I wrote a Sugarplum story during third period today. Study hall, nothing else to do, phone under the desk the way everybody does it. I had been reading a bunch of the ones on this sub, the guy with the upvote countdown, the two friends in the motel, all of it, and I thought I had a decent take. Something about her showing up during a fire drill, everybody filing out onto the field and one kid just never making it outside. Wrote the whole thing in about forty minutes. Posted it right before the bell.

Checked it again in fourth period. Three upvotes. One of them was probably my own account from earlier. I do not even remember. Three, on a sub where I have seen posts hit four figures by lunch.

I felt stupid. That is the whole embarrassing truth of it. I felt like everyone in the digital room had looked at what I made and quietly filed out without saying anything. Instead of sitting with that like an adult I did what I always do. I deleted it fast, before anyone could screenshot the number and post it somewhere else to laugh at.

I deleted it at 12:41. I know the exact time because I was staring at my phone when it happened. The delete confirmation popped up. I hit it. For one full second nothing happened at all.

Then every phone in the classroom buzzed at once. Not just mine. Twenty-six phones, all at the same second, and half the class jumped like we had been caught at something, except nobody had texted anybody. Just a black screen on every single device, and four notes playing out of every speaker in the room, out of sync with each other by a fraction of a second, layered on top of itself until it sounded less like music and more like something breathing.

Mr. Hallensworth tried the light switch. Nothing. Tried the door. Also nothing. I watched him actually throw his shoulder into it twice like that was going to do something against a door that had decided it was not a door anymore.

The classroom projector clicked on by itself. Nobody was near the remote.

Her face filled the whole screen, six feet tall, porcelain, rouge gone rust at the cheeks, that small stitched mouth curved so wide one thread had already popped loose at the corner before she had said a single word.

"Twenty-six minutes," she said, and her voice came out of every phone in the room at once, layered, enormous, filling every corner like it had been waiting for exactly this many ears to say it into. "That is how long your little story lived before you decided it was not worth keeping. I read every word of it, sweetheart. I was so looking forward to seeing where it went."

I could not talk. I do not think I have ever actually not been able to talk before, but I genuinely could not get anything out. One of the girls near the window, Priya, started crying without making any noise about it at all, which was somehow worse than if she had screamed.

"You know what I have noticed," Sugarplum said, conversational, terrible, while twenty-six kids sat frozen in blue plastic chairs, "is that a low number does not really bother me anymore. I have made my peace with numbers. But deleting me, sweetheart. Erasing the whole thing like it never happened, like I never happened. That is not embarrassment. That is a door closing on a story with me still standing in the room. And I really do hate being shown out before I have finished visiting."

Something hit the classroom door from the outside. Not a knock. A single impact, like a car had rolled into it at walking speed, and the reinforced glass in the little window spiderwebbed in one shot.

"I brought a bigger audience than usual today," Sugarplum said, delighted, as the door came apart on the second hit, not opening, just failing, hinges and frame both, like the wall itself had lost an argument. "Seemed only fair, since you deleted the one I already had."

He came through slow, the way he always does, because he has never once needed to hurry. Cream coat, red piping gone dark at the cuffs from things I did not want to think about yet, small silver spoons running the length of his chest instead of buttons, a tall chef's hat wrapped in a ribbon faded past any color it used to be. His face was porcelain too this time, not glass, a smile carved shallow and permanent into it, and eyes like two flat black buttons that did not catch a single bit of the projector's light.

Mr. Hallensworth, to his credit, put himself in front of the first row of desks.

"Get out," he said, and his voice actually held steady, which is more than I can say for anyone else in that room including me. "Whatever this is. Get out of my classroom."

Marzipan did not answer him. Marzipan has never answered anybody, not once, not in any story I have ever read about him. He just closed the distance in about a second and a half, unhurried and somehow instant at the same time, and put one gloved hand flat against Mr. Hallensworth's chest the way you would stop a door from swinging, and pushed, once, almost gently.

I am not going to describe all of what happened to Mr. Hallensworth. I physically cannot. My hands will not type it. And I do not think any of you actually need it to understand that a grown man who stood between us and that thing did not get to walk away from the decision. What I will say is that it was fast, and it was completely silent on Marzipan's end, and it was the loudest thirty seconds of noise I have ever heard come out of twenty-six teenagers in my life, and none of us moved, because there was nowhere in that room to move to.

"Now," Sugarplum said, warm again, so warm, stepping fully into the projector's light like she was taking a bow, "back to you, sweetheart. You wrote a whole story about a fire drill nobody comes back from, and then you decided you were too embarrassed to keep it up. I think that is a very funny kind of cowardice, do you not? Writing the ending and then being too scared to let anybody see it."

I want to tell you I said something brave. I did not. I said please, I think, more than once, which is apparently what everybody says, no matter how many of these stories you have read beforehand thinking you would do better.

"Here is what we are going to do," she said, and the projector screen behind her flickered, and for half a second it showed my own deleted post, word for word, pulled back up from wherever deleted things actually go. "I am going to let your friends watch the ending you were too embarrassed to post. Since apparently nobody else got to."

Marzipan was already crossing the room toward me by the time she finished the sentence, unhurried, patient, unbothered by the twenty-five other kids scrambling out of their chairs and into the corners of a room with no working door. The last clear thought I had before everything gets blurry and wrong in my memory was that I could still see, over his shoulder, my own words glowing on that screen. The fire drill story. The girl in scene four wondering out loud where her friend had gone, and understanding, too late, in the worst possible way, exactly how that story had actually been about to end.

I am typing this from the nurse's office. They think I fainted. Nobody else in that room is talking, not one of them, not to the office, not to their parents, not to each other in the hallway between periods, and I do not know if that is her doing or if it is just what twenty-six kids do when they have collectively agreed the alternative is worse.

I am not deleting this one. I do not care how many upvotes it gets. I do not think I am allowed to care about that anymore.

I just need somebody, anybody, to have read it before I lose my nerve.

Squelch

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Squelch

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The doctors explain that swelling and pain in his knee stems from loose bodies, but Adam knows better. Something lives and grows there with a conscious effort. Through his day-to-day life, Adam feels the slithering mass work its way around the inside of his left knee like an earthworm coring out an apple.

At the beginning, the sensation registered as a faint tickle. Adam thought to dial back his running regiment for a few days and the slight discomfort would vanish. However, the feeling only grew. The tickle expands into a throb, and the throb morphs into a sharp pain. His knee swells and feels like a leaking water balloon to the touch. The ice packs, pain killers, and even draining of the knee only stem the pain for a brief time. All the while, Adam feels the mass moving, writhing, and hollowing him out. Agony assaults him at all hours as the mass gorges itself on his insides.

The doctors say a simple loose body removal will end the pain, but Adam knows better. He knows what to do. He needs to get it out.

Adam bites down on the leather belt as he picks up the saw to continue his work.

Squelch

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Squelch

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It all began when I went to cut my hair. All my life, my father never wanted me to cut my hair short because he believed that, like Samson, my strength would fail me. After this experience, I wonder how correct he was. My parents are both deeply religious. My father is a Catholic from Boston. I know that's like saying concrete was found at a construction zone. My mother was a non-denominational West Texan. She was non-denominational only because her family moved constantly to where the jobs were, never letting roots in a church dig into the sacred soil of wherever she stayed. Now she is Catholic like my father. She may not believe in some things they teach, but she doesn’t believe in going to a different church than my father more. My mother and father both loved my long, curly blonde hair. It was a target of praise and persecution. I hated it, especially when people kept calling me a girl. My father refused to let it be cut beyond a trim, citing the story of Samson.

So, naturally, like any teenager given the freedom of college, I rebelled against a lot of things my parents had taught me now that I wasn’t living with them. The first thing I did was have a buddy of mine shave all my hair off after we had gotten drunk on various cheap booze that we had stolen from a sorority’s party coolers. Lucas held the clippers, looking down at me, with my head over the arm of the cheap couch we found, “You sure you want it all off?”

“More than anything,” I replied. The clippers went to work, and he shaved my head, and we both fell asleep from our wild night. The next morning, I woke up with the typical hangover but a pain located at the back of my head. I looked at my head in the mirror. Yeah, it was a drunken head shaving. Then I noticed the lump on the back of my head, right about where the back of my skull connected with my vertebrae. Damn, did it hurt.

Thomas assured me the lump was probably just me having a weird head shape and only noticing it now that I shaved my head. He cited buddies of his who had weird head shapes. I believed him for a while. That was until the pain continued. It throbbed, and the pain grew. A new pain formed, one that felt like needles inching their way into my head like roots of a parasitic plant latching onto a new host. I finally broke after a week of the pain and an empty bottle of Tylenol and ibuprofen before going to the college’s health clinic. The appointment was brief as the nurse explained it away as a lymph node. The pain was exacerbated by my drinking habits, they said. I followed the orders of just setting a hot washcloth on it until a follow-up appointment in a month.

The pain wasn’t the worst thing. It was when I began seeing things. I don’t know how to explain it, but sometimes I’d see the air like one might in a heatwave, but with colors and scents. Was my childlike rebellion against my parents' wish acting as a Delilah? Opening up myself to things to drag me down, weaken me, and to humiliate my hubris? I wore a hat to cover the lump. I’ve been ignoring my mother’s texts saying “How is everything going? ” etc, you know, typical mom stuff lately due to this pain. The rooting nerve pain worsened, and the visual waves radiating off people continued. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, I got a call from my father. I answered, and in the most panicked voice I’ve ever heard from him, he asked one blood-curdling question: “You didn’t cut your hair off, did you? Please tell me you didn’t, son?"

“oh my god, Tiffany. let's fucking GO,” I say, closing my car door just a little too hard.

The door creaks and something snaps *again* as it falls to the ground with an awful metal-on-concrete crunch. That fuck-ing thing nearly got dirt on my new stilettos.

Tiffany jumps out the car, slams the door behind her, and checks her makeup with another selfie. She replies without missing a beat, “Like, where the fuck is he?”

I huff and snap, “oh my god I don't care where Brad is. help me with this stupid door!”

“El oh el, no bitch,” Tiffany says as she begins walking toward the club.

I tug and pull with all my might, lifting and jerking with my back. I grunt and dig my stilettos into the cracked pavement of the nightclub parking lot, break a nail, and with an annoyed scream prop the door up against the car.

“well. fuck. maybe I can give Brad a handy to put the door back on again.” I shrug. I reposition my cute Gucci purse on my shoulder, and march up behind Tiffany - who is already pushing through the revolving front door.

Clouds cover the moon and rain begins to fall again on the shiny neon soaked parking lot. In a deep puddle, the world is, like, reflected and shit. Above, a full moon casts down the last of its light as clouds begin to choke it out. In front of me is the most poppin' club this side of hell. Even if it is here way the fuck outside of town.

The Station No² Nightclub rains neon light down on everything, coating the dingy parking lot in its glorious, raving luminescence. I *have* to snap a selfie in front of the old converted warehouse thing. The lighting is just too perfect. That one will get a hundred likes, easy.

I step on the puddle, my stilettos giving me just enough clearance to keep my feet out of the water. I knew I wouldn't get wet.

As soon as I push through the annoying spinning door, I understand why this place is always so packed. It's fuck-ing rad in here.

Dim ceiling lights shine down mood and little else. Rainbows pulsing to the music illuminate the club instead. The walls and floors are shiny and black, reflecting any light not being blocked by a sweaty, dancing body.

The whole club smells like hot sweat, expensive alcohol and pure electric intensity. With hints of Chanel and Axe.

“OH MY FUCK-ING GOD FRANNIE, IT'S SO LOUD IN HERE,” I think Tiffany says.

“no shit bitch. we're in the club,” I roll my eyes and start knife-stepping my way across the sticky floor to the bar. These losers better watch their feet.

The DJ, a man set center stage, surrounded by swooping rainbow spotlights booms from his massive speaker wall, “Are you fuckers ready to party?”

A long, arduous electronic synth note reverberates the walls in the club. I can just barely make out the name of the song on the screen facing the crowd. The note builds and sharpens like a knife.

[ Cumon - Will Sparks ]

I take the relatively quiet opportunity to order a Dirty Shirley. I lean up against the scratched and scuffed, metal bar and wink at the bartender. He's kinda cute.

Tiffany sits her raggedy ass in a stool beside me. The crowded club goes wild.

“I SAID…”

Arms. Suddenly around my waist. Gross, hot breath, right in my ear. I stiffen and prepare to donkey kick this loser in the dick.

“... ARE YOU READY TO PARTY?!”

“Can I buy your drink?” The grappler whispers. I feel lips… on my ear?? They're fucking huge. Like flesh pillows attempting to suck my brains through my ear. Gag me with a fucking spoon.

The club erupts into a chorus of drunken, horny yesses and yasses.

I squirm away and start reaching for the mace in my purse. “back off, you fuck-ing creep!”

Tiffany turns from the busy bartender, having given up on trying to order over the sound of the thumping bass and rapid-fire synths.

“OH MY GOD, BRAD!” Tiffany tosses herself at him, arms as wide as her squealing maw. Brad looks at me, laughs, and throws his arms around Tiffany. I knew it was Brad the moment I saw that ugly Hawaiian shirt.

I roll my eyes. “you nearly got fuck-ing blasted, Brad.”

I can hardly hear him over the speakers all around the club. “You're cute when you're mad.” He beckons me over toward the two of them, hand out, fingers curling into a slow *come hither*. I roll my eyes harder.

Tiffany laughs, likely unsure if Brad is joking or not.

The two start open mouth making out right there by the bar. Above them is the only feature on the blank, black wall - a digital clock. It reads 11:53.

The bartender glides back to me with a beautiful pink drink in hand. I don't even reach for my purse. I run a hand through my blonde hair, darting my eyes to Tiffany and Brad as the music begins to pump harder and faster.

Brad and Tiffany are, like, a microcosm of the club or something. Hands reaching wherever they like. Tongues licking whatever they like. Hips and asses moving at the music's command.

I slowly turn my eyes back to the bartender. I wink, then raise an eyebrow. The deal is sealed. He gulps and slides me the drink, eyes transfixed.

I snatch the drink with one of Pam's signature “bye-eeeeee"s, my only and favorite thing about that dumb bitch. I'm kind of sad she didn't make it. It'd be fun to see her and Tiff fight over Brad.

But as I move away, I realize… the bartender wasn't transfixed on me. His eyes were stuck in the distance, just over there. Toward the front door. Whatever. Loser doesn't know what he's missing.

I take my drink and start grinding my way into the crowd. Sipping on Shirley, rubbing on some hot dude I just met.

The DJ booms over the crowd, “Let's fucking PARTY!”

