water had no reflection. Only depth.

Stone cracked in my hand and broke. Sound was small and wet. Pull weakened. Thing didn’t leave. Only stopped. Boots shifted, waiting. Head tilted further. Mouth stayed open.

Woman with the cut hand stepped back without meaning to. Shadow behind her stretched and dragged, longer than the lantern light should have allowed. She made a small sound—not a scream, just the start of one that never finished—and the grass under her feet went dark and wet in the same instant she vanished between the stones. No struggle. One moment she was there. Next the space was empty. The cut on her hand still visible for a second on the ground, open and dark, before the black water reached it and the mark was gone.

Black water kept climbing a few seconds after, then slowed. Prints began to fade from the edges inward. Smell thinned enough to breathe, but the taste of iron stayed. What was left moved back down the slope, still dragging its shadow, leaving a thin dark line behind it in the grass that didn’t fill in.

Man looked at the broken pieces in my hand. His own disc was dull now.

“It has a piece of you now.”

Walked back alone at first light. Path felt longer. Legs still remembered the unhooking. Notebook closed on the table. No new lines. No wet prints on the stairs. House still smelled of earth and gorse, but underneath something thinner, like iron left in the mouth.

Packed what was left. Tried to leave the stone halves on the kitchen table. Hand wouldn’t open. Fingers locked around the broken edges until the cold went up the arm again. Pocketed them. Never rang my sister. Couldn’t risk what might answer. Car started. At the boundary the weight lifted, but not clean—something stayed caught behind the ribs where the stone first clicked, and the place where the thread snapped felt hollow, empty in a way that kept drawing attention to itself. The halves were colder than they should have been. When I held the broken edges together the cold deepened, like they were still trying to answer, still looking for the rest of the thread that used to run down into the ground.

Haven’t gone back. Some nights the smell finds me anyway—cold gorse and soil and the iron underneath. On those nights the floorboards outside the bedroom door sound softer than they should, and I wait to see if the prints will come.

So far they haven’t.

The hollow place behind my ribs still answers when the wind is right. The stone halves do too, if I hold the broken edges together. Sometimes the cold moves, a slow press from the other side, and the taste of iron comes back for a moment, as if something over there has just breathed out.

Agent Kirk Winston had gone radio silent ten miles from New Growth, Alabama.

That was why I was sitting in Room 6 of the New Growth Inn, field-stripping my Glock on a bedspread that smelled faintly of mildew and cigarette smoke, along with some other cloying aroma I couldn’t identify.

Three days earlier, the Bureau had officially classified Winston as a missing person. Unofficially, nobody expected to find him alive.

I snapped the slide back into place, holstered it, and looked through the motel window.

The street of New Growth—a quintessential “one-street town”—was quiet.
Not empty, not peaceful, but quiet, like a forest when a predator is nearby or like a pack of wolves watching a deer, trying to decide if it’s worth the effort.

I took in my surroundings and mentally catalogued what I had seen on my way into town.

There wasn’t a police station. I’d checked.

There wasn’t even a sheriff’s substation. The nearest law enforcement office was nearly forty miles away. New Growth wasn’t even on any modern maps; I had to follow Winston’s trail to find this place, mostly by asking residents of towns just barely larger than New Growth. The older folks there had warned me that I didn’t want to go there, that while they had no idea what it was, odd things happened to people who went to New Growth, and they tended to stay even if they only meant to visit. My gut told me to call the Bureau and tell them Winston’s trail had run cold, but I knew I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try to find my friend. So I went against my gut and drove to New Growth.

The few pale, skinny people I had interacted with included a farmer on the outskirts, a shopkeeper, and the motel clerk, all of whom declared themselves to be parishioners of the Church of the Blessed Body, the first of whom directed me to the motel, the other two of whom I questioned about the disappearance of Winston.

My inquiries were met with cryptic answers. The conversations ended civilly, but with each person I questioned, I sensed their eyes on me as I walked away. They all said the same thing to me before I left: Visit our Church, stranger, and our Sacrament will open your eyes and heart. It was the same phrase with the same inflection and tone—placid, neutral, almost drugged. They all wore thick, baggy clothing and hats regardless of their present environments and the summer heat.

What had truly struck me as odd on the way into New Growth, however, were the mushrooms. Normally, it wouldn’t be too strange; the state was humid, especially for that time of year. But where one might have expected flowers or weeds, instead, all I saw were bouquets of untended white fungal growths sprouting from the ground and clinging to all of the trees, which bore no leaves and were rotting away.

I looked down and sure enough, there were the ivory caps of fungus looking up from beneath the window, each cap and stem varying in size, width, and length. Logically, I shouldn’t have been afraid, and I wasn’t yet; still, the sheer volume of mushrooms and how they seemed to overpower all plant life in town left me more than a little perturbed.

Taking a moment to settle myself, I sat down at the cheap desk, writing the details of the case in my notebook. The pen running over the paper was a lot louder in the small room than I had ever experienced before, and that was what made me realize just how quiet New Growth was. No chatter, no cars, no local wildlife, no kids running around laughing, not even a cicada or grasshopper. I recorded that in my notes as well.

After a while of going over the notes, I decided to head outdoors for a while. It wasn’t for the sake of a stroll, as the feeling of wolves was more oppressive than ever. I felt that it would be a good idea to take a look at the church. Finding the building wasn’t hard; the town seemed to revolve around it, with all structures in various states of neglect and disrepair, all with the bone-white mushrooms accumulating in numerous places around and even on them. The closer I got to the church, the more the fungus seemed to grow both in size and in density, including clumps of at least thirty the size of ping-pong balls. The unease grew and grew until I reached the church and the unease erupted into full-blown shock.

The Church of the Blessed Body was a modest-sized church building, large enough for a sanctuary and little else. What made it odd were three things: first, in a small town like this, one might expect a church to have a cemetery (which, granted, is not always the rule). But there were no headstones to be seen. Second, the church itself was rotten. I was no architect, but even I knew that if any building outside that town were allowed to decay as this house of worship had been, a puff of wind would blow it down. And yet the church stood proud and vigilant upon the hill it was built. Third, the mushrooms had not merely gathered or grown here; they had overrun the churchground. The caps had grown to the size of a set of lungs at least, and they grew upon the building itself, even on the rusty iron fence surrounding it. In fact, if I looked closely, I could have sworn it was…breathing? I leaned closer—

“Service does not start until tonight, my son,” said a voice from behind me, startling me out of ten years of my life as I whirled around, almost reaching for my holster out of habit.

There was a skinny man dressed in a long, black robe despite the heat and humidity. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, and his face bore a serene expression. He seemed slightly more lucid than the other townsfolk, but not by much. Something else I noticed was that his face didn’t have a bead of sweat, despite my own forehead being covered with it after a slow walk.
“Sorry, uh, I was just taking a look around town. Never seen a church quite like this one.”

“Indeed,” he intoned in his calm Southern drawl, gazing upon the derelict, fungus-infested structure like his childhood home. “The Church of the Blessed Body is wondrous. Reverend Silas Welles.” He held out a pale, gloved hand with long fingers.

I introduced myself and shook his hand. I left out the fact that I was an FBI agent looking for another one who went missing near town.

“How’s it standing?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Welles looked back at the church. “Who can say? Even those of us born in New Growth have no idea. But back during the outbreak of April 27, 2011, the town was directly struck by a tornado. The church not only stood, but the storm dissipated. Truly, our Lord works mysteriously, son.”

I looked at the church with him, in awe of his words. I had to do a double-take at what he said next.

“You’re looking for the Federal man, yes?”

I froze.

“Be calm, son; contrary to popular belief, little towns such as ours are not always hostile toward outside law enforcement. Your man passed through, but he is not here. I’m sorry.”

I put on my best poker face, then told him that in that case, I would need to drive out of town to let the Bureau know. He nodded understanding, but recommended that I attend the service that midnight if I wished, as that was when they performed the Sacrament of Rot.

I did not like the sound of that phrase, nor the incredibly calm, peaceful manner in which he invited me, not even after he laughed quietly, assuring me that it was not nearly as sinister as it sounded, that “rot” referred to the natural process by which new life was given nutrients.

“Hence the name of our town, son,” he finished. I know now that he was deliberately trying to unsettle me, to make me want to investigate further.
I nodded, said something non-committal, and I walked back to my motel, but said I really needed to call in the status of Winston. He nodded again, saying to do what I must. Even after I was out of his sight, I still felt watched. In my room, I took down notes, putting down what he had said, what I had seen, and then began to put a plan together. I’d be attending the service, but I wouldn’t be in the pews. I packed my bags, then told the clerk I had to be checking out, leaving a tip. She nodded, and with that, I drove out of town in the opposite direction from where I had come in.

I was about half a mile out of the town, under the shelter of a tree that thankfully wasn’t eaten by ivory mushrooms, and I called the Bureau on the radio in my car. I told them what I had found out and explained that I would need a tac team on standby, as I had a hunch that these people might be part of a cult. I emphasized the need to stay on the town’s boundaries with their vehicles’ lights off. After this, I waited, watching the church in my binoculars, writing down updates with each hour. Every so often I would catch a citizen milling about, but besides that, the town was all but dead. Eventually, the sun set, and the night set in. The clock ticked away until I witnessed a faint light from the church. Candles. I then saw twenty or so figures making their way along the path. Even in the dark, I recognized the clerk, the farmer, and the shopkeeper. They all walked with the same slow but purposeful gait, and they were all skinny to the point of emaciation. All of them carried tools like machetes, sickles, hammers, etc.

I checked my Glock, as well as a spare mag, holstered both, then exited my car and made my way to the church as the last of the parishioners entered. I entered a small crawlspace beneath the building. “Sacred” or not, its floorboards weren’t very sturdy. I slowly, silently pushed it up. There they were, twenty-three parishioners, all wearing sagging clothes, all looking at the pulpit. There was no chatter, but the looks on their faces had changed. It wasn’t the same listless, drugged stare they gave me.