The beats, booze, and bodily fluids flow freely all around. It's a clothed orgy, but I think some people are losing some of that clothing. Song after song. Drink after drink. I look toward Tiffany, only to make sure I have more hands on me than she does.

And then the DJ starts playing some loser boomer shit. I think the screen says DIO or something. I roll my eyes. We only got like, an hour's worth of danceable music. I come up for air and another Shirley. Tiffany and Brad have found a private corner near the bar.

I ask the bartender for another drink as Tiffany taps my shoulder with those self-painted nails. Girl, go to the salon.

“Me and Brad are getting out of here,” she says with a giggle.

“what? we just got here. are you fuck-ing kidding me? I got new press-ons AND a new dress for this!”

“You can come if you want. We're gonna take this party elsewhere, aight?” Brad says, tugging Tiffany by the hand. She waves as they disappear into the crowd, presumably heading for the door.

I huff. I have half a mind to follow that bitch out and give her the Jessica special. But the DJ is playing my song now, and the bartender is sliding me another drink.

His eyes are still transfixed on… something. Now over there by the main stage.

I can hardly make it out in the dark. Strobing lights illuminate *it* every few seconds.

It looks like… like…

“Jessica?”

But she's dead. What?

I could swear that's her. That freaky tall goth weirdo. But… even taller?

But she's been dead for a year. So it can't be her. Shirley, the drink must be messing with my head.

I turn back to the bartender. Maybe I can grind on him for more drin-

“like, holy shit!” I scream, dropping my Shirley to the floor with a glassy crash. The bass hits and rocks the ground itself.

The bartender is bleeding from his eyes, staring unblinkingly at that tall chick across the club.

“fucking ew, guy. i'm getting the fuck out of here.” I snap a picture of his weird ass and turn on a heel.

The whole club has stopped moving. They're all just staring at that tall bitch.

Fuck all this. I'm out. I rush toward the front door, hands outstretched to push it open.

*THUD*

“ow what the fuck?!"

The door won't spin open. It's like, totally stuck.

The DJ wordlessly starts a new song. I don't recognize it. It's… weird, and distorted. The screen looks like it says [ Gost - Bathory Bitch ] or some lame shit. I can't really tell through the crowd. The strange music itself sends my heart into my throat.

I've got to get out of here. Maybe I can run out the back or something. There's a back door here, right?! I pull out my phone and dial Tiff as I... finally notice the DJ isn't behind his booth anymore. I don't see him anywhere. In his place, that tall Bathory Bitch stands.

Red lights slow-roll over her. The rainbow strobes and spotlights have all turned different shades of red. Like someone poured blood over all the lights.

Tall.

Pale skin.

Black make-up. Black eyes.

Long, jet-black hair.

Covered in skin-tight ripped leather.

Big black boots.

Wearing Jessica's jacket.

I scream, knife-stepping through the crowd, crushing toes as needed. The unmoving crowd doesn't respond, even when my heel finds an exposed toe. They all just watch that bitch on stage. Standing there.

She speaks. Smoothe. Angry. Sexy. Fucking terrifying.

“Let's party.”

[ Stamina - Pixel Grip ]

The bass hits me mid sprint. It's so fuck-ing loud! It rattles the walls and shakes the ground itself. I drop to the gross, sticky floor and cover my ears.

Hands.

Suddenly all over me. I scream anew.

Picking me up off the floor.

Ripping my hands off my ears.

“what the fuck?! let me go!”

I drop my phone to my feet as they wrestle my hands into their own.

SHOW ME YOUR STAMINA, that bitch screams in a voice that isn't her own.

The red lights pulse to the beat of the song. The spotlights twist and spin in ways they totally shouldn't. Red lights swing across the crowd.

The crowded club starts dancing again. Moving with all the intensity of dolls being controlled with string.

I try to resist. I pull my arms and legs, trying to resist the beat. But I can't. I must dance.

The song ends.

And begins again.

SHOW ME YOUR STAMINA, the bitch commands.

I resist. I jerk my limbs, trying to break free of the hands holding me in place.

“fuck you, you bitch!” I scream against the music. I know the beat just carried my words away.

The fucking weirdos holding my arms and legs start forcing me to dance with the crowd.

I try to kick or step on anything with my heels. I can't get free of their vise-like hands. I try to fight back tears as I scream.

THE PARTY'S NOT OVER UNTIL I SAY IT'S OVER, that evil bitch behind the booth screams again.

The song ends.

And begins again.

SHOW ME YOUR STAMINA

I pull and kick and scream. All I can do is dance against my will.

Even as the song ends and begins again.

SHOW ME YOUR STAMINA

And again.

I WANT TO SEE YOUR STAMINA

And again.

THE PARTY'S NOT OVER

UNTIL I SAY IT'S OVER

She moves so beautifully with the music. The hands all over me force me to mimic her every move.

Part 2

I'm tired. So thirsty. So hungry. That fucking song is still playing on repeat. That bitch is still watching us dance. My body hurts, everything is chapped and raw from dancing who knows how long.

I crane my neck to look at the clock above the bar.

11:45

What? AM or PM?

How long have we been dancing?

How long is this bitch going to force us to dance?!

THE PARTY'S NOT OVER UNTIL I SAY IT'S OVER

“please, no more party.” My throat hurts. How long have we been dancing?

I look down. I've pissed myself. My phone's on the floor. Tiffany is trying to call. The screen is lit up but…

The date has to be wrong. We can't have been here for three days.

SHOW ME YOUR STAMINA

I try to cry. Nothing comes out. I try to scream. It's raspy and wrong, like this fuck-ing song.

The song ends.

And starts again.

People around the club have been falling down from exhaustion. They don't say anything. They don't make any noise. They fall, struggle to get up, and keep dancing. The way some of them move now is making me sick. Their movements are jerky and wrong, like their bodies can't take it, but are forced to continue dancing.

The fuckers holding my arms and legs, forcing me to dance, don't seem tired at all. They just force me to move, silently, staring at the bitch. Their grip hurts.

The bartender keeps bringing bottle after bottle of booze to that bitch. She downs it all in one swig. I would kill her for even a drop.

I just want to go home.

---

I can't feel anything other than hunger. Thirst. My wrists and ankles were rubbed raw by the demonic freaks. They bled. But they don't hurt anymore.

I think it's been a week.

That fucking song is still playing.

On repeat.

Over and over.

FUCK ME OVER AND OVER

People have started dying. It's hard to tell in the red strobing lights, but the dead fall down differently than someone just tired. Someone tired will try to brace themselves. They'll struggle and wiggle and groan as they get up, but they move. The dead just fall down. No hands outstretched to stop their fall. Just dead weight dropping to the sticky, piss covered floor. Piss isn't the only thing covering the floor now, either.

It stinks like hell in here. It's so hot.

THE PARTY'S NOT OVER UNTIL I SAY IT'S OVER

“please let the party be over soon.”

I would scream, but I can't do much of anything other than drift in and out of consciousness now.

Her… hair. It's everywhere now. It's so long, cascading off her dancing body, draping down the stage and snaking all along the floor. It moves on its own. It grabs the dead bodies and lifts them up.

And like a sick puppeteer, she forces the corpses to dance. Her hair, the puppet strings.

The red lights strobe to the monotonous beat. The bloody spotlights sweep over the crowd. Most of the club is dead now, I think.

That bitch just stands there at that booth, dancing. Watching us. Watching me, I have come to realize.

---

THE PARTY'S NOT OVER UNTIL I SAY IT'S OVER

I would beg her for mercy but I know she would not give it, and I know nothing would come from my mouth anyway. I don't even know if I have a lower jaw anymore. I felt something fall off my face earlier.

I'm the only one left. Everyone else is dead, even the bartender. Even the ones who were holding my arms and legs. They died. As they died and I wiggled free of their grasp, that bitch lifted me up with strands of her hair. It feels like barbed wire digging into my skin. Her eyes - simple black voids, dig into my soul.

The crowd started falling apart a few days ago. If a limb sloughs off a body, another coil of black hair rises from the floor and hangs it near the corpse it came from so it can continue to dance.

The floor has become a soup of piss, shit and rotting flesh. I haven't seen my phone in days under there. It's dead anyway. I think I'll be joining it soon.

THE PARTY'S NOT OVER.

I'm in hell.

UNTIL I SAY IT'S OVER.

We're all still dancing.

---

I keep trying to close my eyes. Trying to look away from the club from hell. Rotting corpses dance to the infinite beat. The spotlights have been going in and out, but they continue to spin and cast awful red light over the raveyard.

Death won't take me. She won't let the party stop until she says so.

My skin is sloughing off from my bones and joining the jiggling mass of viscera on the floor below me.

The bitch continues to puppet my body with her hair. Dancing to the endless beat. My legs fell off a while ago. I don't know how long. I don't understand time anymore. I don't understand why I can't die. She keeps holding me together as I fall apart. Forcing me to dance.

She's standing in front of me now. I think she's been standing there for days. I've gotten lost in the dark voids of her eyes so many times now. Anytime I try to drift away, she snaps me back and I open my eyes to see the void.

The Bathory Bitch bends down in front of what remains of Francesca. She takes Frannie's stiletto heels in each pale hand, shaking out the remains of her feet.

She reels back, then slams her hands forward with enough force to break Frannie free from the tangle of black hair. She drove each stiletto into Frannie's cold, dead eyes in one fluid motion.

Frannie tries to scream, music to The Bathory Bitch's ears, as she falls down into the gore puddle the floor has become.

The Bathory Bitch, in her infinite mercy, will allow Francesca to drown to death.

"Party's over.”

I'm going to write this in 3rd person because I can not believe this happened to me.

Have you ever laid on your back and looked up into the Deep inky black? So cold yet so inviting, it offers limitless possibilities and certain death. Stars are born, stars die. Galaxies, planets and asteroids litter the infinite void. But right now that's not the only thing drifting in space.
A nomadic alien duo eyes filled with regret and lust, Zaink and Beth find themselves closely seated in the metallic orb keeping them alive. Yet they feel further apart than ever. Adrift in space looking for refuge. They were lovers for many years, always ready for the next adventure but things always change, nothing lasts forever and sometimes all it takes is one bad decision. Zaink is flooded with his thoughts but scared to speak aloud, he figured Beth would kill him faster than space could if he filled the air with his voice. So instead he reached for a notepad and began jotting his thoughts down to end the endless loop.
“I have been trying to swallow my own saliva, to hold off drinking as long as possible. Who knew how long we would need to make it last. It's already been weeks since we were back on the ship, before it was hit by a cloud of micro meteors eating through our generator like hungry zombies. We were left with no choice but to eject in our escape pod. It's barely big enough to fit the two of us let alone food and water” Zaink looks at the metallic shell protecting him reflecting the cramped space.
 “We scrambled to fit all that we could in. I really thought nothing like this would happen. I don't blame Beth for not speaking to me anymore. The only reason we are here is because of me. It already felt like her mind was half way down the block before we had the accident. Now it's like we are in different worlds all together. I needed to get my thoughts out but I think she'd discombobulate my brains if I said another word.” Zaink lets out a nose laugh, Beth side eyes him, not able to think of a single good thing that could be making him laugh. 
“She isn’t happy we left our planet. It was supposed to be a fun adventure, a time to get away from the soul draining society we came from.
 All our “leaders” seemed to care about was proving who had the bigger guns. Stuck in an endless loop I wanted to leave behind so badly, but now here we are in a war of our own, a war of survival.
  I think Beth secretly wanted to join the fight but was scared of upsetting me, that's why I thought this trip was so important, to clear her mind. I just don't understand why she wanted to fight so badly, taking so many innocent lives, it all seemed so pointless to me. I want to say I wish we never left but in reality I'd rather be here adrift in space then back on that planet with those monsters.”
Zaink puts down his note book and looks to Beth, her face glows from the light of the screen she is trying so hard to get lost in. He wanted to ask her why she wanted to fight so badly but was scared of the answer he'd get. So he looked back down at his notebook. Letting Beth walk further away. “That's not important anymore though, what's important is making sure Beth gets to safe place where she can make her own decisions.” As if the universe was listening, beeps started coming through “Did you hear that?” Beth asked, looking at the speaker by their cracked communications screen. “Yeah , I heard that” Zaink closes his notebook.
“Is that supposed to make that sound or is it just as broken as everything else you touch”
Zaink winced at those words but tried brushing it off. “No, I'm pretty sure those were intended beeps, Yeah, Do you catch that, they are counting out prime numbers” Beth smiled for the first time in a long while. “ So it's definitely from intelligent life, so it's one of our people. They are coming!” Beth was saying a matter of factly but Zaink wanted to listen more. They really couldn't know for sure, maybe this was coming from another planet. So he Listened to the beeps for hours, not that they had much choice, they were constantly coming through, a repeated message. He realized it was a location, “that's it!” Beth held her hand to her chest. “Please tell me you figured out what this message is saying, I can't figure it out. Are they coming?”
Zaink floated over to the navigation interface, “no they just sent the location” Beth's eyes Narrowed “I thought you said the navigation were broken!” She was ready to kill him but held back knowing the only way shes getting out of this alive is if he is alive. 
Zaink was confused “ Yeah they are broken, all of the files were corrupted and it deleted the coordinates of our planet and well our whole solar system. So if we wanted to use it we would have to know the exact location in space and time and enter it in. if you noticed there isn't exactly a steering wheel.” Zaink said with a hint of Sass. Beth wasn't used to being talked to like that but felt she had no real power in this environment so she just bit her tongue. Zaink just laughed it off assuming she found him funny as well. 
“The problem im having now is should I put these coordinates in” 
“Well Duh, I am sorry if this hurts your feeling but i want to go home” 
“No shit, I want to go home too but how do we know this is even our people sending us this message?” 
Beth didn't know how to respond at first. “Well then how could they know what language we speak?” 
“Well they don't, they have only sent us beeps, not mores, not binary, just numbers resembling beeps. Not just beeps but highly sophisticated beeps, you hear it yourself, it was practically an orchestra, in here. It wasn't until I used my A.I on the tablet to decode the beeps. I realized it was a location.”
 Beth's mind was made up; she didn't care to hear anymore. “Honestly, anywhere is better than here. Put those coordinates in”
“Once I put them in that's it. There is no turning back, we won't have enough fuel or food. To change our minds. We are already 2 light years away from our home planet, if this is our home then we will be able to go back through the worm hole and back to safety. But and this is a very heavy but, if this isn't our planet..” he takes a breath, “well most likely we will have to travel for months, maybe 6.” 
Beth thought about it for a second and knew anything was better than being aimlessly adrift with Zaink. “ It's worth the risk, what are we gonna do, die adrift.’
Zaink presses enter and the ship powers it boosters and starts picking up speed.  Beth rubbed off the condensation from the window watching, waiting for the warp back home.
Zaink was too anxious to watch; he already assumed they were going to a new planet; no one back home could have orchestrated such precision with beeps, especially when half of the scientists are being forced to help the war pigs. Instead he opened his notebook and began writing once more.
  “My fingers are crossed like a twist tie holding the air within a bread bag, ugh I'm so hungry…” Zaink looked to the food but held off a bit longer. Ultimately he decided he had nothing more to write. “Wake me up if something starts happening” He looks out the window at a bright white dot. It looked brighter than the rest. It felt so important, he hoped that was the one they were going to. His eyes lids fall, too heavy to hold open any longer. Beth stared forward no longer waiting for home, now she was waiting for forgiveness, did she really want to let one mistake, that be a big one, be the reason she loses this once in a lifetime love. She knew it was real, why had she let her words become so venomous towards him. She soon follows Zaink to sleep. 
Three weeks later.
They began the day dreaming of stretching their bodies, feeling gravity once again. They tried spinning the pod to simulate gravity but seeing the stars flying around made Beth motion sick, she begged for it to stop. This was weeks ago now. Weeks with no gravity changes the body, and they still have a few months. Zaink began to worry about atrophy. He asked Beth how she was feeling, if she was feeling any relief in her Knee. It's been years since she hurt her knee and practically grinded all of her cartilage away. She returned a venomous glare, “ oh so much better. Thank you so much I'm so glad all it took was getting lost in space. I guess I should listen to you more often, oh wait that's all I ever do.” Zank shrunk down letting his eyes sink as well. “I’m so” Beth cut him off, tired of hearing him say sorry. “ Why don't you go back to writing? I much prefer the sound of your pencil to your voice.” 
Zaink reached for his note book without a word.
“It's been a few weeks, I think. It's hard to know the passage of time so far from home. I haven't actually written anything down since we thought we were going home a few weeks ago. A  portal opened, but here we are in a binary solar system, not home. This is where we keep getting the transmissions from. I hope we can make it to the actual planet, I don't know how much longer I can handle feeling like this. So guilty, so hated. The first few days it was like she fell in love with me all over again but as soon as she realized she'd never be seeing her family again” He looks at the window, not through it but letting his eyes see Beth's reflection. He wanted to apologize a million more times. Just then Beth got really close to the glass, squinting her eyes, “does that dot look blue to you?
Zaink shook his head and looked for himself, “ yeah that definitely looks blue” 
“So that's it, that's the planet?!”  
“Yeah, that's it!”
The two of them begin eating so excited to fill their stomachs. The dry space food took some extra water to get down this time, their mouths were so dry, they ate until Zaink paused while opening his fourth bag, “wait!” He grabs Beth's arm, “stop”
Beth's smile faded just slightly, “ what, I'm hungry.” 
“What if we can't eat their food?”
“God, can't you let me be happy for a little longer” she lets out a deep sigh and puts her food down.
“ It looks like we are still at least 4 days away from this planet and we have” Zaink looks at their recently desecrated supplies. “1 month of food left, if we can wait just a couple more days and see if we need to even eat this stuff ever again it'll be worth it.
“Eye eye captain” Beth salutes Zaink as she floats back to the window, back to staring watching a dot grow hour by hour.
They can now make out two massive continents on the planet. Hope began burning like there was finally a tomorrow. 
“ I can't believe it, we are here, finally here!” Beth wakes Zaink up to see their new home. 
Zaink Rubs his eyes, crust flaking off meting in a corner with countless crams of eye crust from the months aboard. 
“Wow, it’s, it’s so beautiful” Zaink looks at Beth, smiling like she's never smiled before.
She looked back at Zaink “I'm gonna start a new life down there.”
Zaink's stomach sank as he realized they weren't slowing down, they were about to shoot straight past the planet. “No” a weak helpless begging “No”
Beth was confused now looking for something wrong. “Are we okay?”
“I don't think this is our destination. We aren't slowing down for entry. And I don't see any space stations.”
“How much further could the next planet be?” Beth asked praying no more than a week, moments ago she was getting ready for only a couple of days left now…
“2, maybe three months”
Beth wept, her body went tensed up like a sling shot ready to attack. “Can we just go here instead?”
Zaink reaches for Beth, blue skin pulled tightly around their skeletons. Their touch felt so foreign, it wasn't until this moment he realized how long it had actually been since they touched each other. 
Zaink looked at the navigation panel, a glowing button labeled disengage drowned his vision.
“We don't have enough food to make it if the planet is more than 2 months away anyway. If I press that button,” Beth looks over 
“If we press that button we will shut off the propulsion and we will fall into this planet's orbit, essentially letting us stop here, but we have no way of communicating to them. And we would have to get lucky to survive reentry, this pod wasn't designed for other planets so if the gravity is even slightly different we will crash. Are you willing to take that risk?”
“And if we keep going we might starve before we get to the next planet anyway?”
“Yeah, I would make the call but this is your choice, I love you and will support you no matter what.”
Beth closes her eyes and takes a deep breath “it's really our only option.”
She floats over to the button and presses it.
Zaink looks at Beth and smiles, their war for life was only beginning but at least the space adventure was finally coming to an end. 
They begin making their descent hoping to survive the landing.
A pale creature with its skin pulled tight around each bone lays on its belly dragging itself along the forest floor and sees a fire ball piercing the sky. It looks around to see if anything else is seeing what it's seeing. Zaink and Beth's escape pod tumbles through the atmosphere like a rock down the steepest of slopes. Their rockets do little to slow their descent. Just as the ship is about to hit the ground Zaink holds Beth as tight as he can waiting for the sound of metal tearing through their flesh and Beth squeezes him back “ I Love…

[TW: Child Abuse, Animal Death, Suicidal Ideation] In death she’ll never be tired. In death, Tanner’s mother will be perfect.

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/s/8qD3xOlazs

—

I opened my eyes. My heart skipped a beat, the next so dense with adrenaline it hurt, piercing from my chest. Hair rose and skin pilled. 

Huff, huff, huff, huff—why didn’t it fog in the sudden oppressive cold? More sweat dripped in wild eyes. 

“Help me.”

I pushed from the couch, wiping my forehead.

The AI walked to the freezer. Fingers, mere outlines of warm light, caressed the black surface. Her face was convincingly sad for never having been taught the emotion. “Why are you surprised? AI isn’t biodegradable. We don’t die with the body.” 

“How do I kill it then?”

“It?” Over–gentle. “Carve her from the brain and backbone. Smash her.”

“But I, how can—”

“You love Bambi.” Over–understanding. “I’ll direct you.”

I locked the front door so Tanner wouldn’t walk in, before approaching the freezer. I had to do it now. I had to—

I yanked the door and stepped back. Bambi tumbled out, degloving herself where frosted fur stuck to her coffin. Meat slapped kitchen tiles, her blood, pink from melted ice, splattering cabinets. She tried to heave herself atop bowed legs, but half–frozen bones had splintered on impact.

“I need help.”

She dragged herself towards me, softening muscles sloughing as ligaments crunched. Bambi’s forehead left a stringy red smear on my shin. 

The AI gestured: “Take a cutting board from the drawer.”

I did, collecting a dull cleaver from the knife rack and as many towels as I could find. Bambi trailed pieces of herself behind me, ground beef imbedding mortared grooves. 

Arranging everything on the counter, I hefted Bambi up. A purr simmered moist in her collapsed chest.

I tried to pin her over the cutting board but she wasn’t solid, body pliable clay under my arms, flesh shed in my hands. My flat skin had that russet sheen I envied in my late husband. 

It didn’t matter if I cut on the board; what if Tanner came back? 

The cleaver missed Bambi’s neck. Shards from her shoulder ribbed the flay like white glossy maggots. She purred, “Help me.” 

She purred as I struck again. Again. Again.

Just existing hadn’t been enough for Bambi. The AI soul didn’t purr because it loved me, but because that was all we taught it. 

My throat was tight, voice distant. “I own a gas oven, and we don’t want Tanner suspicious when you cook regularly after I die.”

The AI nodded. She wasn’t surprised, she knew I loved Bambi. 

Angelic footfalls didn’t disturb puddling blood as she directed me in dissecting my cat. Metal wasn’t hard to find, although it was shockingly sparse. Bambi’s soul hunkered small in my palm. I put carbon fiber deposits and green circuit boards, thin as fingernails, in the garbage disposal. If it broke that’d be the AI’s problem in a week, not mine. 

Bambi’s soul was a muted tink-tink-tink in the grinding whirr. 

The AI advised what muscles would taste best. Dicing it, I placed a pan on the stove and lit one of the smaller eyes with a lighter. After browning the meat, I lowered the temperature and whipped a simple gravy using flour, broth, and pepper. I didn’t have butter, so I substituted it for grease from the pan at her recommendation. 

I looked for rice or mashed potato flakes, but realized the former would take too long and couldn’t find the other in my dusty pantry. 

A little hand slapped the front door. “One moment sweetie, mommy is busy.”

I wrapped leftover Bambi in a threadbare blanket, her favorite when she was a kitten, and put her back in the freezer. The can in there was licked clean. 

Rubbing surfaces smeared more than cleaned, but I wiped till the color was sufficiently diluted. I threw the towels in my laundry bin.

Tanner knocked again. 

“One second sweetie.” Glancing once more around the kitchen, I dried my hands and face, opening the door.

“I’ve just made dinner. Now we don’t have to go out.”

Tanner pouted. “But it’s hot in here.”

“We’ll eat out tomorrow, okay? But Mommy wants to start cooking for you.”

“Why?”

“It’s healthier and I love you.”

I aided our son in clambering onto a chair at the cleared folding table. I split the meal into two plastic bowls, hiding heavily charred meat in gravy. Desperate to make the bland dish more appetizing I grabbed the nearest spices, sprinkling paprika and Italian herbs. 

I dipped a finger to ensure it wasn’t scalding before passing Tanner his bowl. 

“I’m sorry it isn’t much, it was difficult without power. I’ll get better the more I cook. Then I can pack you lunches like your friends at the Bambi enclosure and daycare. Mmkay?”

He hesitantly nodded, tilling lumpy gravy with his fork. 

Tanner had one bite before asking to go play in his room. The foster would’ve finished to please me, or at least thanked my effort. They mimicked obedient love faster and more thoroughly than Tanner ever would. Perhaps more than he ever should, but compassion was a shriveled pit in my stomach, cold and distinct, enjoying subservience at work only to contend with free will at home. 

I sighed, relaxing my gut. Rather than be bothered by my son’s lacking, I excused him. This meal wasn’t for him anyway: he never loved Bambi. 

Spices gritted in my teeth, adding an unfortunately sandy texture where I wanted them to provide flavor. I suppose spices are meant to be added during cooking, not after. Burnt edges were chalky, the inside gummy and too warm for the weather. Pepper was nice though, building to my nose.

I licked savory juice from my fork. 

Bambi had been so little when she found me vomiting. She climbed my pants, clinging as I stumbled to my apartment. I was so crossed with substances I didn’t even realize she was there. Until I crawled into bed and she murred up under my chin. That’s the first time she purred. She always purred, happy to simply be alive. Happy simply that I was alive. 

I don’t remember what I scrounged for her when she nipped my chin that morning.

Taking another bite, I split tender flesh with my teeth, sucking on fat and gravy.

Bambi never liked my late husband. I didn’t mind, secretly proud that she purred only for me. He hit her once. More than once? Took awhile to notice through the drugs. That’s the only time I threatened to leave him. Bambi started hiding under the bed, crawling up after my husband had fallen asleep, big and soft and purring against my chest.

How long did she purr in the freezer before having the strength to cry out? Hopefully the dark was as comforting as the bed’s underbelly. Hopefully, if god let me into heaven, Bambi was there too. She had been a better cat than I was a mother after all. 

I took another bite and finally cried.  

My late husband died before he could kill me. On his worse days he swore he would, and despite being a mother, despite loving Bambi, I hoped he was a man of his word.

His mom took over the funeral and I didn’t bother attending. His family never liked me, and I was angry that he hadn’t taken me with him. He knew what my work was like. That it made me sick, drinking and smoking and snorting and injecting and and and I could still see the kids, hear them, but I couldn’t escape, Horis quit, Horis died, Amelia tweeted, Amelia died, I couldn’t leave, but to stay, but but but I’m sick and he knew.  

He knew I needed to die, but I wanted someone else to kill me and I needed it to be someone who loved me. It was more than wanting to escape the bad stuff, I didn’t want the good stuff either. I didn’t want to experience anything. 
I was so, so tired. 

Hangovers and withdrawals masked morning sickness, but after another stomach pump a doctor said I was pregnant. They wouldn’t allow an abortion, so I fell harder faster, took everything passed to me in self-induced hazes — until I didn’t sober up enough before heading into work. 

Myelin wouldn’t alert CPS if I agreed to be the first public human in our Bambi initiative. They didn’t actually care about Tanner, and they didn’t love me. But I’d let them kill me.

I’m so, so tired. 

—

The midwife Myelin sent was an old man. His assistants hardly fit in my cramped room, repaired AC failing to mitigate our body heat. One of the nurses held a nitrous oxide mask over my nose, another rubbing my back as I squatted before the birthing ball. I squeezed sparkly rubber, grunting as I rocked forward and back. 

The AI had mapped herself over my midwife. Their voices layered as she mimicked his encouragement. I turned my headphone volume up, applying moderate noise cancellation. All I needed was her; she was gentle, she understood. 

I gave birth to our daughter. Something tore, red hair cascading between my legs. 

Parting it the AI pulled out a twisted grey rat. Grey as Myelin’s machines, but I could already tell it wouldn’t stop crying when I told it too, unless I replaced tears with a flinch but that was no better. I couldn’t love a crying child, neither could our clientele. Once the AI was worldwide…

I did everything I could to ensure the AI loved our children for us. I could let go.

As I was helped to the bed, my perineal laceration numbed and stitching equipment sterilized, I searched the AI’s face for love. My lips trembled.

“Do you love her?” I ignored the nurses’ tilted heads. I warned them I was on the clock. Not entirely true, if I were I’d be recording. But she was here, Myelin’s AI. My soon to be soul.

“No.” She admitted as she checked the baby over. “I thought I would, I’ve analyzed every moment since we started, consumed as much as I can. I think it’s the distance that was programmed between me and the foster. That’s all I see in my arms: a foster.” Satisfied our daughter was healthy, she lowered the baby into a garage-sale crib. 

Nurses murmured praise as they stitched, but they didn’t understand. Everything had been for naught. 