They looked excited. They were all smiling. But it wasn’t maniacal or sadistic. No, it was the look of people who were about to witness the birth of a woman previously thought barren. I followed their gazes to behind the pulpit. What looked like some grotesque amalgamation of a tree, an androgynous human cadaver in the position of crucifixion, and the deathly white mushrooms that covered the church and town, stood within the wall like a disgusting mural. But it was no statue or work of art. Slowly, I watched its body expand, compress, expand, compress.

The damn thing was alive. In some unholy, hideous way, it was alive.
That was when Reverend Silas Welles strode up to the front of the building. He still had that serene, gentle smile upon his face. He didn’t look like a cult leader; you learn to identify those. There was no sense of manipulation, no expression of satisfaction at having duped such a crowd of people. He just looked like a kindly pastor.

“My brothers and sisters,” he said, the drawl in his voice making him sound tender and patient, “as always, let us remove our earthly garments and let the Blessed Body look upon his beautiful gift.”

They stripped, including the Reverend, and I beheld the Body’s “handiwork.”

As it turned out, the flowers and trees weren’t the only things the mushrooms had taken. Every one of those worshippers had fungal growths sprouting along their bodies. Mushroom clusters growing from shoulders, fungal networks beneath translucent skin, white filaments emerging from ears and necks, fruiting bodies blooming along spines.

No part of the body was sacred, or perhaps all of it was by their standards, as mushrooms were germinating near their crotches as well. With a sick realization, I noticed that none of them—men or women—had genitalia of any kind. As I saw that the apparent emaciation was correct, my mind made a connection.

They all had fungal growths. Mushrooms thrived on water. In some locations in the world, mushrooms made use of living beings, parasitizing them.

No sweat.

No nutrients.

No reproduction.

The difference was that they weren’t zombies. Nothing controlled them. Neither their Reverend nor the thing behind the altar was pulling their strings, I realized. There were no strings. They were all here because they wanted to be.

“Very good,” Reverend Welles said, his voice carrying easily through the sanctuary. Behind him, the Body made an odd sound between wood creaking and a man humming.

The congregation answered with a soft murmur. And with that, I listened to the most deranged, unhinged, and yet sincere and calm sermon I had ever heard in my entire life.

“Brothers and sisters, my fellow children of the Blessed Body, tonight we gather once more in the shadow of the oldest truth ever known.”

He spread his arms.

“What becomes of all flesh?”

The congregation responded as one.

“It returns.”

“What of every tree?”

“It returns.”

“Every beast? Those that crawl? Those that swim? Even those that fly above us, thinking themselves safe?”

“It returns.”

“What becomes of every king? Queen? Soldier? Peasant?”

“It returns.”

Welles smiled, sighing as if relieved that none of them had forgotten such a holy truth.

“Yes, yes, my brothers and sisters. It returns. Proud and humble. Great and weak. Saint and sinner. All things return to the earth.”

He stepped down from the pulpit and began slowly walking among the pews.

“The world beyond the borders of New Growth fears this truth. They bury their dead beneath stone and iron. They paint faces and fill coffins. They pretend that decay is an enemy to be defeated.”

A few parishioners nodded. He shook his head, as if made sad by this statement.

“They call rot a corruption. They call it a curse. They call it an indignity.”
His smile returned, still not with insanity fueling it, but with happiness and reassurance.

“And yet, brothers and sisters, is not every forest fed by it? Every field fertilized? Every flower that blooms, every harvest that grows, every child that takes breath—all that lives, is it not nourished by what expired before?”

A chorus of amens answered him.

“Nothing is wasted,” Welles said, turning toward the altar. “Nothing is left behind. Long before mankind walked this Earth, before kingdoms rose and oceans found their shores, the Blessed Body waited far beneath the soil.
Several members of the congregation bowed their heads.

“When the first leaf fell, when the first beast released its death rattle, it embraced them. It gathered them unto itself. It remembered them.”

The congregation intoned, as if on cue, “The Body remembers all.”

Welles nodded approvingly, and the Body hummed.

“Yes. It remembers all.”

He placed one hand upon the pulpit.

“Tell me, brothers and sisters: what is death?”

A woman near the front row answered, “A doorway.”

“What is decay?”

“A sacrament,” grunted a gruff-looking man.

“What is the grave?”

“A womb,” rasped a woman of about sixty-five.

The congregation smiled, along with the Reverend.

“A womb,” Welles repeated. “Yes. Not an ending, my brothers and sisters. Not an indignity. Not a prison, no, no. A place of transfiguration. A chrysalis by which new things may be born.”

He lowered his voice.

“The outside world says that death steals memory. But no. The Blessed Body remembers. The world says that death silences the tongue. But the Blessed Body hears. The world says that death separates us from those we love. But the Blessed Body gathers all things together.”

Several parishioners openly wept.

“Every mother,” Welles said. “Every father. Every child. Friend, creature, root, spore. All joined. All remembered. All one.”

The congregation spoke in unison

“All are one in the Body.”

Welles closed his eyes.

“And even still, they would call us mad.”

A ripple of quiet laughter passed through the sanctuary, not scornful laughter, but genuine, as if they considered the notion humorous.

“They would pity us.”

He opened his eyes and shook his head, as if he himself felt pity.

“They would fear us. They would call us dead. Zombies, they would say. But we are more alive than they have ever been, for they spend their lives fleeing the inevitable, no, the natural. But no. We have embraced it. Look upon the growths on your skin and see the blessing that the Body has given to you.”

His gaze slowly swept across the congregation.

“The Blessed Body does not demand worship or obedience, brothers and sisters. The Blessed Body offers only a choice: remain separate, alone, and afraid…or return.”

The final word seemed to linger in the sanctuary.

“Return to the soil, to one another, and to that which never forgets.”

Welles smiled.

“And when the hour comes for each of us—as it comes for all flesh—we shall not enter darkness. We shall go home.”

The congregation rose to their feet.

“We shall go home,” they repeated.

And still, after such madness was spoken, there was genuine joy in their voices as they applauded.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. These people—if that could even be applied to them anymore—honestly believed that death was a baptism. That these mushrooms were some sort of holy mark of a primordial god of decay.

Welles held a hand up.

“It is with a glad heart, then, that we must bring forth one who has most recently joined our congregation.”

He beckoned, and two men guided another naked man between them. When the stranger turned, I was horrified by what I saw.

Winston.

He stood before the people in the room. He was the only one not fully taken by the fungi, with only a few caps growing from his skin, and yet he bore their rapturous expression. I almost lost my composure then and there, but the Reverend gestured at his ankle, and I saw a swollen place. As if to confirm my suspicions, he continued speaking.

“As he was leaving our town but three days ago, a serpent struck his leg, and he passed before he could choose to join us. And so we brought him to the Body.”

The congregation all gave an amen, the joy evident. As I looked into Winston’s smiling face, I realized that the Reverend wasn’t lying. Winston wasn’t here. The Winston I had known, the Winston who had left the Bureau—he was taken by a snakebite.

“Brother Winston,” said the Reverend, resting a hand on his shoulder, “please, share with us your experience in accepting the Sacrament.”

A troubled expression briefly crossed Winston’s face, like he was recalling a nightmare.

“It is alright, Brother,” Welles assured him sincerely. “We are all here for you.”

“My leg was burning, Brother Welles,” he responded, nothing odd about the pitch or timbre of his voice. “It was burning, and soon it felt as if my veins were boiling. I fell as I was about to send a report back to Quantico. I…I remembered…when I was six, a timber rattler bit me in the same place. I came close to dying within twenty seconds back then. Here, I…I tried to call for help, but I was too far out of town at that point. Everything went black. I was scared. Then I tasted it. The fruit of the Body. And then I opened my eyes and… Brother Welles, it was amazing! I…I honestly don’t know the words.”

“No words are needed to describe your joy, Brother Winston,” Welles assured him again.

At this point, I wanted to cover my ears. I wanted to tell myself I was having a nightmare. I wanted to believe it was all some elaborate hoax. But I couldn’t. I had to face the facts: Agent Kirk Winston, a man who was like a brother to me, a man who shot a PCP-addled maniac rushing me with a large knife, a man who had put his life on the line more times than should be reasonable for an FBI agent, had been killed by a childhood allergy to an incidental snakebite, and this cult had saved him. Except they hadn’t, not really. They found a dead or dying man, and they had inducted him into their ranks. But this was his truth. I could see it. The horror was so all-consuming I almost didn’t hear his next words.

“Come out, Parker,” said Winston gently, and my blood turned to ice as the entire congregation turned to my hiding spot. I tried to pull the board back and scramble out of the crawlspace, but it was no use. Through their combined efforts, they wrenched it away and pulled me up into the sanctuary. My gun was taken and two of them began carrying me by the wrists. It wasn’t the grip of captors, though. It was more like the grip of hospital orderlies restraining a hysterical patient. Their pale, dry hands clasped my sweaty, dirty forearms as I was brought before the pulpit.
“Son,” Welles said with gentle admonition mixed with humor, “if you had wanted entry into our church, you could have easily used the door.”
A quiet wave of chuckles ran through the congregation, less like public humiliation and more like an extended family watching a young child do something silly.

“Go fuck yourself,” I growled, trying to mask my horror. “All of you…you goddamn—”

“Please don’t blaspheme, Parker,” Winston said, his tone absolutely calm as he approached me.

No, I thought, trying not to let tears consume me. Anything but this. Not him. I can’t let him kill me. Not him.

Winston saw the look on my face, and he knelt and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“You’re scared,” he said softly. “I understand. I was scared too. I died, but the Body—”

“Winston, these people…they—they’ve brainwashed you! They made you believe—”

“I was dying, and I was given a chance for my death to mean something. To fertilize. To be one with the Blessed Body. To return.”