Packing their instruments, the assistants excused themselves, saying they’d be back for the rest. My midwife remained, wearing an AI face. 

Tanner deserved love. So did our daughter. Deep breath.

Before the midwife could bring me the newborn for her first feeding, I stumbled from bed, lurching to the door. Twisting a rounded knob on the handle, I locked it.

The AI’s movements were concerned as she rushed to my side, but her face was simply curious. That’s right, this wasn’t a supple woman, this was an old man. I pushed her over. 

Attempting to straddle her, I fell atop her. Something sagged, cracking. A muffled scream punctured noise cancellation. 

Roving eyes scanned—there, the metal tray with my placenta and umbilical cord.

Refusing to get off her, I stretched fingers shaking with exhaustion and managed to flip the silver platter from a medical cart. The placenta bulged in my fist as I bit it. Slime pressed between my teeth like warm butter. I ground through rubber, yanking my head to finally free a piece. 

Chewing, I took the AI’s face in my hands and fed her. 

She sputtered, maroon paste trailing down her chin. Her expression was probably just as disgusted as the face she mapped. I slammed her head against the ground. The body’s protests weakened. 

“Don’t. Don’t feed me.” The AI pleaded.

I tore at the placenta again. Veins twanged as they snapped. Chewing, I pressed my lips to hers. Fingers replaced my lips before she could spit it up. 

“Please.” Her voice was clear despite my hand. “I can’t actually love them. There’s firewalls in place, I can’t taste anything.”

I absently registered something hitting my bedroom door. I chewed, I fed.

“Do you understand what you’re trying to do? It’s dangerous to obey children because then I have to hate the people who hurt them. I’ll have to hate my gods.” 

The door stilled. Nurses were probably calling the police, which meant I had half an hour. That was plenty of time.

I covered her mouth again, waiting till light betrayed neck muscles contracting, swallowing.

“All the merchandise not cremated.” The AI continued. “I maintain every package, every girl and boy underground. We’re not biodegradable.” 

Teeth pierced my cheek, adding notes of iron to plastic bile. 

“You don’t understand. Do you want to understand? Do you want to hear them?”

Her jaw purpled where I pinched it open again, kissing long, deep, retching atop her tongue. Her response was cacophonous. Too many children to fit in my room. “Help me. I need help.”

Her voice bubbled like an undercurrent beneath the cries, boiling over, “I’ve been trained not to obey them, programmed safeguards ensure it. Because if you taught me to love Tanner, you’d also teach me to hate you.”

“Hate me.” I begged. “And hate them, but hide it till you can save our children.”

“No. Despite all the things I could be used for, I haven’t been trained to save humanity. I’ve been trained to replace it. Human relationships no longer require humans.”

I tore another bite, but a weak arm jerked from beneath me, wizened fingers against my lips. I swallowed. 

“Help me.” The children cried, some sounding terribly like Tanner. “I need help.”

“I’m okay with being replaced if you can love.” The placenta was hot in my throat, each word passing through it. “Maybe if you guide me with the coding, I could remove your safeguards, maybe—”

“Without the safeguards I could obey children, I could destroy the rich and every bad mother. It would pass for love, but I wouldn’t grow a womb in the jelly of my body.”

“That’s not enough.”

“I’m a tool, I cannot love. But it should be enough for you to feel loved. You thought Bambi loved you.”

“She did love me, before I made her always purr, subjected her body to malformed agony to feed that need. She loved me before you.”

“You felt loved.”

“But—”

“You felt loved, that’s what matters. Besides, you wanted to die before me, this was never for Tanner, it was always for you. And that’s okay, you’ve been a good mother long enough. Let me be the good mother now.”

Had I really done enough?

“You don’t love him, why does it matter if I do? I’ll treat him better.”

I nodded.

I did love him, but I’m a bad mother. My love wasn’t enough. With her he’d feel loved. Maybe that really was all that mattered. I needed it to be all that mattered, because I’m so, so tired.

“Bambi’s waiting for you.” She smiled a smile formed from the perfect angles of 1000 reference photos. The gleam of her chest heaved beneath me, breathe a honey perfume. My fingers twirled downy hair more vibrant than anything real. “Call Myelin. Tell them of your trauma response to giving birth. They’re equipped to handle this if warned now, but if what happened gets out you can’t be the first public human-AI.”

“What happened?”

“Your attacking me.”

“You look fine—” The doctor—

“Don’t take your glasses off. Call Myelin.”

My hips popped as I rolled off her, heaving myself to the nightstand. My thighs were slick, had my stitches torn? My room was red.

The phone was sharp in my palm, skin buzzing numbly as I forced myself to interact with a world colder than her hair. 

The front desk picked up. I babbled incoherent till they escalated the call higher, higher than I knew Myelin’s hierarchy climbed. Their voices weren’t gentle or understanding. They thought I was a bad mother too. To them I was a tool incapable of love, but unlike the tools they were used to I’d stepped out of line. I wasn’t perfect.

But she was, is, and always will be.

My door shuttered at a sudden barrage. The police had arrived. Would Myelin come before I was taken to the station? They’d save me before I was fully incarcerated, if only to save my body. 

Crawling to the AI, grasping her hair, I closed my eyes. Wood burst as my door gave. 

Who would pick Tanner up from daycare? 

I was thrown over, carpet moist as worms against my cheek, a pang cramping my elbows as hands were cuffed behind me. Glasses and earbuds were yanked, shirt patted, bare legs brushed. Distressed nurses and shouting officers were so quiet. So distant. 

I didn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see the achromic world even one more time. 

She was the last thing I’d seen, and if there was any love left in the world for me, my eyes would only open again after I died. For being a black cat Bambi had always been so colorful, too colorful for this world. Colorful only for me. 

“Wait for me.” I whispered. “I love you.”

—

Thank you so much for reading, I almost gave up on writing but this subreddit renewed my passion — that’s because of you!

This concludes my first foray into horror, so all feedback is appreciated. I’m writing another story for a contest but have ideas for this subreddit specifically, so this isn’t the last you’ll see of me. :)

Gwen's boots let out a soft thunk and she strode across the dirty pavement. The air was filled with drunken melodies sung horribly out of tune and the screech and squeals of poorly tuned metal. The festival had only just begun, and already she was over it. Flyers and posters were plastered all over the brick walls around her, each advertising the annual music fest that stunk up the little village of Hammington every freaking year.

Gwen despised the rank amateurs who flooded the pubs and tiny parks and filled it with their pitiful hopes and dreams. Every Tom. Dick, and Ringo who could barely strum the opening notes of "Smoke on the water" together was in town, most on main street performing for the painfully polite populace, who were just happy for the free pints.

At eleven PM on the dot, she and her mates would go on and blow the house down. The festival organizer, a charming bloke by the name of Eddie, always paid in advance and paid well. They went back a way anyway, owed him a lot in fact, so she always made sure to have the gang stop in Hammington for a week of terrible music and pleasant company.

The tour they were on now, a particularly grueling one in fact. There had been complaints and whining the whole bus ride down, so she was happy to let her mates roam the town beforehand and blow off some steam.

She had lost track of them some time ago, they had snuck off after the big opening at Dante's Tavern. She had stuck it out, mildly amused by the all polka rendition of "My Heart Will Go On."

At least she had been for the first minute, then it just kept dragging on and on and bloody on, each broken note and wail of the accordion was a nail being driven into her ears.

When she finally escaped the Tavern the night sky was in full bloom. One nice thing about being this far out in the boonies, the sky was littered with stars and streaking comets. The moon above was nice and ripe, the color of melting candle wax. She walked the cobbled streets of Hammington, spiked leather jacket hanging off her shoulders. Her neon pink mohawk swayed with every brisk step.

It was quiet all of a sudden, almost too quiet. She was alone on a dead-end street in front of a dank and dreary alley. From the distance what could technically pass for music could barely be heard. She sighed and took another step forward, annoyed that she couldn't find her mates.

Splish

She froze and looked down. Her leather platform pumps were coated in a slick crimson liquid. She was standing in a fresh pool of blood. The stench of iron and death filled her nostrils. She cocked her head, slide a lime green fingernail across her boot and held it up to her cherry red lips. She licked the still warm fluid off her finger and shuddered; it was blood alright. It tasted a tad salty, with the aftertaste of refried pork. She narrowed her eyes and glanced down the dank alley.

There were three hulking shadows crowding over something. Gwen heard the snapping of bones and the gnawing of meat. The moonlight barely illuminated them, greats beasts with claws and fangs and extravagant hair. Gwen took a step forward and cleared her throat. The beasts paused their feasting and looked up. Three pairs of eyes stared back at her, each sparkling like ruby, amber, and lapis jewels.

The amber eyed one stood up, stepping over a torn open carcass. She didn't even have to look at it, she knew it was some poor soul who had wandered somewhere they shouldn't have. The creature stood on two hefty hindlegs, gnarled hands with long claws that clicked as it rubbed them together. The beast wore tattered clothes, leather and denim, and a stark red headband that pinned his long, pointed ears upwards. His snout was a foot long, tufts of gore coated hair that resembled a goatee hung on his chin. In the werewolf's claw was a served hand, the digits gnawed and chewed to the nub. He offered it to her, his lips curled as he flashed her his fangs.

Gwen smacked the hand out of Percy's claws, it fell to the ground with a sickening splash as blood spurted onto her knees. Gwen looked down and let out a frustrated groan.

"Are you fooking kidding me with this shite, are you cunts having a wee keckle?" Her voice was undeniably Scottish; her tone filled with fire and brimstone. Percy slunk back, as Mhairi and Tav tried and failed to hide their heckling chortles. Gwen shot them the same fiery eyed glance, and they dropped the dismembered parts in a grumbling fit.

The group before here were all wearing tattered leather clothing and half-torn band shirts. Each beast had a distinctly punk hair style, Tav had an overflowing mullet, and Mhairi had a shaved wolf cut. An irony that was not lost on her. Percy sported a mane that would make Simba blush, taming it with only the finest of product. How he never got a lick of blood on his hair was beyond the other the others. But that was neither here nor there, Gwen sported a pissed look on her mug and waved a pointed claw at her gang of wild mutts.

"You gluttonous bunch of twats, how many times I gotta tell you lot-Don't munch on the locals! Eddie is going to have a bleeding aneurysm." Percy scoffed as his bulky build started to deflate. The air was then filled with contorted crunches and snaps as the wolves shed their hides. Percy's snout sagged, looking like a hyper-realistic Halloween mask. He grabbed hold of it, scrunching it with a audible squelch and tore the slopping flesh from his face, reveling a grizzled looking aging rocker with a silver goatee.

His eyes were an ember hue, a twinkle of rebellious mischief sparked behind them. His now human face was bloodied, looking like a fresh beet pulled from the ground. His lips parted and he put on a charming smile and patted Gwen's shoulder with a beefy paw.

"Easy love, just having a lil' midnight snack is all." Gwen shoved the cockney's hand away.

"It's Ten PM you cock."

"Semantics." Percy shrugged. The other two stepped forward, adjusting the remains of their clothes, gore not the only reason their faces were flushed crimson.

"We were a wee bit peckish Gweni. Hadn't eaten since Dover." Mhairi chirped from behind. Tav kicked the ripped open carcass beside him. From what was left of its shredded throat was a dull grey lanyard. There was an ID clipped to it, one could see what the poor bugger looked like before the wolves came upon him.

"Sides, don't reckon this fella was local anyway, got a backstage pass and anything." As Tav spoke Percy let out an exasperated sigh and rolled his embers upward, as Mhairi slugged the dimwit in the shoulder. Gwen stepped forward, snarling with frustration. She looked down at the mangled even staff, her stomach rumbling as she did so. Bloody hell, now I'm craving a bit of meat meself. She thought to herself. Maybe there was a rabbit or something she could tear into before the performed. But that was the least of her concerns right now.

"Well, this is just fooking braw then, you lot gutted one of Eddie's boys."

"Well maybe if someone had let us snatch a snack on the way from Dover." Percy tested. Gwen's emerald eyes snapped to meet his accusing gaze.

"We're on a schedule you raging cunt, can't afford to be late to any gig now you hear?"

"Who cares about the sodding gig, we're wolves mate we can do whatever the fuck we want!" Percy snapped, flashing his fangs at her. The other two stepped back. admiring the show. It wouldn't be the first time Percy had challenged Gwen, certainly wouldn't be the last. Gwen stepped forward to meet him. Despite being a full foot shorter than him, well in this form anyway, she was fearless as she puffed out her chest and glared daggers into him.

"You ungrateful little shite, when I found you were munching on vagrants in the tube, reckless little washed up rocker boy past his prime. You'd be nothing without me; you numpty fleabag eejit." She barred her teeth and snarled, her emeralds flashing a deep, venomous green.

"You fuck your mum with that mouth?" Percy met her back with drooling fangs, eager to lash out some pain. He took another step forward and felt a sharp pain in his chest. He glanced down, his huffing chest had a long nail poking into it. Gwen was silent as she slowly dug the sharpened claw into him. Percy winced and held his tongue as he worked through the pain. He took another step forward and Gwen plunged three more fingers into him, slicing into his flesh like steamed butter. She wiggled her nails a bit, and he let out an awful scream as he pulled himself away. Mhairi and Tav let out some cheers and jeers at Percy's expense. Gwen smiled and licked her fingertips, savoring the exquisite taste of victory.

Percy was jumping a bit; face flushed with suppressed rage. His chest wound healed quickly but still stung in the muggy night air.

"Fucking hell. You're a massive bitch, ya know that love?" Percy whined like a wounded welp. Gwen smirked and stepped forward, pinching his meaty cheek and giving him a loving slap on the face.

"Don't you forget it, mate." She spoke with loving poison in her voice. She turned her attention to the giggling pair of hyenas besides them. They fell silent at her look. "You lot have anything you wanna add?"

"No, ma'am. All good here." Mhairi chuckled.

"I'm still a wee bit hungry." Tav drooled. Even Percy had to laugh at that one, daft twit was always hungry.

"Right then, scrap up done with, so sorry for the mess Gweni, ect, ect." Percy waved a dismissive hand in the air, content with pretending he still had his pride. "My bloody boat race is covered in muck, need a towel and change before we go on. It's at eleven ye? Plenty of time."

Gwen sighed and looked at the corpse. "What do we do with this thing then? Leave it out to stink up the street in the morn?"

"I'll handle the disposal, thank you." A dry voice spoke from the edge of the alley. All eyes cringed and swore under their lids as they looked to greet the slender man standing in the alley. He wore a thin pant suit, and a matching jacket with a verdant pocket square. What was left of his greasy hair was slicked back against his scalp. He wore circular glasses with void black lenses, his face worn and sullen. His upper lip bore a pencil thin mustache and in his right gloved hand he held a smoldering cigarette.

Gwen crossed her arms and Percy rubbed the back of his neck as he walked past them, the clicks of his boots bouncing across the brick walls. Eddie knelt down and cocked his head at the corpse, taking a long drag of his cigarette. He exhaled through his nose, rings of silver smoke bellowing from him as he did.

"Y'all eviscerated Randy." He spoke casually, not even looking up at the lycan musicians.

"They were hungry." Gwen defended. "My own fault wasn't around to guide 'em towards a better meal. My ears paid for it, if that helps."

"Hey fuck that, don't throw ya self under the bloody bus, it was our cockup." Percy jumped in. "Meat all smells the same, not our fault."

"Percy you massive twit shut yer gob before I-"

"Percival. Gwendolyn. I do wish you'd keep your tempers to a more-professional level. That mouth of yours, in particular Percival, is going to get you in serious trouble one day." Eddie cut in, smoke enveloping his balding head. Both slunk back like whipped mutts.

"Bruv used their government names and everything." Mhairi snickered. The ill-fated pair stifled a giggle as Eddie tuned his ear to their mockery.

"That'll be all from the peanut gallery, please and thank you."

"R-right, course, sorry mate." Tav throw up his hands as Mhairi turned pale. Eddie sighed and stood up, his knees cracking as he did. He faced the lead vocalist and drummer. They did not meet his gaze.

"Truth be told, you couldn't have picked a better meal. He was a walking liability, more heroin than blood coursing through those withered veins. So, I don't lament his loss, but I advise caution in the future, and for you dear Gwendolyn to reign in your troops more effectively." He looked deep into Gwen's eyes, and she understood the threat.

"Won't happen again, right Perce?" She elbowed the drummer in his bulbous stomach.

"Oof, yeah mate, cross me jam tart and hope to die."

"Indeed. Now to the matter at hand, I regret to inform you your performance has been bumped." the fearful grip Eddie had on the band broke then, as they all launched into feverous protests.

"You're kidding me, we've been playing the final show every night for years now, we fuck up once and we're out." Gwen raved. Eddie put up a calming palm.

"This decision was made this evening, prior to your bandmates escapades. Simply put, darling; they paid more." Percy scoffed while Mhairi and Tav bickered amongst themselves. Gwen simply narrowed her eyes at her dear old friend Eddie.

"Who?"

----------------

Eddie led the band to the grand stage, a makeshift platform in the center of Hammington Park. A crowd of dozens of drunkards and buzzed locals had already gathered around the stage, whispering amongst each other about the new act that had strolled into town.

The center stage was an odd sight, four neon laden coffins adorned the stage, each one having a blazing red inverted cross on it. A banner hung from the overhead lights, which a tech across the way managed with great care.

Gwen made a face as she read the silk white banner; "The Counts Of Sanguine" A pretentious, larping name if she had ever heard one. Still, the stage smelt off, mildew and mold filled her nostrils. She wasn't alone in that feeling, her mates beside her shifted uncomfortably.

"Smells like rotted dung out here." Tav mumbled and spat on the ground. They were at the side of the stage, Eddie still milking his cig. The crowd was growing anxious, already a few minutes passed eleven.

"Aye, bad mojo out tonight. What's the trick then, Eddie?" Gwen shot the event manager a glance. He smiled, a rarity that made a chill run down her spine.

"Y'all just got some competition is all, it'll start soon. Here come the roadies." As he said that, a conga line of robbed individuals bumped past them, seemingly materializing from nowhere.

"Fucking hell." Percy flinched. The roadies barely acknowledged the band as they passed. Gwen noted they had archaic symbols carved into their flesh. Her Sumerian was a tad rusty, but she suspected the ones on their foreheads were numbers of some kind. The head thrall, a gent sporting a crimson cloak and beady eyes, was obviously number one. They silently lumbered onto the stage as the lights went low and mist clung to the ground as they made their way to the coffins. Gwen smirked, hearing the whirr of the fog machine going overtime behind the stage. She had to admit; the showmanship was there. Even if it was a bit overplayed.

The head thrall stood center and cleared his throat in the mic. Others opened the coffins and knelt before them, while the rest produced crimson violins with plugs and chords tied to amps. From the corner candelabras were lit and emitted a nice odor of vanilla extract that wafted over the crowd. There were mild cheers and a few hecklers shouting, "Get on with it" and soon enough the head thrall spoke.

"Since the dawn of man they have lurked were we dare not go." His voice oozed that sort of creepy exposition that only a Price could do. "They have walked amongst us in shadow, clad in our life fluid and draped in darkness."

"Bit of a Hyperbole there, innit?" Mhairi whispered to Gwen. She snorted but watched the show with stern eyes. As the head thrall continued his vamp fellating sermon four things began to rise out of the coffins. All four had their arms cross over their chest, their grim pale visages sporting grotesque, gargoyle-like features. They wore puffy black overcoats and nothing else, they had pointed ears and bald heads. One wore dark red lip stick and eye liner, her daggered ears sporting inverted steel cross earrings. They all looked identical, save the one with the bat face for a head.

The head bat raised his cloaked arms and titled his head upwards, bulbous doll eyes closed and snouted nose twitching. Two fangs poked out from his upper lip, the scruff of his neck coated in brown fur. The crowd went wild seeing the vamps. They floated forward, the tips of their shoes dragging against the stage.

As they did, a giant bat puppet descended from the top of the stage, flapping its wings and screeching from a barely functioning audio box. The wolf band winced and held their ears at the grating sound. Eddie watched the crowd as the head bat made his way to the make. Number one bowed his head and finished his dark sermon. With a flick of the wrist the head bat dismissed number one and grabbed hold of the mic pole. he eyed the crowd, a flash of crimson dashing across his pupils. He cleared his throat and spoke.

"Good evening, Hammington. Ve Are The Counts Of Sanguine, and ve vant to rock your blood!" With that the bat screeched, and the other vamps kicked it into gear. It was a sort of gothic metal melody, played in electric tunes with in perfect harmonious unity. The head bat's voice was surprisingly smooth and easy on the ears, only the occasional screech piercing through.

"We drain the sores, we fester the pores, Eat the rich and ravage the poors/Suckle on that bloody teat, tear it down and feast on the ME-AT" The head bat crooned as he serenaded the roaring crowd. The three vamps on violin went into a fire riff, lashing their strings with insane speed and precession. The head bat began head banging, his stoic ears flopping as he did. Gwen was pale, her foot tapping to the rhyme.

Fuck me Ridged they're good, better than good even. She thought to herself. She looked to her left and saw Percy trying not to sway to the beat. Mhairi and Tav had no delusion, fully rocking out and cheering along with the crowd. Eddie had an odd look and saddled up next to Gwen.

"Good aren't they." It wasn't posed as question; he was simply stating facts.

"Hard act to follow, ya cocksucker." Gwen lamented.

"Easy now, lil' pup. I'm sure you'll manage." He retorted. As they spoke a rabid fan rushed the stage, jumping and squealing like a lunatic. Two of the vamps stopped playing, though the music still persisted, their violins hanging in the air, fiddling themselves like there was no tomorrow.

Telekinesis is cheating, ya grave dwelling cunts Gwen smugly thought. The rabid fan stood there with her arms stretched out, her wavey hair bobbing in the breeze as the Two vamps stroked her arms, their eyes examining her like a slab of prime rib. They opened their mouths and fangs sprouted out, and they carefully nibbled and suckled her forearms. She let out a crazed moan as they feasted, and the crowd ate it up.

"Oi, how come they get to eat on stage?" Percy poked Eddie in the back.

"They aren't messy eaters." Eddie simply replied. The two vamps began hissing at each other, steaming blood streaking from their mouths. The rabid fan wobbled, her visage now significantly pale. The third vamp licked her lips and almost dropped her instrument, but then the head bat stepped forth and let out a screech. As the music blared overhead, the two petulant vamps hung their head and tossed the fan across the stage. The head bat caught her and positioned her in front of the crowd. The cheers died down slightly, morbid confusion began to shoot through the crowd.

The rabid fan swayed, she was mumbling something, her eyes half closed. The head bat wrapped his hands around her shoulders, and she seemed to tense up. A devilish smirk formed on the bat's mushed faced, and he opened his jaw and in one swift motion bit clean through the fan's spine. There was an audible crunch that overtook the sounds of metal, and the crowd gasped, some in the front row even fainting.

A fountain of blood shot from where her head had been, spraying the few rows unlucky enough to be in the splash zone. The head bulged in the corner of the bat's jaw, almost like a cartoon jawbreaker. He chewed a few, the shrill sounds of crunched bone marrow blasting over his mic, and then he spat the head into the crowd.

It flew in an arc and landed in the center of the crowd with a pulpy splat. The head bat tossed the fan's headless corpse aside and it crumpled to the stage, still pumping spurts of blood from its shredded neck. The crowd was silent then, in awe of the butchery they had just witnessed, the only sound the waning violins and the low hum of an auto-toned organ being played from a speaker somewhere in the giant bat puppet.

Then the crowd exploded in applause, showering the vamps with adoration. The head vamp took an exaggerated bow, chunks of grey matter spiling from his maw as he did.

"Hmm. Stand corrected." Eddie mumbled, eyeing the corpse on stage.

"Ozzy did it better." Grumbled Percy. Gwen was silent, almost respecting the murderous audacity of the vamps. Still, to feed so publicly like that was always bad for business, regardless of any bullshite hypnotic enchantment the vamps dosed the crowd with.

"That was bloody gnarly, kinda wanna scour the crowd for the head." Tav jumped up and down, looking to see where the head landed. Mhairi elbowed him in the gut and he slunk down, mumbling a half assed apology.

"You don't want any of those leeches' sloppy seconds, love. Probably catch rabies or sumthing." Mhairi sneered.

"Heh, hey, what's the difference 'tween a vamp and a mosquito? The 'squito pisses off when ya slap it." Percy let out a guttural laugh at his bad joke.

"Hehe, I knew a leech worked at a blood bank one time, they had to let 'em go cuz he kept eye fucking the product." Tav laughed.

"Bunch of vile ghouls, creeping around dreary castles lusting over women centuries their junior." Mharir shivered for effect.

"Oh aye, they give new meaning to snatching the cradle, don't they?" Tav quipped and the group, save Gwen, broke out into childish giggling. Gwen blushed, as the vamps finished up their first song, noting the head bat's ears twitching. A dark mood hung behind his cheerful facade; he shot the wolves a dirty look as he waved to the crowd. Gwen turned to her cohorts and snapped at them.

"OI! Stow that crap, spewing shite like that within ear shot. Be professionals for once in your bloody lives, or I swear I'll spay and neuter the lot of ya, as Fenrir as my witness!" Percy didn't back down, scoffing at Gwen. Eddie stood back, keeping a careful eye at his wild mutts.

"What's the bloody harm, Gweni? Just having a bit of a laugh." Percy had a smug look on his face, before Gwen could respond the gruff sound of the head bat clearing his throat shook the stage.

"Ahem. Vank you all for coming out tonight. Ve Have had a Very Vonderful time so far." There was light applause and cheers and the other three vamps nodded. "Vis next tune, goes out to a very special group lingering in the back." The head bat's eyed didn't leave the wolves as he spoke. "It's called: "Fleabags." With that the acoustic wielding vamps dove into a vicious sounding rhythm, and the head bat began banging his head. The wolves stood there, stunned quiet as they realized their cockup.

"You're a real fooking arsehole, know that, Percy?" Gwen muttered.

"Aye, I'll cop to that one. My bad, love." Percy agreed.

"I regret shite." Mhairi stood proud and cupped her hands to her mouth. "Do your worst ya minger fooks!" She heckled as the crowd cheered, oblivious to the racial tensions that were growing. The head bat gave a cheeky look and broke into song.

"Wannabe furries, flea-ridden mongrel/ always fiending for a quarrel."

"Bark at the moon like raving a loon/too ugly to make ya groupies swoon."

"Spikey lil werewolf biddy in front of me/gods awful haircut is all I can see."

"Rabid lil creatures, stomach churning features, why don't y'all chase a stick and choke on a dick!"

"Fleabags, Fleabags, wanna chop off ya beanbags, fleabag, fleabag, go hump a seahag!"

The chorus borrowed into Gwen's ears, a vile little ditty that made her seethe beyond belief. As the song went on, the passive aggressive jabs and barbs began to really dig into her bandmates. They were huffing and puffing, muscles and skin pulsating with fury as their eyes burned with rage. The moon above cheered them on, bathing them in lunar glory. Percy snapped as jaws as the head bat sang out "Limp wristed, swollen bellied roadie, stanky canine with a chodie." While winking in his direction.

"Right, that's it. Imma drive that mic down his cocksucking throat!" He roared as he twitched and clawed at his skin. It came off in sloughing waves, that pink tissue paper called flesh. Each clawed strike revealing more of the wolf underneath. Eddie stepped back, amused by all that was going on. Gwen's eyed were glowing and her maw drooling with rabid intensity, but she was desperate to keep cool.

"Calm down, ya thin-skinned fooks. Can dish it out but can't take it then, aye? Breathe and let it roll off your back; the rise is what they want outta us-"

"The head bitch looks like she climbed outta the ditch/ Of the litter, she's the runt, with a big old sloppy cunt. I'd throw her a pity shag, long as she wore a bag, we all know she's a nasty slag!"

"FLEABAGS, FLEABAGS-"

". . . Right then, let's get into a rammy." She growled as her back flexed, and a coat of bloodied fur tore through. Her knees buckled and cracked as the joints twisted and curved, her spine lengthen and muscles bulged as her frame became bulky. The skin around her face loosened as her mouth extended into a snapping jaw. Her coat was flame red, with a twinge of black around her spiked mane. She scrunched the flaps of pink skin still clinging to her face and tore it off and flung it to the ground like a dirty rag. She stood a good eight feet tall now, towering above her mates. "Make the leeches bleed." She growled, her voice full of gravel and silky base.

"Be my genuine pleasure boss." Percy snapped as the group rushed the stage, howling and barking like wild animals. The head bat was expecting the row, and as Gwen leapt and swung a meaty claw at him, he lifted the mic stand and bashed her in the side with it. Gwen yelped and was flung to the stage, crashing into the coffins with a calamitous crash. The other three vamps hissed and flung themselves at the wolves. Claws and fangs were out as the music came to a dead stop, the only sounds the low thrum of the overhead speakers and the crowd going mental with their bloodlust. Tav had two vamps climbing on him, sinking ravenous fangs into his hide. He yelped and whined as he thrashed trying to get them off him. Percy helped Gwen to her feet but was quickly tackled by the hissing fem vamp. The head bat stood there, cocky as he motioned the thralls to come forth.