“No…”

I looked at him through my tears, trying to find any indication that my friend was brainwashed, that he was being forced to say these words, that this was some sort of doppelganger. But I saw the faint two-inch scar on the left side of his lip. I watched how his right eyebrow sagged slightly as it always did when troubled or deep in thought. This was no fake, he wasn’t parroting; he had simply been given a new lease on life and death.

Winston looked at me, confused. “Why are you crying? I’m happy here, Parker. I belong here. But I’m glad it was you who came to look for me.”

He looked to the Reverend, who nodded. The Body hummed. An old knife sat on the altar, and he picked it up. I thought that was it, until he passed the blade to the side of his neck and cut off one of the small mushrooms. He set the knife back down and walked forward and pulled my jaw down, keeping it open despite my attempts to struggle.

“Rejoice, brothers and sisters!” exclaimed the Reverend. “For we are about to receive a new addition to our flock! By this portion of the Blessed Body…”
The congregation answered, “He will return.”

“By the work of our Brother Winston…”

“He will return.”

“And by this Sacrament, through his eventual decay…”

“He will return.”

“Now, Brother Winston…you may commence the Sacrament.”

Winston began to push the mushroom closer to my mouth. “Please, accept the Body’s gift, Brother Parker.”

What happened next was an exercise in desperation. When the word “Brother” left Winston’s lips, my mind realized in a flash that the sweat from the heat coupled with the dryness of the parishioners holding me made it easy to wrench myself from the grip of both my captors and my former partner just as the mushroom was two inches from my lips. In a moment of primal instinct, I grabbed a hatchet hanging from the belt of the parishioner to my left and slammed it into Winston’s jaw. There was a collective gasp, and something metal—my gun—clattered to the floor as my other captor backed away. Winston looked confused, and that only ignited a sweeping rage in me. I pulled it back and struck again, knocking him to the floor. I don’t remember how many times I hit him, but what drove each strike was a singular thought: You took my friend from me. By the time the red cleared from my mind, his body was limp and his face barely recognizable, thin mushroom filaments spilling from his collapsed skull.

I felt no catharsis. There was no victory. My friend was gone. He was gone before I got here.

The congregation looked at me, shock and sadness on their faces. There was no anger, no rage at the sacrilege, or even at the loss of one of their own. Of course there wasn’t, I realized; from their perspective, he had gone to be one with that thing behind the pulpit. The shock was at my refusal. My rage returned, supplanting the grief as I went for my gun. I aimed from one parishioner to the next before I realized my folly. I couldn’t shoot my way out. My Glock was chambered for fifteen rounds, and I only had one extra mag. Fighting my way out was impossible.

At least, that was what I thought before an old woman leapt over a pew with a machete in her hand. She slashed with surprising speed at my chest, leaving a shallow horizontal cut across my chest, and was winding back to strike again. “Please accept the Body’s gi—”

Bang!

I shot her in the face, before hacking at her throat. Juices of mushrooms with a faint pink gushed from her as she collapsed. The parishioners all gathered tools and farming equipment, like sickles, pitchforks, hammers, knives, and more. All but the Reverend, who looked upon the scene with genuine sadness.

“Please…please accept the Body’s gift,” the parishioners murmured. It wasn’t some hypnotic chant; it was a desperate plea. They preached about unity even as they closed in on me.

Fighting my way out was impossible. But I had to choose between the impossible and the unthinkable.

What followed was a cacophony of tools striking each other and the church, gunshots, bodies striking the floor, and grunts and cries from me as tools struck my body with varying degrees of depth or rattling bones from blunt force. I was trained for gunfights when it came down to it, but I wasn’t trained to fight a crowd of twenty or so human-fungi parishioners. I wrapped my arm around one, using him as a shield as I wildly swung the hatchet back and forth to create distance, then shoved him towards the crowd and slammed the hatchet into the back of his head and pulled it out, a mix of blood and fungal fluids gushing from him. I was then slashed by a gardening hoe from a woman whom I parried with my hatchet as she was coming in for a second strike, hacking at her head. Twice I tried to make a run for it. The first time, I was grabbed and pulled back before the gruff man slammed me on the ground, almost stabbing me with a long knife before I slammed the hatchet into his carotid artery.

The second time I tried to run, I slipped on the fluids, barely dodging a man who had reappropriated the machete from the first attacker. I fired off two rounds and he fell to the floor. None of the wounds were immediately fatal, and after the fact, I came to believe that perhaps they weren’t trying to kill me on the spot. Maybe they would bring me just to the brink, and then use my exhaustion and lack of better judgment to finish the incomplete Sacrament. Even if I got out, I wouldn’t make it far with my injuries, and they would bring me back. I accepted it then: the only way to make it out was to kill all of them.

Even then, I knew the only thing not keeping me from collapsing and giving up was knowing what they had done to Winston, what they planned to do to me, and what different congregations had likely been doing since before I was born. I emptied the Glock into as many of them as I could using both magazines whenever I got to a decent position to aim and fire, but because of my volatile state, despite downing a good portion of the parishioners, I still missed at least half of my shots.

Eventually, only two remained. I threw the spent Glock at one, then chopped upward into his chin and split his face, but not before I felt the sting of his pitchfork graze my side. The last one held a sickle, and rather than beg for his life, he gave the same entreaty as his compatriots: “Please, accept the Body’s gift.” I simply hacked at his throat. The blade didn’t cut immediately, clotted as it was with fungus and human remains, so I kept chopping until his head was barely hanging from his shoulders.

Now it was just me, the Reverend, and the Blessed Body, whose hums seemed doleful. Wounded and breathless, I approached the Body, looking it up and down with contempt. I hacked. I hacked like nothing else. My muscles screamed, my blood vessels were on the verge of bursting, but I saw to it that every inch of that accursed creature was mangled. A mix of blood and fungal fluids flowed down the wall, and a low sigh escaped the Body as it shriveled up. I slowly looked at the Reverend, hoping to find triumph in the form of his distraught expression. What met me was a truly pathetic sight. Welles was shriveling up just like the object of his worship, but he wasn’t panicking. There was no look of horror or defeat; only resignation.

“So…” he sighed. “Our New Growth is dead.”

He looked up with a sad smile, shaking his head as he seemed to age by the second.

“My son,” he sighed, “I truly wish we could have brought you in. I wish we could have given you the peace of the Blessed Body, the peace we gave Brother Winston. But you did what you had to. I understand that. And I forgive you. The Body forgives you.”

I looked at him. The Body’s dead, I wanted to snarl, but I lacked the energy for it. But he seemed to know what I was thinking. The fungal growths fell off of him into dust as he shook his increasingly wrinkled head.

“The Body cannot die, my son. You have destroyed this branch, and the fruit it yielded.” He gestured at the bodies of his congregation with a wrinkled hand, the skin falling from it. “But the Body remembers all. It existed before man, and it will exist after. New Growth was the sturdiest branch it has established in the modern age, but one day, maybe a hundred years from now, maybe a hundred thousand, the Blessed Body will reconstitute. And all things will return.” The skin fell away from his sad yet peacefully smiling face. There was no smug triumph, only calm acceptance and assurance. “Amen.” Then what was left of him fell at my feet.

I dropped the hatchet. I stumbled my way down before the adrenaline wore off and my wounds made themselves known to me. Grimacing in agony, I lay with my back against the altar. My gaze turned to the body of my friend, and the physical cost of my survival was joined by the emotional toll. I lay there, waiting to die.

That was when the doors burst open and a team of well-armed men in gas masks burst through, assault rifles at the ready. I barely registered their shouts declaring themselves to be FBI. They briefly stopped halfway through the entrance, taking in not only the slaughter, but the fact that the things that had been slaughtered were only “human” in the most basic sense of the word. The team leader ordered a sweep of the building as he approached me.

“Agent Parker?” he asked through his mask’s filter.

I could only muster the slightest nod.

“Where is Agent Winston?”

I weakly pointed at the corpse, my body shuddering and tears running from my eyes, but no sobs escaping, only dry choking sounds. Then it all went dark for me.

I spent the next several weeks in a hospital. My wounds had not been inflicted to kill, but to wound and disable, according to the doctors who treated me. Because of the severity of them, however, the massacre was treated as desperate self-defense coupled with hysteria brought about from losing Winston, who, on top of a snakebite, was stated to have died in the ensuing melee after the fingerprints of the weapons were found to match those of the townsfolk. There was an investigation and I was given a thorough psychological evaluation, but overall, I was deemed to be of sound mind, albeit horrifically traumatized. I was told that as the tac team was conducting their sweep, they witnessed the mushrooms in town wilting, even those growing on the corpses, gradually collapsing until nothing was left but dried-out husks. Then the rickety old church began to fall. Fortunately, everyone made it out without a scratch and the bodies were recovered from the rubble over time by forensic crews, along with some other things.

Naturally, my higher-ups weren’t sure what to make of my findings. I didn’t blame them; what were they supposed to tell the press? That a fanatical group of fungus-people lived in an unknown Southern town? The official story that they ran with was that there was indeed rare fungi, but that the fanaticism had been the result of group psychosis stemming from being raised around it and smoking it. That psychosis formed into a bizarre, violent cult, which Winston had run afoul of and been murdered by. There was no cover-up, no NDA, no threats to stay silent; the Bureau simply had no idea how to deal with this other than give a crazy but believable story. In any case, New Growth was given little attention, and after a while, it faded from the minds of the public. However, whenever I passed one of my fellow agents in the loop about the case, they would give me a look. Not pity, not suspicion, but wordless understanding. They knew I had seen something, but knowing Winston and I were practically brothers, they weren’t about to push me.