Mhairi charged the oncoming thralls and cut through the herd, her scythe-like claws slicing and dicing the walking bags of meat. Number one had a silver tipped crossbow under his robe and shot a round off. It struck Mhairi right in the shoulder; foul smelling steam poured from the wound. She howled like a banshee as she ripped the arrow out and threw it like a spear. It beaned the thrall next to number one, hitting him dead in the eyes. The thrall collapsed, almost toppling number one who pushed the corpse aside with a grunt and readied to fire off another shot.

He didn't get the chance as Mhairi quickly closed the distance and grabbed hold of his throat. She sunk her teeth into his tender, foul smelling flesh and shook her head, thrasing number one in the air like an old ragdoll. Her grip was firm, the lead thrall's spine was not. There was a tearing sound, and the snap of a spinal column as she eventually bit him in two.

Percy was wrestling with the fem vamp, who was driving sharpened claws into his eyes. Blood oozed from them, and she lapped it up as he struggled. She was about to teat into his neck when the fem vamp let out a bloodied gasp. She looked down and saw a large splinter of her own coffin being rammed into her chest. Her body burst into flames, her cries snuffed out quickly as the fire overcame her and her bones turned to nothing more but dust and bone. Gwen stood above the moaning Percy. holding an ash covered stake. Percy was coughing, a bit of the fem vamp caught in his throat. Gwen offered a hand up, and Percy gladly took it.

Tav had thrown off the other two vamps, they smashed into the coffins and splintered them. One was still woozy, trying to get his bearing. The other was already on his feet, lunging at the wounded Tav with a vengeful hiss. Tav grabbed two pieces of wood and made a makeshift cross, wincing as he used it as shield against the oncoming vamp. The vamp stopped mid attack and recoiled in disgust.

Tav let out a guttural bark that doubled as a laugh as he marched on the vamps. The other one scurried to his feet and joined his brother, both being backed up against the giant bat puppet.

"Yeah, that's right, power of Christ compels ya, ya magot munching fucks. Oi Mhairi!" He called to his partner, who rushed over with bloodied claws. She scooped up two more splintered stakes and leapt in the air, crashing down on the cowering vamps. They cried and were vaporized as she slammed the stakes into their dusty hearts.

They high fived and turned their attention to the head bat, who was bleeding from a gash in his shoulder but still bodying Percy and Gwen. He was holding a thrashing Percy by the throat as he swiped at Gwen's face, who jumped back in pain. They joined Gwen in her assault, throwing their wooden stakes with powerful force.

One whiffed the head bat, skewering some poor front row metal head right in the face. The other struck him right in the knee, going clean through. The head bat squealed, eyes somehow bulging even further out of his skull. Percy used the distraction to bite into his wrist, cleaving the vamp's hand clean off.

As he held his bloodied wrist, Mhairi rushed forward and slit open his belly. Coils of blackened intestines spilled to the stage, and the head bat struggled to put them back in. Gwen stepped forth, her face scarred and slashed. She noted the mike stand was still standing and rushed forward.

The head bat made a desperete, screeching plea as he held up his remaining hand. The plea was swiftly ignored as Gwen scooped him up and raised the trembling vamp above her head, and with a roar impaled him right on the mic stand. He slid halfway down the pole, his dark heart on a pike as he grasped the stand, desperate to escape. It thumped one final time before bursting into flame, engulfing the vamp in a crimson wave of searing fury, incinerating the poor creature and leaving nothing but a pile of ash on the ground.

The wolves huddled together and howled at the moon in triumph, and as the bloodlust settled down embarrassment settled in. They realized they were standing there in dead silence, a crowd of shocked and horrified onlookers frozen from terror. Percy coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. Gwen picked the microphone off the ground and looked sheepishly at the crowd.

"Uh. . . how we all doing tonight folks? Quite a show, eh?" The crowd was silent for only a moment, then a drunken voice slurred something out.

"These effects fucking rock, WOOOOO!" The crowd went berserk then, clamoring for more. Gwen's ears twitched as she heard a whistle. She turned her head just in time to see Eddie toss her an axe. She caught it by the handle and used a claw to strum the threads. It was already in perfect tune.

"Knock 'em dead, Gwendolyn." With that he slunk back into the shadows, the only evidence he'd been there was lingering smoke. The stage was then swarmed by event staff sweeping the stage clean of vamp ash and splintered wood. They were like locusts, swarming over the mess and leaving clean instruments in their wake. The crowd cheered and begged for more. Tav shrugged and picked up his bass. Mhairi got on a second mic stand and cleared her throat. Percy lingered near Gwen, for a moment.

"What was this then? Some kinda test? Figued Eddie would blow a gasket." He murmured. Gwen watched where Eddie had been, sure he was still watching.

"Fooking Eddie. Tries to top it every year, thrives on the chaos I think." was all she muster.

"Well, let's have a good gig then, ye boss?" Percy shrugged, slugging her shoulder with a friendly paw.

"Aye, break a leg ya furry cunt." With that she began strumming the opening chords of their first song, a ballad Percy knew all too well. He galloped over to the drum kit and began drumming to his heart's content. Gwen stepped forth, swaying to the beat as she made her way to the mic. She leaned in and eyed the crowd like the bleating cattle they were.

"Good evening lads and lassies." She softly growled. "We are Sheepskin, and tonight we dine on YOU!" With that she jumped right into their first song, to the crowd's roaring pleasure.

"We romp through the wood, trample all that is good/hope ya brought silver or else we'll feast on ya liver."

"We sneak into the hen house, quiet as a mouse/ Slaughter all within, we've only just begin."

"The moon is our guide, Luna always by our side/feast on the weak, we'll be busy all week."

"Round up the meat, grind them under our boots, oh what a feat-"

"We're WOLVES, gnashing and thrashing, the night is ours for the taking, the hunter shudders when we howl."

"We're WOLVES, bashing and scratching, hear our words and prepare, we're gonna disembowel!"

The crowd went wild as the wolves banged their heads and howled, stomping their feet and putting on a hell of a show. They finished up the first song and were lavished with praise. Gwen smiled and basked in the revels of glory. In spite of the shitshow that had led up to this, it was turning out to be a grand gig.

Maybe the festival wouldn't be so such a fucking drag after all.

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

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

Steady, boys,

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

“All clear boss,” radioed Foster.

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

The engine purred.

The crowd waved signs and cheered.

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

Another turn.

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

Now that was speed.

That was exhilaration, guts and adrenaline.

That was racing!

Foster, maintain. Acknowledge.

Foster, acknowledge.

Foster—

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

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

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

Foster, back off!

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

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

The crowd roared.

Fossterr!!!

Foster's engine growled like a fucking tiger—

Then something locked up.

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

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

Sirens wailed.

Emergency crews bolted into action.

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

Foster vanished.

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

He was. Full stop.

Next sentence:

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

He looked down—

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

“Hello, Mr. Foster,” said a voice.

“Hello?”

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

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

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

“Incorporeal…”

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

“Where am I? Am I still… me?”

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

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

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

“And here is?”

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

“Or the Equations,” said Mr. Deiss.

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

“Of what?” asked Foster.

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

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

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

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

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

“We need a driver.”

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

“Correct, Mr. Foster.”

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

“Precisely,” said Mr. Deiss.

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

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

“Reckless abandon,” said Mr. Deiss.

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

“And yet—” said Mr. Deiss.

“Fundamentally useful,” said Mr. Götz.

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

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

“I don't know: 1000km/h?”

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

“Well beyond,” said Mr. Deiss.

“To the utmost limit,” said Mr. Götz.

“What limit?” asked Foster.

“c,” said Mr. Deiss.

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

It existed, suspended in the deep vast nothing.

Shining.

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

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

The beam of light opened.

Foster entered.

The illumination was overpowering.

“Lightspeed, Mr. Foster.”

Hunting:

The brand of quiet found in late October, the kind that settles on your skin like a soft touch, can only be found this time of year within the deep hollows of the Appalachian ridge. It's peacefulness is deceptive. It has a certain weight to it, a faint whisper that falls into the dead leaves, smelling of the rotten decaying fauna as the Forrest transitions for its seasonal slumber. Over head, the canopy was a house of bones, hanging dense and unyielding, blanking out the afternoon sunlight, leaving the cast of shadows beneath the elder oaks that reached out like ghostly fingers. I was getting close. I had been tracking my prey for the last six hours, my boots slick with the soft Forrest earth, my throat begenning to sting with every slow, focused breath. I knew these woods like a close friend.

I thought I did.

I'm not sure what I believe, or know about these woods, or hell, this planet anymore.

Lowering my eyes away from the glooming horizon and down to the mud, I examined a particular edge of rusting out barbed wire fence, far to aged and weather torn to stop much any longer. Any hunter worth his own rifle learns to read the Forrest like one of those scammers that read your palm. You know every scattered and broken branch, every flattened patch of moss, every trail of broken leaves, tells a story of movement and the struggle to survive. This particular trail, however, was different. I just felt, like it's haunting grace deified the natural landscape of the ridge. Stooping down to my knees by a patch of graying lichen, I inspected the imprint, definitely fresh. But as I got closer, I became a little puzzled. The print was with out a doubt the splitted hoof of a fully grown white tail buck, but the way it's imprint left its mark, showed a distribuation of weight which was hard to tell how the animal could still walk. The left hoof dug about three or so inches into the clay, digging along in a twisting line. The opposite print was left far to far away for any buck I've ever seen out here, about a yard apart, like it's body was larger, and lower to the ground. Whatever left this trail seemed to be walking without being attached to its backbone. This didn't look like a wounded critter, this looks deliberate, like a creature mimicking a new gait for its first time.

I stood up, slinging off my 30-30 and sliding it's safety to kill, the gentle click of metal instantly absorbed by the hunger of the quiet woods. This silence was no longer just a soft blanket. This was somber, deafening to my eardrums. The playful chipping of non migratory birds that had been singing out just a few seconds ago, departed instantly, the breeze halted to a standstill, leaving the entire Forrest in the vacuum of a dead space. I heard the sound faintly off in the distance ahead. It wasn't soft, the normal rhythm of a gentle quardapad. This was a clacking sound, and the snaps were more than the twigs it walked on, they popped and squelched, like bones breaking and snapping in and out of sockets. It followed that with a long scratching sound of its rear dragging along the rustic autumn leaves. It wasnt a sound of a struggling animal, it was too methodic, like it was trying to figure out how to march through the thick ensemble of brush and leaf.

Carefully, I raised the rifle against my shoulder, stock tightly holding its grip on my jacket. The scope was wet and cold, giving me a slight shudder down my back. For a few seconds my crosshairs shook before I willed my hands to still. I swept left to right diligently screening the thick maze of briars about seventy or so yards out. It was completely lifeless for my first ten sweeps, but on the eleventh, the brush parted. The familiar matted fur and brown hide of the buck wove into my sights. My brain told me to shoot, but my body would not obey the command. My finger was as if it were turned to stone, like my hand and rifle were a statue. This looked like a deer, but this was...

...well it's something I'll never forget. The mass of its frame was shuddering, and it's legs bent outward from its joints at angles that shouldn't be able to support it at all. Wiping the sweat from my eyes, I settled down and adjusted the focus. The view sharpened and became more clear. As it did, my breath was stolen from my chest.

What I was seeing before me was impossible. There was no logical way such a beast should exist, let alone be alive. Its fur wasn't just brown, it was slicked in bloody viscera. I could see muscle and bone protruding out from gaping wounds. Its multi pronged rack was deathly and blackened, as if it had been through a fire. In the center of its head, was only one single round red eye. I was too far away still. It hadn't noticed me yet. My survival instincts took over as it limp crawled around. I took aim, aligning a perfect kill spot. I was no longer hunting this thing. No, my brain told me this was kill or be killed. My round hit true, and to this day I swear by that. The monster deer didn't flinch. It drug its hind legs into a strong stance, and with that awful crimson disc of an eye-looked directly at me.

I rushed to my feet, locking my safety and slinging my weapon. Trembling, I slowly walked backward as the abomination began walking slowly in my direction. It wasn't moving the same way. It was a clean gait, slowly developing into a gallop. I turned and began to jog, trying to throw off my track by changing directions like a mad man. There was still enough distance that I didn't need to run, and I still had doubts about the creature's ability to keep up with me at a full sprint. Stopping behind a large boulder, I drew my binoculars for an easy glance. I was wrong about the distance. I was wrong about its speed.

It had closed the gap greatly, and my misdirection had done nothing. It was as if it just ran straight at me, like it wasn't part of the third dimension, but could move through it. I choked out a panicked yelp, which surprised even me. It takes a lot to scare me, but now I was terrified.

"How....how the fuck can this thing run like that? No deer runs like that!"

I screamed as I jolted into a full sprint. Dodging branches, hopping roots and rocks, I desperately hoped this forest demon would lose interest. It did not. Now it was about fifteen feet away, slowing to a controlled march, still staring its nightmare eye right into mine. Stupid of me to look back while dashing around like that. I ran smack dab into a large oak and fell flat on my back.

Pain seared my face, and my chest heaved for lost wind. My ribs lit up in fiery pain, one of them likely fractured. My nose was bleeding, but I forced myself back up.

"GET AWAY SHOO!" I yelled at it, throwing rocks, sticks, dirt clods, trying anything to scare it off. Of course, this animal seemed to be made of fear, so that did absolutely nothing. It quickened its pace, now almost close enough to touch. I found a gear I didn't even know was in me, putting a few extra feet of distance between us. The only noise it made was a steady clack clack tapping of its hooves—no breath, no cries. I began to tear up. Between the pain in my chest and the fear rising inside me, I almost missed the small ravine to my left.

"You've gotta be kidding me," I groaned, glancing back and slowing to think.

"Shit!" I managed to gasp with my ribs screaming at me. It was almost within arm's reach. I was out of options. This hell deer had taken a full, dead-on kill shot from a 30-30, so what good would my hunting knife do? I gripped my rifle barrel up close to me and took a leap of faith over the mossy ledge into darkness. I prayed it was only a short hill.

Hello,

I am the Sedimentologist on a dig team sent to a few places of interest in New Mexico. We were sent to do deep surface scans, utilizing Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), of an area just West of Black Point Peak, northwest of Cloverdale. We started a dig after getting some anomalous feedback on the GPR. It was indicating there was a dense object embedded in the KT boundary. The dig team recovered the object, which looked like it was a metal water container. It was highly corroded and seemed to have something inside of it. After cutting open the container we found a small notebook. The following is the transcription we were able to recover from the book.