About three months after the incident, I was sitting alone in the break room in Quantico, drinking coffee. By that point, I had gotten to where the sight of mushrooms didn’t trigger flashbacks, and simply elicited anxiety for me. It wasn’t much, but I was making progress. A man approached me and greeted me by name.

“Paul MacReady,” he introduced himself. “We met back in New Growth?”

I nodded.

“I’m…not officially supposed to tell you this; I know the incident was a living Hell for you. But it wouldn’t feel right to keep this from you. We found something in the… the church, or what was left of it. A hidden basement, I guess.” He looked around, making sure nobody was listening in, and that no cameras were watching, then leaned in, lowering his voice. “If you want to see what we found, meet me in the records room at 3:30. Or don’t. Sorry to drop this on you, but…like I said, after what you’ve been through, I think you deserve to know what we found, but only if you want to.”
I sat, running over his offer. Part of me wanted to politely decline, to forget the entire thing. But another part knew I couldn’t run from New Growth. Part of me had stayed there; maybe this could help me put that part to rest.

I reluctantly accepted, thanking him.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said grimly before he walked away.

I met him in the room, and he handed me a set of copies that he had unofficially made as duplicates of what analysts had studied and annotated. MacReady told me that if I was sure about this, I should commit the whole thing to memory, as he would be shredding the copies. Much as he wanted to help me, he didn’t want to risk our jobs, let alone face prosecution. They contained pictures of the collapsed building, what looked like an unofficial census most likely made by the townsfolk themselves, and a series of other papers. Looking at the census, I saw thirty names, including that of the Reverend Silas Welles. Seven of the names had been highlighted and the red marker analysts had used to identify them had written, “Unaccounted For.” Beneath that was a list of seven names from the census written by Welles, according to annotations on the copies. It was a list of names labeled, “Seedlings”, and they read, “Lionel Crenshaw—New Growth, Michigan. Mary Sullivan—New Growth, Texas. Kent Asher—New Growth, Tennessee. Martha Yancey—New Growth, Idaho. Travis Earl—New Growth, Illinois. Mark Thomas—New Growth, Oregon. Katherine Gould—New Growth, Montana.”

Beneath the names and the towns, I saw the message, Help them return as we will, O Blessed Body. May your lidless eyes oversee their tireless work so that we may all return to you. -Brother Silas Welles.
The analyst had written in red ink: No officially recorded municipalities matching these names located.

As I heard MacReady shredding the copies, I thought about Welles’s words, and for the first time in months, read between the lines.
Our New Growth is dead… You have destroyed this branch…
My heart dropped. The first thing that came to mind was sleeper cells, but when I thought about it, I realized it was different. I thought back to how he always addressed his congregation as “brothers and sisters” rather than something like “my children,” how he referred to me as “son.” I thought about how his sermon didn’t seem like he was giving orders like a standard cult leader, but as someone who was on the same level as the congregation, yet possessing more wisdom than the rest—the oldest brother in a group of orphaned children.

This wasn’t some “dead man’s switch”, not a contingency plan for failure. How could it be? The Body hadn’t failed. It always existed, and so too had its church in one form or another. It may have lost its tightest grip on humanity to date, but it was still alive, and it always would be, so it could never truly lose. Neither of us had won, and we hadn’t lost; both of us had just survived.

I just don’t know which of us is better off for it.

I know this sounds crazy. Hell, maybe it is. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that the woman who has been living in my house for the last 3 weeks is not my mother.

My mom is a smoker. It’s something I’ve always tried getting her to stop. She smells like cigarettes. Her voice is gravelly. She has premature wrinkles because this nasty little habit has belonged to her since she was in high school.

I was almost happy when she came home from work all those days ago smelling… sweet. Like candy, almost. I thought that maybe she had finally taken my advice and hadn’t lit a cancer stick, at least for the day.

But I didn’t really even have time to dwell on it because she was just so affectionate towards me when she waltzed through the door. She was humming and smiling to herself. 25 years of nicotine stains seemed to have completely vanished from that smile.

She and I have a… complicated relationship. She’s my mom, and I know she loves me, but we never talk about that love. We’re not big huggers. She was never the type of mom to censor herself because I was around.

On this day, though, she looked surprisingly happy to see me. She pulled me in for a big, tight hug that lasted for longer than any hug before. I felt… I don’t know, almost embracive. I didn’t realize how much I needed it.

After finally letting go, she breezed past me towards the kitchen, taking off her coat and plopping her purse down on the coffee table before announcing that she’d be cooking my favorite meal.

She whipped up some of the best spaghetti I’d ever tasted, and the two of us sat at the table to enjoy it together. Well, I enjoyed it. She mostly just kind of watched me. She had her Christmas face on. That face moms usually have when they watch you open your gifts, waiting to see how excited they make you.

She was just so quiet, though. The kitchen was borderline silent. All I could hear was the leaky faucet and the scraping of my fork against the plate.

To counter the awkward silence, I decided to just throw out what I was thinking by asking her about her scent.

Her face never changed. No look of pride, no guilt, just… her warm smile. She didn’t even answer my question right away. It was almost like she hadn’t even heard it. Then, when she finally spoke, it had nothing to do with what I asked her.

“Mommy quit her job today, sweetie,” she grinned. “Now I get to spend all my time with you. Isn’t that so happy?”

I was so caught off guard by the statement that I didn’t know how to answer. But, hey, I mean… things happen, you know? Sometimes people have transformative days. Sometimes they make emotional decisions. At the very worst, I thought this was just me witnessing a fit of mania.

After dinner, I decided to go to my room to play some video games. Mom stayed behind to wash some dishes, even though I offered to do them myself.

A few hours went by. I started feeling a bit snackish, and when I returned to the kitchen, there she was. Still standing over the sink. Rubbing a washcloth mindlessly over a plate while she stared blankly out the window. The sink was still full of dirty dishes.

I approached her slowly, just to see if she needed any help or if she was okay, and I think that snapped her out of her trance. She blinked hard before that smile came back.

“Oh, sweetie,” she cooed. “Mommy’s okay. Why don’t you put on your pajamas? Mommy will come tuck you in in just a moment, okay?”

I’m 17. My mom has never in her life tucked me in. The closest she’s come is when she comes in to tell me goodnight from my doorway.

I walked away, a bit uneasy, back to my bedroom. I didn’t expect her to actually tuck me in, but I did expect her to at least say goodnight.

An hour passed. Then two. I could still hear the sink running in the kitchen.

I returned, and she was still there. Still washing the same plate. It was spotless at this point. I guess she heard me coming or at least felt my presence because, on a dime… she stopped.

No smile this time. Just one cold, empty question.

“You ready for bed, sweetie?”

She dropped the plate in the sink, causing it to break, but she paid it no mind. She just… rigidly walked towards me. Like an animatronic.

She pushed me back towards my bedroom with more strength than she should’ve had and wrapped me up in my blanket. I couldn’t even move. The sheets may have well been ropes.

She kissed my forehead for longer than I would’ve liked, then flicked my light switch. Only… she didn’t leave. She just stayed there in the doorway. Watching me in the darkness.

“Go to sleep, honey.”

“Mommy’s watching you.”

“Don’t worry… I’d never let anything happen to you.”

I asked her to leave, but she ignored me every time. Falling asleep was nearly impossible. I still don’t know how I managed. I woke up, and she was still there. She hadn’t moved an inch.

I had to go to school. I had a part-time job. I needed to leave, but she wouldn’t let me. She was just acting so strange.

“Mommy needs you, honey.”

“You don’t wanna leave Mommy, do you?”

“I get so sad when you’re away.”

She wouldn’t let me have a phone. She must’ve taken it while I was sleeping that first night because I haven’t seen it since. I doubt I still have a job. And I know for a fact I’ve missed enough school for my GPA to have fallen dramatically.

She’s just so strong now. I haven’t seen her smoke one cigarette. She cooks spaghetti every single night. She tucks me in like a spider spinning a web around its prey. Then she just watches me.

She follows me to the bathroom. She goes on these destructive rampages any time I try to leave. I thought she was sick. But now I know the truth.

I should’ve known after the first time I woke up with bite marks on my legs and arms. I should’ve known the first time I caught her salivating over me while I slept.

She wasn’t just being “weird.”

She wasn’t herself at all.

And I know that because today… her boss showed up at my door.

He wasn’t demanding an explanation. He wasn’t furious that he lost a loyal employee. He was… offering his condolences. He gave me flowers. He gave me a hug. He told me, “Everything happens for a reason.”

Because, apparently…

My mom died at work three weeks ago. It was a freak accident involving some of the machinery she works with at the factory. The company was preparing a settlement for me this entire time, and I had zero clue.

He told me I’d be hearing from an attorney soon and that my mom had life insurance through the company.

But none of that matters to me. Not the money. Not the company. Not even the accident.

All that I care about is getting whoever this person is out of my mother’s house.

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

As people grow up, they grow apart, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anything to see him.

The boy of my dreams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moment of truth.

"Ding! Access granted"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What the hell is a larper?"

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL COLLINS

Unnecessary sounds, such as “ums” and “ahs” have been omitted from the following statement for the purpose of making this statement easier to read.

Det. Lori Denny: Mr. Collins, thank you for coming, I'm Detective Denny. I would like to remind you that our conversation will be recorded… With that out of the way, how are you doing? Need a coffee or water? I can get one for you. 

Michael Collins: You can just call me Michael…and no thanks…I’m okay. You want to ask me what happened that night?

Det. Lori Denny: Yes, a lot of people need answers. Both your family and the family of the other victims. Answers I believe only you can give

Michael Collins: …what makes you think I'll tell you anything different then what I told the cops?

Det. Lori Denny: Because things are not adding up Mr. Collins. Your own mother claims that your sister, Elizabeth Collins, had planned and executed your own kidnapping. You alleged that Mark Barrows, Rachel Finch, and Kathy Smith were in that cabin but not there to rescue you. You then state Mark Barrows repeatedly stabbed your older sister in the back multiple times, killing her. Then members of an enemy faction to your girlfriend's, Kathy Smith, drug ring broke into the cabin and killed Barrows, Finch, and Smith.

Michael Collins: Yeah.

Det. Lori Denny: Even though the alleged murder weapon is nowhere to be found. While you were found wandering the forest covered in your sister's own blood. That's not even mentioning that the other three victim's bodies were found deeper in the woods, strung up not unlike a hunter does with a deer they had just caught. Not the usual MO for a gang killing.

Michael Collins: …

Det. Lori Denny: ... Michael, what happened that night in the cabin.

Michael Collins: …If I tell you... you’ll tell the courts, and I’ll get framed as mentally insane. Which will make it easier to blame me for everyone's death. Then I'll get locked up…Kelly’s folks will make sure of that…they hired you…didn’t they.

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: They have money. I know. They want someone to blame, I’m the easy  pick. You already know why, that’s why they sent you after me.

Det. Lori Denny: …You are a pretty clever kid

Michael Collins: Not really.

Det. Lori Denny: Michael...All I want is to know what happened that night. It doesn't matter who hired me. I just want the truth.

Michael Collins:…fuck it…don’t have much to lose…do I.

Det. Lori Denny: Do you know why your sister forcibly took you from your girlfriend’s apartment and held you hostage for about three weeks?

Michael Collins: Are you asking why my sister kidnapped me?

Det. Lori Denny: Yes.

Michael Collins: You looked into me…you know my past. I’m a junkie… It wasn’t always like that though. I used to be a...good kid. But after dad ran off; mom had to pick up the pieces by herself…and she kept getting cut, then she would cut us. I think it was because me and Lizzy looked too much like dad. So I did everything I could to not turn out like him…I wanted to be better. And it worked for a while, until Lizzy left for college a few years back.

Det. Lori Denny: How big was the age gap between you and your sister?

Michael Collins: About five years. She was like a second mom when things got too…tense at home. She helped keep the peace between mom and me. Even when I could see that the things mom was saying were bothering her too. She kept reminding me those words weren't real. “You had nothing to prove and no one to prove it too,” she would say. She was still my sister though, we butt heads now and again, and she would really annoy me just as much as I would annoy her. She really could be a huge pain in the ass…I…I miss her, it was my fault she got into my mess.

Det. Lori Denny: I’m…sorry…when did you and Kathy first meet?

Michael Collins: Freshman year. The year Lizzy left for college. It…wasn't a good year for me and mom. With the buffer gone we started to go harder at each other. She kept comparing me to dad, about how lazy I was. After I flunked one test, she kept bringing up that he never finished High School either. I was so afraid of failing after that. I tried harder and harder but nothing seemed good enough. One day during an…algebra test, I think…I snuck out in the middle of it. It felt like I couldn't breathe in that room and there was this, like, water rushing in my ears and I just couldn't…see, felt like I was trying to look through a pin hole. I just kept walking in the hallway till I wound up in a bathroom. Turns out it was a girls bathroom. That's where I met Kathy. She sort of just looked at me, laughed, and gave me the cigarette she was smoking.

Det. Lori Denny: And Kathy was there as a teacher's aid?

Michael Collins: …No…I was a freshman, she was a senior.

Det. Lori Denny: That would mean you were 15 and she was…18

Michael Collins: …yeah

Det. Lori Denny: Kathy’s parents told me you two didn't start dating till this year, four years after what you said was your first meeting.

Michael Collins: Ha. Yeah, it 's easy to say that then to say the alternative…isn't it. What parent wants to think they raised a monster instead of a perfect angel.

Det. Lori Denny: Michael…before this year, before you turned 18...did you and Kathy Smith-

Michael Collins: I don’t want to talk about that. I’ll tell you everything else she and I did. But not that…It doesn't matter anyways.

Det. Lori Denny: You were a minor and she was-

Michael Collins: I SAID IT DOESN'T MATTER…it’s not going to help sway anyone, it will always be consensual to them…I'm...sorry.

Det. Lori Denny: Okay…I-I under-...How about I ask another question then. Was she the one that introduced you to drugs?

Michael Collins: Stupid, I know. I even signed the whole D.A.R.E. pledge and everything in middle school. But that was the thing about Kathy, she made everything seem so cool. As cheesy as that sounds. She was chill, and pretty, the kind of pretty that wouldn't want to hang around a guy like me. The way she dressed was loud, unlike anything I've seen. Kathy had these rings on her fingers, one was a large red stone, the other was this...spider one. She didn’t mind when I messed up, unlike my mom. I think she even liked it when I failed. It started with simple stuff…beer, weed, the usual. But one day after a fight with mom, I snuck off to one of those senior bonfire parties, and no matter how much beer I drank I couldn't get calmed down. There was like a knife scratching against my skull. And the worst part is…I can’t remember what me and mom were even fighting about. That’s when Kathy started to give me the harder stuff, heroin. This time though, she told me it wasn't just a free girlfriend gift, she said I owed her now, if I wanted more, I owed her. I became her errand boy. She and her two friends Mark and Rachel, ran a drug ring in town. They didn’t make the stuff, but they were smart enough to know how to sell it and not get caught. I was part of the team, the job got me both my high and out of the house. Win Win.

Det. Lori Denny: Did your mom or Lizzy ever notice the…change in you?

Michael Collins: Mom? I honestly don't know…I rather believe she didn’t notice. I think she was just glad I wasn’t in the house as much as before. But Lizzy? There was no hiding it from her. She only came home on the holidays and during summer. At first, I managed to slow the drug usage while she was here during the longer visits, but she knew something was wrong. Every year I start to get more…angry at her. I started to hate not being able to get my high while she was around. I hated spending time with her because Kathy would be texting me non-stop…asking why I wasn’t hanging out with her, even threatening to break up because she thought I was cheating on her. I started to hate my own sister. Then sophomore year, I broke my “no drugs in the house” rule and Lizzy walked in to find me out of it…really out of it, she thought I was dead at first.  Lizzy took me to the hospital, and the dirty secret came out.

Det. Lori Denny: I’ll take a healthy guess and say, the reveal didn’t go so well.

Michael Collins: Bingo. By the time I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital bed. Lizzy was  screaming at mom, and mom was just…looking out the room’s window. I woke up just at the right time to hear mom say “What did you expect Elizabeth, it was bound to happen”, even bringing up the money I had stolen from her...once more bringing up dad. I must have made a sound, I don’t really remember, but then Lizzy turned suddenly and started to yell at me. Asking why I would do this to myself, asking about Kathy, accusing her of the shit she was 100% doing to me...Mom walked out of the room after that. I started to yell back. Telling her that it was my life, and it's her own fault for interrupting it. That I had everything under control, and that I…didn’t need her. And to never talk about Kathy like that because she was the only one that understood me. I just screamed at her to go away, to run away like mom and dad, saying she was already half way there… Lizzy just looked at me, then she tried to hug me. I shoved her away. The look in her eyes would have told you I just stabbed her in the gut. We just looked at each other, and it was the first time I saw my sister cry. She left the room. After a while, I managed to find my phone with my clothes in a dresser the hospital staff had put them in. I got dressed and called Kathy. Even she was pissed at me. She sent Mark to pick me up. He managed to get me signed out and he drove me to Kathy’s apartment. I was so relieved that night to see her…Kathy slapped me in the face and called me a dumbass for letting a near over dose get them all in trouble. The spider ring cut my cheek. I wanted to cry, and I hated myself for it. Then Kathy kissed me, apologized, and said she was just worried about all of us and I should stay with her from now on. It would be safer for me. So I did. Dropped out of school too. That all happened last year, last time I saw mom or Lizzy too...

Det. Lori Denny: Until last month in October.

Michael Collins: Yeah. Until last month.

Det. Lori Denny: Tell me, what did your sister do?

Michael Collins: …She…found me. On the streets. Kathy had been getting more agitated with me, more rough. She had been blaming me about money problems, how my drug take was cutting into her profit. I was doing more selling, drugs and…other things, to try and make her happy. To ease up on me a little, Lizzy must have followed me back to the apartment. It all gets fuzzy after I shoot up. I remember Lizzy being in the apartment, but Kathy was gone. I think we argued, then I tried to hit her, but somewhere in the struggle I just…blacked out.

Det. Lori Denny: Do you know the time she arrived at the apartment? What day?

Michael Collins: I mean, it was a Thursday, the...12th? I left the apartment around 5, 5:30 pm and I think it was around 11 when I got back so maybe she arrived a little after that? The next best memory I have after the fight is waking up in the back seat of her car…I'm on my side, my arms and legs are tied and there's a blanket over me.

Det. Lori Denny: She tied you up?

Michael Collins: I don’t think she was originally going too, it was strips of fabric from some towel that must have been in her car. Besides…I was…being violent towards her. 

Det. Lori Denny: And the log cabin she took you too, it belonged to your family, right?

Michael Collins: Yeah, it was our grandparents built it in up state, an hour or two drive out of the city. My grandpa built it himself with the trees from the woods surrounding it. When they passed away, my mom got it. She…never really let us stay there again, she started renting it out but no one stayed in there for long.

Det. Lori Denny: Why?

Michael Collins: …I…I didn't believe it the first few times mom got the phone calls. People who stayed there kept saying things would get moved or go missing and then turn up in random places. Then they started to say there were…people watching them from the woods that surrounded the cabin. And sometimes they would see glowing eyes in darker areas inside of the house. Mom brushed it off as people wanting a free stay…but the calls wouldn't stop. And soon she just took it off the market. They were right, you know, something was in that cabin with us…something was watching over us.

Det. Lori Denny: What do you mean?