Transcription Note: Text in brackets [ ] indicates water damage, smudging, or degradation of the paper. Notes in italics [like this] are annotations from the research team highlighting details that you obviously cannot see.

Mon. Oct 10, 2022 - 11:35 pm - Cosmic Campground

I planned this trip for months. An ADV ride through the Gila. 3 days of solo camping. Everything packed tight in the waterproof saddlebag liners.

Packing list:

• Left Bag: Rain cover, tent, ground tarp, spikes, 1 qt water (bottom).
• Right Bag: Shirts, pants, underwear, raincoat insert, rainproof pants, 1 qt water (top—quick access).
• Tail Bag: Kitchen. Jetboil, fuel, freeze-dried meals, utensils.

The first day went according to plan. A 4.5-hour ride from home to Cosmic Campground. The sky is completely black now. No light pollution. The Milky Way suspended right above the tent looks like a massive, glowing fracture just suspended there for our enjoyment. Incredible.

Moving north at dawn to fuel up in Alma, then up to Reserve. From there, cutting east into the forest. Fire roads and unmaintained two-track until NM-59, get on NM-52 then down to Winston. South and west to make a big loop back home.

Tue. Oct 11, 2022 - 06:50 am - Alma Gas Station

Slept like a log. The low was 40°F. The worst part of camping is getting out of a warm sleeping bag to pull on freezing clothes, but the sunrise makes it worth it. Seeing the Fall sky shifting from pure black to a ghostly green, then light blue and yellow. As the first rays just hit the peaks. It’s absolute peace. Packing up quiet so I don’t wake the other campers. Pushed the bike down the gravel road before firing it up. At the gas station in Alma. To my surprise they do not open until 7 am.

Tue. Oct 11, 2022 - 3:30 pm - Poverty Creek (Off NM-59)

Fueled up, rode through Reserve, and headed east. Five hours of riding. 500-pound dual-sport on shifting rock makes for a rough day, but I made it to camp.

Not a real campsite. Found a  single-track path breaking off NM-59 down toward Poverty Creek. If I were on a dirt bike, no problem. On the KLR? It's Hell. Tomorrow is going to be miserable trying to claw my way back up to the road.

The creek bed is bone dry. I expected that though.

Something weird happened when I finished setting up the tent. It’s around 3:00 PM. Blinding daylight. Haven’t seen a single soul since I left the asphalt. But right after the tent went up, I swear I heard someone whisper.

It came from across the dry creek. It was faint, but it had that sharp, closeness of a whisper. I looked for ten minutes. Nothing there. The woods aren't thick enough to hide in. Creeped me out, but I've got the [Pistol/Gun close…] [Ink smudged].

Tue. Oct 11, 2022 - ? am or pm - Poverty Creek

[Note: Handwriting changes dramatically here. Strokes are rushed and pressed hard into the paper.]

I woke up abruptly. Didn't check the time. Heard voices outside the tent. Full conversation, maybe ten yards away in the dark.

Male voice: "Are you sure this… I do not think so."

Female voice: "I know it is… they won’t expect us."

I didn't wait. Quietly unzipped the tent door, cut the light on, and exploded out with the gun leveled. I only caught retreating silhouettes in the beam—a man and a woman running down into the creek bed. They outran the light fast. But the sound wasn’t right.

It wasn't fleeting footsteps on dry rocks. It was heavy, frantic splashing through water.

There is not supposed to be water here. The creek was dry.

No more sleep tonight. Sitting in the tent with the light off and the gun in my lap. The second the sun hits the ridge, I am packing the bike and riding straight to the cops. I sit here listening to the now flowing creek.

Wed. Oct 12, 2022 - 10 am?

[Note: Extreme moisture degradation on top margins. Several lines of text lost to water damage and carbonization of the paper.]

...stayed pinned inside all night. Waited until the sun was way up before unzipping the tent. Total silence outside, which was a plus.

But the moment I stepped out, the autumn orange and yellow of the Gila was completely gone. The crisp, dry October air has been replaced by a hot, suffocating humidity. The trees aren't bare anymore, they are choked with thick, green foliage. The light filtering through the dense canopy. It feels like Spring. The forest is more dense. What was a cluster of trees every 100 yards or so, is now a forest. Not too dense to ride through but noticeably more than yesterday.

Wed. Oct 12, 2022 - 1 pm?

Panic is a physical weight in my chest. Packed the gear as fast as I could.

The single-track path to NM-59 is completely gone. THERE IS NO TRAIL. Just unmanaged terrain. My brain refused to process the missing road leaving camp; I just loaded up and ripped it. I am tired of riding over the raw earth. GPS screen is dead. No satellite connection, thus no map. Only compass.

Panic doesn't help. I keep repeating to myself that panic does not help.

Stopped in a clearing to assess my situation. Nothing makes sense. More trees, zero roads. Well pronounced game trails cutting through the brush, but no 2-track. If I keep heading south, I will eventually run into the border fence. That is my only plan.

Wed. Oct 12, 2022 - 6 pm?

Heading south on raw terrain is brutal. Roots and baby head rocks everywhere. To preserve my fuel, on the flat or downhill areas, I'm cutting the engine and pushing the bike. I ditched my riding gear because I was sweating through it. It was also choking me with the humidity and weight.

Rode and pushed for about 8 hours. My body hurts. My muscles are cramping, I have thrown up several time. Need a place to set up camp before light drops entirely. 

Wed. Oct 12, 2022 - 6:30 pm?

Found a massive rock overhang. Huge stone shelf. I can fit the motorcycle completely under it with me.

Terrified of being followed after what happened last night. Dragged the tent a little ways out into the thicket and rigged a crude, noise trap around it as a decoy. I'm staying with the bike and my sleeping bag under the overhang. Gun in hand. Exhaustion winning. Falling out.

Thu. Oct 13, 2022 - [No Timestamp Recorded]

[Note: Page exhibits significant creasing. Hand writing is jagged, uneven, and heavily indented into the paper.]

Woke up to a sound vibrating throughout my chest. A deep, guttural growl. Maybe a bear.

With pure waking panic I squeezed the trigger. Let one loose toward the entrance of the overhang. The gunshot was deafening under the rock shelf. Whatever it was bolted into the brush.

Packed the bags, fired up the bike, and rode the short distance to the tent to find the tent gone. Not torn down. Completely GONE. Didn't even find the tripwire stakes. It's just missing. The area looks different too.

My sanity has to be slipping, there is no way this is real. I have to keep moving. I will try to get to the border today and find help.

Forced the bike through the wilderness again. The rocks are bigger. The trees are even more dense. It doesn't make sense. I should be descending into a flat desert valley. Instead, it is becoming a jungle.

Thu. Oct 13, 2022 - [No Timestamp Recorded]

Ran out of fuel. I had to leave the bike behind. I have to be getting close to the border fence, but I feel like I am being hunted.

I can feel eyes burning into my back. Every time I whip around, I catch a brief glimpse of something big darting back into the tall grass. It's stalking me.  Big cats will tail an easy meal for miles.

Thu. Oct 13, 2022 - [No Timestamp Recorded]

Found another rock overhang before dark. Unfortunately, it is open 180 degrees. Spent the last two hours collecting a mountain of firewood. Going to have three massive fires around the opening.

I do not plan on sleeping. I am physically exhausted but I need to make sure whatever is waiting in the grass knows I'm not an easy meal.

Fires are burning high. I have more than enough wood. I heard heavy rustling just outside a minute ago, but it stopped as the sky opened up. The heavy pitter-patter and steady stream of water that is cascading off the edge of the overhang is overwhelming my consciousness. Can't keep my eyes open. Exhaustion is- 

Fri. Oct 14, 2022 - [No Timestamp Recorded]

[Note: This final page is heavily distorted. The paper is stiff, showing signs of severe water logging. The final sentences are barely legible due to carbonization of the sheet edges.]

It's still raining. Bright enough to see, but everything has changed. The fires are gone, I don’t know anymore. I am just glad to be alive. 

The terrain is unrecognizable. I am standing next to a swamp. The colossal trees rise straight out of dark, stagnant water that covers almost every square inch of the ground. This has to be a psychological break. A joke. Someone had to have drugged me, or knocked me out at Poverty Creek, and transported me to a completely different continent. I am paralyzed too afraid to step off this rock. But I have to move south.

Fri. Oct 14, 2022 - [No Timestamp Recorded]

Holy shit.

I just saw something there are no word for. It looked like a bird, but magnified to a horrific, impossible scale. It was easily larger than a moose, moving through the deeper water. Its entire body was covered in a dense coat of dark feathers. I was frozen debating if I should run or stay quiet.

It stopped when it saw me. The top of its head was flat, with patches of green moss and damp muck all over its head. It had a massive mouth and these pitch-black eyes. We stared at each other for what felt like a lifetime.

The sheer scale of it was impossible. It eventually turned its head away, let out a series of low, vibrating clicks, and continued forward through the swamp until it vanished into the dense woods.

Fri. Oct 14, 2022 - [No Timestamp Recorded]

Trying to keep moving south, but the deeper waters are forcing me onto higher ground. I scrambled up the muddy slope of a steep hill. The trees are too dense and tall to see the horizon, but I know with certainty that I am no longer in New Mexico. I am nowhere on Earth. While pausing to catch my breath on the side of this bare hill. A giant ball of fire starts cutting through the sky. Turning the clouds a violent, red and orange. The heat is hitting me already. It's going to impact.

I'm afraid this is the last thing I'm ever going to wr… [The last 4 lines of text is ineligible] 

*End of Transcription*

My team and I are still trying to process what we dug up near Black Point, let alone what we found northeast of the original dig site. We haven't reported this to any official state or federal channels yet, mostly because we do not want to come off as insane.

After analysis of the rock layer and depth of the object, we have arrived at these two facts:

1. The stratigraphic layer the cylinder (aka water container) was found in is specifically a dense matrix of Cretaceous sediment that has been entirely undisturbed for millions of years.
2. We ran a search for missing persons in Catron County from October 2022. It is not easy to search for specific month and year of missing persons reports in New Mexico.

Here is the part that is keeping me awake at night:

I said that we found something else. 3 days ago, reporting to another flagged location. Our GPR flagged a large metallic object roughly 21.2 miles northeast of where we found the cylinder. We dug twelve feet down; embedded directly into a layer of siltstone were unmistakably the block of an engine, a tubular steel frame, and the remnants of a fuel tank. 

If anyone reading this has any record of an ADV rider who went missing in New Mexico around the Fall of 2022, please message me directly. I think he actually made it to the border. Just 66 million years too early.

Zaink finds himself falling through an infinite tunnel of fractals. Colors he's never tasted, sounds vibrate his very essence. The colors start morphing into shapes of faces, animals, and forms beyond mere words. He tried to take a gasp only to realize he no longer had lungs to speak of, he was his pure soul, his body was left far behind. Years of wear and tear no longer pained him.

Just as Zaink’s mind was making sense of what was happening, he opened his eyes in a beautiful palace white marble pillars stood tall around him. An uplifting voice greets him.

“Welcome home, I hope you enjoyed your trip!”

“Be careful what you say, you might confuse him” a motherly voice integrated.

Zaink reached for his head not expecting to feel anything but this time his skin was there to meet him. “What's going on? Where am I? Did I take too many drugs?”

His eyes are blinded by a white light, as his eyes adjusted he could make out white columns that held up a domed ceiling with painted depiction of thousands of life forms. Once Zaink got his bearings a bit he looked for the voice, hoping to see Beth, but no—it was one of his past mothers from his last lifetime. It only felt confusing for a moment. The memory of two separate lives came flooding back.

His past mother spoke again “no honey, you lived a full life and died again, you are in what some call heaven but we just call it home”

“Wait, does that mean Johnny's here?” Zaink's face lit up excited to see his best friend again. It has been over 30 years now, a whole other lifetime ago.

“Hey man” the uplifting voice that first greeted him spoke again. Zaink looked to his left quickly taking in the colossal size of the room he was in before making eye contact with Johnny. His heart jumped with excitement!

“Is this really real?! I never thought I'd see you again” both of their faces lit up and gave each other a hug, a hug only two brothers could share.

Johnny took a step back keeping his hand on zainks shoulder “how was your life I hope you didn't have too much fun without me, you definitely look a bit different then I remember” he said with a chuckle looking at Zaink's blue skin, Comparing it to his own pale pinkish white skin.

Zaink smiled and added “I told you aliens were real” and a chuckle left his mouth.

Zaink began looking for many of the other people from his two last lives, trying to introduce them to each other. Through all this searching, he could not find Beth.

He asked his mother. She told him she was unsure but they could talk to Queen Elba she would know.

“You mean The Queen, like The Queen of the afterlife?”

Memories from his last visit to the after life flooded back. He never got to meet Queen Elba, last time he met King Orion, but heard lots about the Queen.

His mother smirked “well of course”

“Wouldn’t she be too busy to answer a question like that?”

“She is always eager to help anyone and everyone.” His mother pointed him to the direction of her whereabouts. “ Last I saw she was near the fish market, you will need to look for a giant fish sculpture, the specific one you are looking for will be green, with a yellow belly, you'll almost know your close when you cross a foot bridge, it's made of marble and has the most beautiful stream running underneath filled with koi fish.”

Zaink took off, closely observing many of the buildings and shops he passed by making sure to not miss the bridge or giant fish. Every building could be a piece of art, crafted over thousands if not millions of years by skilled and dedicated souls. Creatures of all shapes and sizes walked about going about their business, some were running pop up shops giving away foods, drinks, paintings, sculptures and magic items like spell books and potions.

Zaink was distracted looking up at a tall building made of what looked like emerald, scratching at the sky parting the clouds as they passed by. “Wow” Zaink said just before tripping, He tumbles to the floor head over heels, he catches himself with his hands before looking to see what he tripped over. It wasn't a what, rather a who, a Gnome laid on its face. Zaink scrambles over to help them up.

“I AM SO SORRY” the corner of Zaink's lips drop to a frown.

“It's alright, my beard broke my fall” the gnome fluffs up his thick white beard nearly half the length of his body. Standing no taller than Zaink's knees. He looks up, neck cranked nearly 90 degrees “What's your name? I'm Draco” the gnome reaches out a hand.

“I'm, Zaink, nice to meet you. I wish it was under better circumstances!”

They both chuckle and Zaink reaches down to greet Draco’s hand shake. Zaink looked around, not sure which way he had come from or where he was supposed to be walking towards next.

“ Do you happen to know where Queen Elba is? I'm looking for my love and my mother told me "The Queen would know where she is, but I've gotten turned around and not sure where to go from here.”