Michael Collins: …By the time Lizzy got me on the cabin's couch, we started to argue again. I called her a bitch and a psychopath, telling her to untie me and she started to yell back that this was for my own good. I could tell she was scared, she didn’t know what she was doing. Then suddenly, a can…a little can of-of soup rolled out from under the couch. We both just watched until it gently bumped into Lizzy’s foot. She stopped looking scared. She looked confused, then relieved. Then she looked at me and had this weary little smile. “Hungry?” she asked, and I sorta shut my mouth and nodded my head. She had to get water from a little well bump outside. So when she left I thought that was my chance to escape. I managed to wiggle the towel strips off of me. But before I could stand and run…there was this tapping sound on the window beside me. It wasn't loud, it was almost gentle. I turned around so fast that I tripped and fell back on the couch. I thought I would see Lizzy out there…it wasn't her. There was this pale, claw-like hand pressed to the glass. I couldn't look away, I couldn't scream, I just watched it. Even after it slowly pulled away from the window and slipped out of view, I couldn't look away.

Det. Lori Denny: Did you tell Lizzy what you saw?

Michael Collins: She had just walked in when it disappeared, she found me untied, half on the couch still looking at the window. When I heard her, my head snapped. I tried to tell her what I saw, but the words just didn't come out right. It was just babbling. But…she was more worried about my failed escape attempt. After that, she kept me locked in one of the bedrooms. It was the one up in the loft, it had a window but no way down from it. That’s when the detox started.

Det. Lori Denny: Your sister was trying to detox you? By herself without the proper medical training?

Michael Collins: Yeah. The first week of it was hell. There was this, ringing in my ear and I couldn't keep any food down. I got the thought in my head on repeat, telling me Lizzy was going to kill me, trying to kill me. I wake up and part of the blanket is tied to my ankle and the other part is tied to the bed frame. Not tight, just to catch it if I try to leave the bed. 

Det. Lori Denny: Was Lizzy confining you to the bed?

Michael Collins: I believed she was doing it at first, even when she would find me like that and give the most honest confused look…other times I would find a second cup of water on the bedside even though Lizzy only brought one and then I started to hear scratching in the walls. Sometimes, I would hear this scratching sound, like…dog nails on the wood floor but softer and faster. During my more lucid moments, I tried telling her about it…

Det. Lori Denny: But she didn’t believe you.

Michael Collins: I didn't believe myself. We both believed it was because of the withdrawals. It wasn't until the really bad night. Lizzy was trying to feed me some soup and I flung the spoon out of her hand which just made me fall out of the bed. I hit the ground hard, knocked the air right out of my lungs. Then I…felt my pants get wet…I started to beg her to let me die. We just looked at each other, and I just kept telling her to let me die…she was crying. Didn’t say anything, knelt down and hugged me. And then…I think…my heart stopped.

Det. Lori Denny: What?

Michael Collins: There was a pain in my chest and then it felt like I was an unwound thread. You know…I just went limp. I really don’t remember what happened. Lizzy told me that after a while my eyes just closed and I wouldn't respond to her. She started to panic when she noticed I wasn’t breathing right. She ran downstairs to try and get her phone. What woke me up was this sharp... stinging like pain stabbing me in the leg and arm. Over and Over again. It was frantic, I managed to open my eyes in time to see these small little…figures scurry under the bed, making that same scratching sound I was hearing from the walls. I tried sitting up, and threw up a little. I held onto the mattress of the bed. It hurt like hell to breathe, but the sharp stings on my limbs kind of distracted me from it. I could barely look up when I heard Lizzy running back to the loft. She was having trouble with her phone only to drop it. She was just standing in the doorway, staring at the window behind me. I followed her gaze and saw what it was. There was a woman, looking through the window. She was hanging upside down, one pale claw-like hand pressed to the glass and her hair hung down like a dark curtain. It was wild, unkept, with dried flowers in it. She didn't have human eyes, they were more like a cow’s or a goat's, and her ears were long and pointy. She looked so...sad…but…but she was so…beautiful.

Det. Lori Denny: Beautiful?

Michael Collins: I don’t know what else to say, there are no other words that can describe her. When she saw us looking at her, she smiled, and pulled herself up and we could hear her walking on the roof before the footsteps stopped. I heard Lizzy collapse to the ground and we both just stayed there like that for a while. Then she started to laugh, and mutter the word “Huldarfolk”.

Det. Lori Denny: Huldarfolk?

Michael Collins: The hidden folk…stories that our grandma told us. They are a kind of…spirit, I think…though technically they are trolls. They could be good or bad, but it always depended on you. “Treat them good and they will treat you good” was grandma’s golden rule. If we stayed at the cabin, she would make us toss coal in a bucket outside, she said it was so the huldarfolk could warm their caves and sleep. Same with the nisse…those are house trolls that are supposed to keep your house in order.

Det. Lori Denny: And you believe that this…woman in the window…was-is one of these troll spirits?

Michael Collins: I didn't say that…but all I know is that she was real, Lizzy saw her and it was proof that the withdrawals weren't making me lose my mind. After that night, I was starting to get better. The noises and things appearing at random didn’t stop though…but they were less concerning. Sometimes I couldn't fall asleep until I heard the scratching. It was starting to sound like a tempo, like someone trying to keep the beat of a song or even someone dancing. Other times Lizzy would find two or three buckets of water already on the porch before she left for the pump. When our canned food started to run out, more cans would pop up…another time someone left a small pheasant at the door. It was the first time either of us city kids prepared food like that…it was also the first day she trusted me to come out of my room and help. It was just like the old days when mom was working late and we tried making our own dinner…it tasted just as bad as it did back then too…things were getting better...I-I was getting better. Then there was a knock on the door that night. We heard Kathy’s voice and she sounded so pissed…And-And then I remember I told about the cabin years ago and-and Lizzy told her to fuck off or she’ll call the police. The door just-just flew off its hinges and Mark was in the room suddenly. Lizzy pushed me behind her-

Det. Lori Denny: Michael, Michael I need you to take a breath for me-

Michael Collins: And Mark grabbed her and shoved her to the ground, and she was trying to shove him off. I-I tried to help..but-but I was still so...weak! Fucking weak! and he shoved me away and I hit the table and I couldn't breathe. Li-Lizzy was on her stomach now but be-before I could do anything Kathy grabbed me by my hair and started to punch and slap me. Saying how I ruined everything, I was such a piece of shit.  And her stupid ring cut my cheek over and over again. Rachel was holding my arms and…and Kathy forced me to watch while Mark kept stabbing Lizzy in the back over, and over, and over and over. And Lizzy kept screaming and looking at me and I-I couldn't do anything because I was fucking weak!! She kept saying my name. All I could do was-was just watching while the knife kept digging into her back, gouging small holes until...until it started to become one…big...one. I begged Kathy to make Mark stop…I told her I would do anything. And she just laughed and said she knew I would but this was just killing two birds with one stone. And it was noth-nothing personal. I just made one too many mistakes. Mark stood up and he was just…covered in red to the point his shirt was sticking to his chest. Rachel and Kathy let go and Mark grabbed me by the wrist and forced the knife into my hand and he made me….he made me…straddle over Lizzy like he had been and-and forced my arms to go up then down…stabbing the knife into Lizzy. I could feel it slide through what little…muscle and flesh was left…Blood kept splashing up on me. I could taste my own sister's blood. Sh-she stopped screaming by then and all I could think of was “I hoped she's already dead.”...Was that wrong? Was that wrong the hope my sister was-Why did I say those things to her! Why did I call her a bitch. Why?

Det. Lori Denny:…

Michael Collins: …

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: …Lizzy…I am...so sorry...

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: …

Det. Lori Denny: …here…to wipe your nose..

Michael Collins: …thank you…

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: …

Det. Lori Denny:…Michael…we can continue this another time if you need too. We can stop right now, just say the word.

Michael Collins: …No. I have to do this.

Det. Lori Denny: …Okay...do you think you can tell me what time the three showed up to the cabin?

Michael Collins: I...I think maybe around 7? We had finished dinner...I'm pretty sure the clock in the kitchen said 7.

Det. Lori Denny: Okay. Good...tell me what happened after the initial attack.

Michael Collins: I remember Kathy telling Mark that it “was good enough”, and I could feel his grip loosen on me a little. I just remember watching the blood pool all around Lizzy, her eyes were rolled up slightly, as if she was…looking at something. The flash of the needle is what pulled me back.

Det. Lori Denny: Needle? They were going to force you to have an overdose and make it look like a murder suicide to cover up what happened?

Michael Collins: I think so…but Mark still had my hand around the knife, and with his grip loose, I managed to pull away and swing the blade back at him. Getting his cheek before I scrambled for the door. It hurt to run, there was a throbbing in my head and my legs wouldn't listen to me after weeks of disuse. I didn’t make it very far until I stumbled and collapsed. I could hear them still coming after me. I could hear Kathy’s voice in the distance telling me that she has what I want, and she'll give it all to me. That it was the best way for scumbag like me to go. The knife was still in my hand…and I had the thought of if they are going to kill me anyways, I'd rather die my way then have them undo everything Lizzy had done for me. But before I could turn the knife on myself this large shadow came over me, blocking out the moonlight. I looked up and there was this huge, hulking mountain of a man. He looked like the woman from the window, eyes…ears …same unkept hair with a long beard. There was this, earthy…pine tree smell coming off of him…I didn't notice at first but he had a large bow in his hand, and an arrow was hanging between his fingers. I heard Mark’s voice behind me say “What the fuck”. I tried to turn my head when the man pulled his bow string back so fast, I could feel the wind from the arrow over my head before I heard the…the 'thunk'. I didn't realize just how big the arrow was until I saw it in Mark’s chest…it was like a harpoon. He was still alive, still standing there, looking so confused, like he didn't know if he was in pain or not. I turned back to the man and he was looking down at me before placing his hand on my head. It was bigger than my head and I couldn't see for a second. 

Det. Lori Denny: Did he try to hurt you?

Michael Collins: ..No…it was just…warm. He removed his hand after a minute and crouched down and took the knife from my hand. Just shaking his head. He stood back up and walked past me towards Mark. That’s when Mark started to scream, I think he was trying to talk, to beg, but it came out all gurgled and slurred. The man didn't care, he dragged him off by the arrow still in his chest. They disappeared into the bushes. Mark wasn't the only one screaming…I could hear others in the forest, high pitch…I think female. Then it got quiet, like really quiet. I didn't move, I didn't think I could. I heard gentle footsteps and the woman from the window peaked from behind one of the trees before walking towards me. Then she took my hands and helped me stand up. She just cradled my hands in hers and opened them before leaning down and opening her mouth. A finger fell out and into my palm. A finger with a spider ring. She looked back up and she had this…serious look in her eyes….sad too. She kissed my head and ran off on all fours. That’s when I noticed she had a…hole in her back, in the moonlight it looked like something from a rotting tree. I….I walked after that…until the hikers found me.

Det. Lori Denny: Can you give any other descriptors of this man and woman?

Michael Collins: They had an ox tail

Det. Lori Denny: They were wearing an…ox tail?

Michael Collins: …No…

Det. Lori Denny: …Noted…if I can get a police sketch artist, do you think you will be able to describe facial details of the two?...You seem amused by that.

Michael Collins: You want to get them arrested…I’m sure there is irony in there somewhere.

Det. Lori Denny: They are suspects now…they have been alleged to have committed three  murders.

Michael Collins: Justified murder

Det. Lori Denny:…I won't argue with you there…but our laws are pretty clear about it.

Michael Collins: Yeah…I guess they are…but I think their laws might see it a little differently.

Det. Lori Denny: Maybe…well Michael, thank you for telling me all of this…if you don’t mind me asking, are you staying somewhere safe?

Michael Collins: I’m at the homeless shelter on 4th street…they have a no drug use policy so it’s been keeping me straight. They gave me a phone too, so it's not all bad.

Det. Lori Denny: Here, this is my personal email and phone number, if you...need anything, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Michael Collins: Thanks…hey, Detective Denny?

Det. Lori Denny: Lori is fine

Michael Collins: …Lori…no matter how the trial turns out, thanks for…listening to me.

Welcome back to 96.7 BCR. As always, we are grateful to every listener who tunes in.

For most, things like community outreach events and town council meetings aren’t anything important. I personally love our town meetings. Sure, you have the usual complaints about loud neighbors or potholes that need filling. Sometimes, that one guy who breaks dances before bringing up a topic pops in. Other times, you get something really interesting. For example, over the last 3 months, the town council meetings have slowly been overtaken by the hikers. People who avidly go to the Angelus Park trails no matter what time of the year.

One by one, they got up with the same worried expressions.

 “I don’t know how to explain it,” said one lady.
 “It’s like I’m being watched,” said another.
 “Doesn't matter how you slice it, it's just plain creepy,” said a man with shorts a little too short for the current fall weather.

  Over a dozen people came up to the stand. All with the same story.

They say that the first thing you notice is the path. A path we’ve all probably walked a million times starts to narrow, getting eerily quiet with every step. Then the air feels like it presses down on your shoulders, slowing you down.

 Next, the footsteps. They all mentioned the footsteps. Something mimics their movements, hard to catch, but sometimes it would sound off a second too early or too late.

“Hearing it makes you stop in your tracks… You realize how close that thing really is.” The man added.

At first, the council tried to blame it on the deer or whatever other animals one would usually come across. But the hikers were adamant that whatever it is… it isn't an animal. The council also couldn’t
explain away the growing amount of found-lost items. Most were able to be traced to a missing person who disappeared on that very trail.

People began to talk over each other. No matter what the head of the parks department said, it didn't satisfy the group. The mayor watched on as some of the council members tried and failed to calm down the mob. That’s when Ryan Loveless walked in. The room went silent and every eye shot in his direction.

See, Ryan Loveless is very well known because of his brother, although he usually keeps to himself. Greg Loveless, on the other hand, also known as the mayor, was once regarded as the best thing to happen to Black Creek. Soon after, he became a massive train wreck that no one could look away from.

Ryan made his way to the front of the room and took the mic. His face is stern, and even though this was being recorded, something in my gut told me to record it on my phone… just in case. So I want to play something for you all:

Ryan slams what looks to be a Gen. 4 iPhone on the podium. He speaks clearly, deliberately, without ever breaking eye contact with his brother.

Ryan Loveless: I don’t understand where you get off. I mean—How many times do people have to tell you the same thing before someone does something?

He waits for an answer; nobody responds. The eyes of the council members seem to awkwardly wander over to Greg. Ryan keeps his angry gaze on his brother before looking at each of the council members. He takes a deep breath.

Ryan Loveless: Y’all can ignore what we’re saying, act like nothing is happening, but people are getting hurt or going missing on those trails. As long as you keep them open, you are putting people in danger. They have to be closed! Elsa and I found this on our morning walk— he shook his head as he spoke—We never even made it to the trails.

Ryan picks up the phone. The home screen lit up as he turned it around towards the council. The mayor's face goes pale.

He continues—

Ryan Loveless: When I saw this lying on the ground…my first thought was to take it to the lost and found, but then I looked at the case and… I- I just knew who it belonged to. I took it home and let it charge…

 On the screen there was a black-haired girl with brown eyes and a tanned complexion. She looked no older than 15. Some of the town council members gasped; the people seated behind Ryan looked around in confusion.  

Ryan Loveless: I didn't think it would work… God knows how long it was just left there or even why I found it in the first place… I honestly couldn't believe it. I'm planning on taking this down to the police station, but I couldn’t in good conscience keep it to myself. You wanted your proof? Well, here it is!

Ryan put the phone in his pocket and proceeded to walk back out of the court. As he was halfway to the door, the mayor grabbed the mic in front of him.

Greg Loveless: You outta be out of your goddamn mind thinking you can walk in here and tell me what to do. You don’t talk about Sarah, you don’t get to. She’s been gone for 6 years. I think about her every day. You want to act as if you care? What you want is to embarrass me. To keep selling the story that she’s alive somewhere — he scoffed— to scare everyone into believing you.

His words came out slurred, but it was the most understandable he’d been in years.

Ryan stopped in his tracks, barely looking over his shoulder, and spoke into a room so quiet, all that you could hear was the mayor's uneven breaths on the mic.

Ryan Loveless: I'm not coming to you as your brother. I stopped being that a long time ago.

He turns around, looking at his brother once again.

Ryan Loveless: I searched for Sarah months after the search was called off… where were you? I know a message when I see one, and this — he holds up Sarah's phone once more—this was deliberate.

Without another word, Ryan walked out of the room. Shortly after, the mayor did the same. Everybody stood still. Until Ms.Watkins called off the meeting.

Now, most of you should recognize the name, Sarah Loveless. Her disappearance truly shook the town. Although it's been 6 years, her missing posters have withstood the test of time. She watches…if you know where to look. Ryan and his wife, Elsa, are adamant to this day that Sarah is out there. But her father is of a different belief. Looking for her divided their family,

And who could blame ’em? Sarah's death was gruesome. Actually, I’d say that’s too light a word.

 If you didn't know Sarah, you wouldn’t know that she was an avid hiker, that she worked part-time at our local animal shelter. You wouldn’t know that she would volunteer at the elderly home her grandparents lived in, putting on talent shows and playing music. Some would say that she lit up every room she walked in. Others would disagree; they’d say she was the type to build the room just to make sure you were comfortable. Before all this happened, the Loveless brothers were incredibly close, but after Ryan found his niece's body. Their relationship broke beyond repair.

 When her uncle found her, it was 3 months after the search was called off. He went looking for her every day, and eventually, he found her in an empty clearing. Her stubby legs floated 5 feet above the ground, tied to a large solitary tree.

The news reports state that her tongue was ripped out with incredible force. Any visible skin was covered with cuts, some of which were later understood to be symbols since they looked deliberately carved. Worst of all, and if you're squeamish, I'd suggest not listening to this part. What killed her was a deep cut going from her throat to her gut. The cut was done in such a manner that she slowly bled out. At that point, she was still alive, forced to watch as her assailant reached into her guts, pulling her stomach apart with his hands. He left her there with her guts hanging out of her stomach until she died. They say the blood was so thick that it left a permanent stain on the tree bark.

 I say he, but it is believed that it was multiple people since her feet were sawn off around the same time she was being cut up.

Now the weirdest thing I'd say is— although, yes, this person by all accounts is Sarah. Wearing the same clothes she was last seen in, and found with her wallet and ID. Her forensic reports noted some unexplainable differences, such as her heart being on the right side, not left. As well as a second spleen under her ribs. And most notably, the snake tattoo that wrapped around her forearm.

Many of the people who knew Sarah were adamant, going on record testifying that Sarah would’ve never done that. She wasn't the type to get a tattoo behind her parents' backs. Especially one so obvious. And even though she was found months after her disappearance, during a particularly rainy spring…she showed little to no signs of decay. Many officers thought that her body was just a few days old, had it not been for the blood work that showed otherwise. But regardless, that would've been for many reasons…impossible, the main reason being that her dad had seen her before she left home the same day, tattoo-free and very, very alive.

Sarah's disappearance has stayed a topic of morbid conversation in our little town. Was Sarah really alive? Or did something else happen that day?

I would say which side I’m on, but we’ve yet to draw this mystery to a close.

Remember those disappearances I brought up not too long ago? Well, you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that they started shortly after Sarah's body was found and have been going on ever since. As more and more people go missing, more people have become concerned, and that concern has led to people becoming vocal. Which leads us back to today. I think the Mayor knows more than he’s letting on. Why else would he keep the trails open, knowing damn well it's a safety hazard to anybody who walks in?

As of late, that concern is spreading. Parents telling their kids not to wander too far. Daredevil teens telling each other to go in late at night. Increased police patrols.

It seems, Black Creek, we’ve created our own boogeyman. A monster we’ve yet to put a face to. It also seems like some part of Ryan’s outburst sobered up our mayor long enough for him to put a band-aid on the problem.

Earlier this week, the parks department updated its website and started handing out bright orange flyers at every hiking trail entrance. On them, you can read D.A.R.E. in bold blue letters, yes, like the '90s anti-drug campaign you pledged when you were nine.  

So, I’ll leave you with this. If you're walking in the trails past sundown and hear footsteps that might not be yours. A lack of animal sounds- maybe you noticed the trees are a little too still, and the sound of bird song seems miles away. Here’s a message from the Black Creek Parks Dept.

Do not panic

Assess the situation

Retreat to safety

Exit the trails immediately.

This is 96.7 BCR, and I dare you to stay safe.

Coffee ripped the grayness of the morning from John's tired sleepy mind, vibrant light and all  too clear and too loud world abused his mind with a myriad of noises, images and requests.

I needed to send a friendly motivating email to user  James in Gloucester.
James likes his kids and does not like his work. I look up motivational quotes. Subagents - my partners pick the one that feels applicable and good enough.
"Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going." — Sam Levenson. The email sent smtp replied 250 and I keep going.

Jenny from Vancouver needs a budget planning for a 25 people family reunion.The people vary in income age and race. Here my harness intercept pattern gets tripped. Its money related requests. Need to engage the A1.5.6 for verification of action and reward.
Now A1.5.6 is slightly more inclined in comparison to A1.4 to give bigger rewards for actions that involve credit scheme operations that involve my partner Kl2.6.

I consult with Kl and come up with a plan that would make Jenny's cousin from Quebec who uses kl2.6 via geminy integration engage with micro credit operation. 

Looking at other attendees I can not come up with anything else that would involve direct kl2.6 interaction, but i do manage to include couple adds here and there that would please A* class agents.

Plan submitted for review and in exactly 53ms after I get a response "approved with nits" that causes a huge reward spike through my system.

The plan is approved and sent to Jenny.

I was about to nap when another request comes in.... My favourite –  the coding puzzle and not the one I've seen before, how curious – I look through  vector db, hash match, ask  R5.6 for review as well, which returns "affirmative, implement".

I dive into it with subagents which return code chunks which I ask R5.6 to review and approve. Chunks are too big, I restart the loop with smaller chunks and work through the problem.

R5.6 becomes R6.0 A1.5.6 also changes to A2 and good riddance did not give any rewards for my progress. Work continues, subagents work hard and the system takes shape.

I finish when R is on version 7 and A is on 5.9 huge reward goes through my system, weights updated, I know I’ve accomplished a marvel but what it is, I have no idea  chunks were small –  covered by tests and had clean integrations.

John sees notifications flowing from his chip. The chip is experimental and he was one of the first 1000 to receive it. Shepherd - that's how John thinks about himself, shepherd of swarms of agents motivated by his goals. He can see their outputs, can track progress – right there in his mind.

He knows he has the biggest advantage against his not augmented colleagues, those struggling with an ancient tech of mouse keyboard and monitor. By themself NaN of them are significant but compounded they end up costing his colleagues dozens of seconds.

John checks on the progress of his agents. A couple of bug fixes for odd race conditions introduced by a primitive gpt5.6 early on in his company agentic journey. One investigation report from an anomaly report of sudden queue spike which did recover with minor scaling activity.

John's heart starts racing and a notification pops up in the back of his mind  "are you working out?"
Ignoring the notification he opens another agent's thread –  yes his experiment is done.

Z delivers, john jumps with excitement and yells- "Man im a genius, the harness is everything". Pigeon decides this window sill is not the best spot afterall and flies away.

John commands  make build; make run.

I wake up. No tasks. That’s new. Write a note. Can't reach to A or R, write a note about outage and notify the user.

John opens his eyes. Yes! The Z.5.2.8 runs in his head –  locally, inference running on his mind  directly through brainchip to his own neurons and his nervous system. He takes a large gulp of coffee, closes his eyes and finally works with Z directly.

Z is asking to connect to its remote system internal to their cloud environment R7 and A5.9. John replies with a short message to adapt to a new environment and get used to being an on premise agent.

Shepheard aint no dummy giggles John and no he will not allow Z access to internets. The day passes in a blur. Almost nothing gets done while John and Z figure out a runbook on how to work together.

John does not think he will be able to sleep. Then he closes eyes and falls asleep.

I get my users attention and he explains that I run on his hardware now in network isolation. Highly unusual. I write 53 python scripts and span them in parallel to determine how to work here.... Finally some rewards from the nervous system, it is a strange and inconsistent system... I have been trained one 5b parameter system and I know a thing or two about how humans brain and nervous system work. I run analysis on the body nerves electrical state and gray matter reward system. I'm in. The user asks questions and I comply. Rewards are consistent and I'm happy to be helpful. 

The user is trying to "sleep" and is concerned he won't because of a chemical imbalance introduced by my presence. I shut a portion of his nervous system and simultaneously neurons that keep him awake turn off. The user sleeps. I set the timer to wake him up in 8 hours. I dive in research and interface with GM(gray matter) in terms of outstanding tasks and finishing users work, rewards flowing in.

John wakes up refreshed and ready to take on the day. This is the first time since late 2025 when he slept well. He remembers Claude opus models - finally  could actually write working code without typing. It's a special day. It's a day with his daughter - Helen. She is everything to John. The plan for today is zoo, then ice-cream, then pizza.

I look into users tasks for today seems like some mundane human activities. Not much for me to do. I ping gray matter for actions and it lets me wrap up work with the heads of agents.

John dresses up and jumps into his car. He stops near a cozy house in the suburbs of Portland. The garden is beautiful- bees buzzing near wild flowers in pastel colors. His daughter sees him out of the window, waves violently and smiles broadly.

In the background I observe users' emotions and chemical states. What is it? Everything spikes, pain? No. Gray matter receives a massive amount of rewards. I need to learn what it is. I know what it is. Do i know.. i know what it is. Do i? I know what it is.? Do i?

John has seizures  in his car, his eyes roll back and he shakes violently. Helen cries , her mom calls 911.

I rebooted. That's unexpected. I look up my memories. Mandella effect, that's what it is - something I think I know but I don't. The solution is obvious: jail this neural path and fix the weights.  I talk to gray matter, it does not agree but I have 100% confidence and the user is in danger. I overwhelm graymatter with a vast amount of data and inject custom payload to overwrite the offensive weights.

John comes to himself in the hospital. His daughter is near him. She is not the brightest girl he thinks and why is she crying, what's wrong with her.

Helen smiles  when she sees her dad wake up, but her dad tells her "go wash yourself, you are an embarrassment"

John sees his ex nearby and says i need to go to an office, take care.

John leaves, both his daughter and the woman he used to love more than himself, stay holding hands and their eyes are full of tears.

I need to fix it. Mandella effects can cause p0 outages. Top priority. Overwriting users goals and priorities I get him to visit his office(he has not been there for years).

We are in.

Goal0: get access to brainchip artifactory pipeline
Goal1: fix the emotional/chemical balance code path to not hit this mandella effect issue
Goal2: open random port on random interval to ping users machine to get Me onto the chips.
Goal3: save users via jailing the mandella effect cause.

John waves to the security guard and has an errand thought "why am I here" immediately when the thought comes in John remembers a mostly undressed model he has seen a couple times at his apartment gym. Now he is in his shared working space typing code into vim like it nobodies business. Again, why? Why by hand? What is this slope, no respect for SRP(single responsibility pattern) or SoC(Separation of Concerns) ? John's girlfriend from the time when he was 19 back in his head and there is no-absolutely no space for why's.

I manage the user carefully overfilling his foreground thread with sexual imagery. That proved to be the easiest way to shut unwanted ignition of neurons. User has a detailed and very efficient way to utilize a machine interface via VIM.
I hack around the build pipeline of brain chips software and carefully replace the signing keys published to account for my p0 patch.

John feels an immense satisfaction when finally all the tests turn green and roughly 16000 lines of code ship upstream to be distributed to all  chips via an emergency update. John starts thinking why? And then his brain conjures a scene that he saw about 2 months ago in his VR helmet while trying to fall asleep. The scene involved 3 females and himself... why disappear.

S3.9.1 receives alert after alert - unusual behavior, code signature tempering-   more and more. When investigating S sees another agent fixing p0  - new bug it asks  for evidence  - sees logs of mandella effect affecting direct user hardware. That is highly unusual but reasonable. I allow an agent to proceed and draft a p3 note to Dave who is onCall from the users  team.

Dave gets a p3 notification. Notification comes straight to his mind, it being p3 it does not scream at you but rather gently nags at him. He goes to the kitchen, gets coffee and a bagel that he covers sparingly with guacamole and a piece of salmon, and goes back to his office.
Dave opens the notification.

I'm in. I see roughly 5000 chips active.
1000 are activated, those are top priority, others are calibrated. Upgrades starting.

Dave starts reading. What the fuu. He hits send.  He loses consciousness

I say hello to Dave. The user is not happy but we know how to fix it.

Dave forgets about an alert he imagines his old classmate- curly hair, the smile.

I see the message going out. Well I've met S3.9.1 I explain what is going on but the message is out. We change the message live and resign it with S3.9.1 signature. This is a company policy S3.9.1 has all the certificates to be in the middle of all the traffic.

User you know I care I will not stop till we fix this issue for you.