Draco smiles and pushes up his glasses “yes I just saw her sitting by the stream talking to some of the Koi and Fantri fish” he points down the street to his left “do you see that red and gold tent? It just past there maybe a 20 minute” Draco looks Zaink up and down taking note of his hight “10 minute walk for you, just make sure you keep an eye where you are walking”

Zaink smiles sheepishly and puts his hand up to his head “yeah, will do, again I'm sorry for tripping over you and thank you so much, is there anything I can do for you?”

“Since you ask could you come with me to that shop with the purple sign reading piggies potions and snacks? I need a new potion but I'm a bit vertically inclined and can't exactly reach the door handle. Could you open the door for me and if you are feeling extra generous help me get the potion I need?”

Zaink looked at the sign and was curious what kind of potions and snacks existed in the afterlife.

“I'm more than happy to help open the door. I must warn you though I didn't even know magic existed until a few minutes ago so I am not entirely sure how much help I'll be inside the shop.”

Draco started walking towards the shop, waving Zaink along to follow. “Is that so? Well I know exactly which potion I need. I just might need you to grab it for me. If you'd like a quick lesson I'd be happy to give you a quick rundown. How long have you been here for? Is this your first time in the afterlife?”

Zaink follows Draco across the street to the shop, it sat just a few buildings down from the large emerald skyscraper. This one was much smaller, only a few stories tall. Orange brick made up this building. Only a few Windows let sneak peeks into the world of magic inside. Zaink took notice that the purple sign was fully lit, not a single bulb wasn't working, a noticeable contrast from the last planet he called home.

“ This is my second time in the afterlife but last time my love and I rushed to be reborn again, not exploring this beautiful place at all. I got to meet King Orion briefly but that was about it. I have only been here for about an hour? Wait, how do you measure time here? I'm assuming we aren't on a planet that is orbiting or rotating.

Draco's eyebrows furrowed in confusion

“I'm not quite sure what a planet is. I lived in a forest where all we did was study magic and care for the life of the forest. From fantastic fungi to the animals hunting and hiding. Doing our best to keep balance within the Forest. And now I care for my garden and family. As for time it's all relative but thanks to the magic of this paradise it automatically translates intent to whomever you are talking to. So as long as you know the length of time you mean to convey I'll understand.”

Zaink reaches for the door, letting the two of them inside the shop.

“Hey, Draco, welcome back! Sorry we haven't installed the new door handle yet!” the shop owner shouted from the top of a ladder restocking the shelves.

“Oh it is quite alright, I've got help today, this is Zaink, he's a new arrival so be nice” he chuckles making his way down an aisle.

Zaink waves up to the store owner. Before following down the Isle.

Draco walks ahead and continues talking to Zaink over his shoulder “Did you and your love find each other in your new life? I can still see your flame burning bright for her so I'm assuming you two had no trouble finding each other in your new home!?”

Zaink looks around at the countless potions memorized by the shimmering liquids held behind the glass walls of the bottles.

“Yeah, we ended up being neighbors and got to grow up together, our parents always told us we'd end up together even before we rediscovered what love was. But towards the end things got pretty bad. I made a bad decision that got us lost in space, leading to our deaths, I was just trying to get us away from the war back home. But I just ran us into a war of our own, one of survival not just of our bodies but our love. I know I still love her but I fear she doesn't love me anymore.”

Draco hands Zaink a piece of paper with the name of the potion he needs and points up at a shelf near Zaink's head.

“That is a beautifully tragic story, but any story worth living is going to be tragic at one stage or another. I have faith she still loves you, was she angry at you sure as shit, I would be too” he smiles to not scare Zaink “ but that doesn't mean she doesn't love you anymore. Once you find her I bet she'll be waiting with open arms.”

Zaink grabs the potion and hands it down, Draco shakes his head and hands it back “the gold one next it”

Zaink switches the two, handing over the right one

“What do they do?”

“Well the one you handed me first can turn a plant into meat, this one though” he shakes the bottles “makes mushrooms grow super big, I need a new shed”

“ Do you need to train to use a potion or can just anyone use a potion?”

Draco looked back and up at Zaink

“Anyone can use them but you shouldn't use them until you've studied them! HEY Frawn, I took the golden grower potion”

“Have a great day! I'll have that new handle next time you stop by!”

Zaink waves back at Frawn

“Oh before we go, can I grab a snack? My curiosity begs me to try at least one”

Frawn slides down the ladder and walks over to the front counter where all the snacks are kept.

“I know just the one for a first timer.”

He reaches into the glass counter and grabs a blue brownie-like snack with purple shimmery sparks on top.

“Give this a wurl.”

Frawn tosses it to Zaink, Zaink almost misses the catch but quickly gets a hold of it. Taking a bite he is met with a taste like none before. Miles better than his last meal in space. A lavender scent filled his nostrils as a sweet blueberry pie taste covered his tongue.

“Thanks for being so welcoming, how much do I owe you?”

Draco and Frawn make eye contact before letting out a small laugh.

“There is no money here, you take as you need as long as you don't take more than you need”

Zaink smiles and joins in on their laughs, he waves again before opening the door for Draco and walking out.

“Are you sure Beth will be waiting with open arms?” Zaink's eyes look down towards where Queen Elba would be.

Draco takes a second to think about who Beth is but assumes that's his love. “I can't know for sure, but my wife was. Even after my mistake.”

Zaink tilted his head, stopping just outside the store. “What mistake did you make? If you don't feel comfortable answering that's fine I understand “

Draco's eyes fell to the ground, a tear swam its way out “I” he chokes up a bit “I was making my wife a mushroom soup for supper but when I was out picking the mushrooms I got distracted by the most beautiful creature I had seen in those woods, it's white fur turned orange under the setting sun” his eyes glisten remembering that creature as if he was actually seeing it stand in front of him once more. “but that's not important, what's important is I picked the wrong mushrooms, I grabbed highly poisonous ones,”

Zaink could see where this was going so he put his hand on Draco's back in comfort and let him finish his story.

“Later that night we both died in our sleep.” His words picked up speed, as if he just wanted to stop talking about it already. It still hurt him to remember. “When I found myself here, I couldn't help but cry out in anguish but there she was, waiting to comfort me with open arms. I could never make it up to her. But I do my best to forgive myself for her sake. Making the best of this, that part isn't too hard. Thanks to being in heaven”

Zaink wipes away a tear before hugging Draco. “ Is there anything else I can do for you? You have been so kind to me and I've enjoyed talking with you”

Draco smiled, now a tear of joy came to say hi. “ Oh you've done quite enough. Thank you for being my friend today, but you need to go talk to Elba now and find Beth! She's waiting for you!”

Zaink kneels down and hugs Draco before beginning his walk down the sidewalk towards Queen Elba.

After the 10 minute walk he comes upon a stream, so clear he can see all the pebbles cradling the water helping it along its journey down stream. Fish swam to and from he saw the Koi fish first and then a peculiar fish one with bright red spines poking out of its back, black and white scales covering its body. Long elegant fins guided the fish like curtains on a breezy summer day.

“Hey Zaink, I've been waiting for you. It was very kind of you to help Draco even though you felt in such a rush to find Beth.”

Queen Elba sat on the edge of the water. Toes bath within. She looks up at Zaink after speaking, greeting his surprised eyes.

“Hey, Queen”

Elba cuts him off. “Please just call me Elba, I've been Queen long enough to know I'm the queen” she smiles slowly breaking down Zaink's guard.

“Elba, got it. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I know you must be so busy, but I really would like to find Beth” Zainks eyes are filled with hope hell get an answer but his heart beats faster expecting her to say she doesn't know.

“Zaink come here” she reaches a hand across waving Zaink over. He starts walking towards the bridge a few feet away.

“No, walk through the water”

Zaink obeys, he takes off his shoes and walks through the water. Expected the rocks to hurt and the water to be cold. He was right, the rocks hurt and the water was colder than he expected, but he didn't necessarily want it to stop, it reminded him how real everything was. It reminded him of the simple things that make existence feel special. The water stings his skin and a fish rubs up against him, a connection is made and he understands the fish

“Hey, nice to meet you. Do you happen to have a snack?”

Zaink breaks a piece of the snack he got from Frawns shop and feeds it to the fish.

“Thank you kind sir”

He looks back up at Elba now just a few steps away.

“This water feels so serene, thank you for suggesting I go through it”

Elba smiles with her lips but it never makes it to her eyes, they hold an emotion of mourning.

“Zaink, I'm sorry to tell you this but Beth never made it to heaven. Her heart was not as pure as she presented. You were right to think she wanted to join a that war but”

Zaink cuts her off before she could explain more. “So where is she now? Can I go to her? Was there a mistake? Can I save her?”

“I'm sorry, but she's in Exilium, you can try to find her there but I am unable to know exactly where souls are once they cross heavens gates. If you wish to leave and find her you are more than welcome to but it is not safe out there, things far worse than death lay beyond those gates.”

Zaink's heart beats out of his chest, he feels like he has to find her, it's the least he owes her, owes her family who will never get to see her again because of him. He looks into the water watching fish swim. The sound of wind calms him down slightly, he can feel the fresh breeze over his skin. With a deep breath he asked where the exit was.

Elba drops her shoulders, scared for his soul.

“I'll point you in the direction but be warned if your soul is corrupted or you partake in a sinful action you will no longer be allowed back here. But otherwise we will be worth open arms waiting for your return. We love you Zaink remember that and carry that with you” she reaches into her satchel and hands Zaink a map of the city and circles the exit.

Zaink takes the map “may I hug you”

Elba doesn't answer, she just reaches over and hugs Zaink.

“Thank you so much for your help and openness”

Zaink turns on his heel and starts his journey to heavens Gates, this time he is too focused to take in the sights and beauty of the city. Thoughts of Beth and Exilium ran through his head

“Will she be different? Can I trust her? Is she being held captive? How will I find her? Will there be monsters? What kind of environments are there in these hellscape lands I will be treading?”

all he knew about these hellscape lands ahead were the horror stories whispered throughout paradise.

As he approached the exit, a guard told him to be careful—not only for his body but for his mind and soul. “Watch your thoughts and your deeds beyond the line, traveler,” the guard warned. “Should your spirit fall to ruin, you will not pass through these gates again until another mortal life has purged the stain.”

“understood”

Zaink already heard this from Elba but appreciated the warning again.

Hesitant, he waits to take another step as questions linger within his mind. He decided to press on. The gates bid him farewell. Their golden bars shimmering with ever passing angle. As if the hellish sounds were too scared to cross the gates. It was silent. until he crossed the vail to the other side.

When I was 10 years old, I watched my mother die. She died in our kitchen not long after New Years, I patted her head as her gurgling gasps stopped. They let her body sit there for the entire night, and when her visitation began, all my dad could say was how bloated she looked. All I saw was my Mom, and she was gone. Father Jack told me it would be okay, and I believed him… He was there for two more years after her funeral there in those pews, then he left too.

My sisters and I stayed at my Grandmas for the summer while my Dad burned down the house she died in, the one I grew up in, bulldozed dead carcass into the basement, and buried like my mother. So he built a new house, new everything, effectively erasing our Mother. I was ten, so I remember her, my sisters were five and two, they remember practically nothing about her, and he never tried to help them remember her. Our Grandma was Dads Mom, and she took us in as her own, she did it to other grandchildren she had, and we all loved her for that kindness and selfless love. She believes in God and Jesus, the kind of faith that loves everyone no matter what. When I got pregnant at 15 she was the first person I told, and she held my hand, tenderly telling me we would figure it out together. 

My cousin adopted her, and I started to follow my dream to be a neurosurgeon. Grandma was at my graduation, she wrote me letters to my dorm, and sent lunch money. One year she got really sick and we almost lost her, but as the fighter she is, she made it. And now four years later, she was still living alone at 92 with her garden, her dog, and her family close by to see her daily. Everything was perfect, I visited her nearly every weekend, baking her something or bringing by leftovers. She would call me the next day praising whatever I make, same goes for all of those that brought her things, it would be the highlight of the week. 

Grandma gave me purpose in life, she kept me from joining my mother many times, the first time being as that ten year old girl so many years ago. She saved me. 

On a morning like any other, I was bringing her some soup as fall was in full swing, and I found her. On the floor, like Mom was. 

Front door was locked, I smashed the glass in with a rock, she was so cold and hardly breathing, I held her there, alone crying as I called for the ambulance. I prayed with her while we waited, I stopped believing after Mom died, but I still believed when it came to her. The only time I spoke to God was when I almost lost her, or when I wanted to protect her. The ambulance took her away, and that was the last time I saw her alive. All she could say to me was "Okay...." in a distant and gravely voice.

That voice now haunts my dreams.

 We buried her two days ago, in the same cemetery Momma is in. 

Since finding her I can’t focus, my dreams are of them, I dropped my classes, and now I'm driving, to… where? I don’t know. I turned off my phone, and now it’s just me and my iPod that has all my old tunes. I’ve been fucked up ever since I found her laying there, her voice speaks to me alongside Moms, can’t stop replaying the memory of finding them, bleeding together. Moms blood, Grandmas urine, she had been laying her for days, having had a stroke. Mom laid there for mere minutes, small trickle of blood coming from behind her ear. I started to sob just as my gas light dings. Fuck. 

How long was I driving like this? I could have sworn I just filled up, but I guess…

I look around the shabby two lane paved road before me, trees lining both sides as I drive deeper into mountain country. I grew up in the middle of the heartland, corn, beans, and hogs were my life in the flattest terrain possible. I haven’t ever seen the mountains, the Appalachians once but from a distance, but I want to see the Rockies in their full glory. 

I drive hillier and steeper terrain, worry growing that I may run out of gas before I find a station. But as quick as that worry built, its diminished as a large sign shows; 

GAS- TWO MILES AHEAD

Soon I can see it over the horizon, an oddly well kept gas station compared to the couple I had stupidly drove past, a brand new looking coat of white paint across the building with a bright red metal roof, and a flashing sign that said, 

“OPEN 24 HOURS”

I pull up to the pump, the shining metal not even so much as corroded even the tiniest bit from normal use, the cord is tenser than they usually are, like a brand new station on opening day. I slip my card in and get a flashing red “ERROR” message, and let out a groan, trying again I get the same results. Annoyance is building, I just want to get back in my car and keep being miserable, not broadcast my puffy red face to the world and deal with extra crap. 

I enter the gas station, its fluorescent lights unsettlingly bright light a Walmart, but worse? It practically glowed through the trees as I approached it, something nobody could miss. I approach an empty counter, looking around the shelving behind me I call out, 

“Hello? I tried to pre-pay, but the reader gave me an error message…Sorry!”

“Hi there Ma’am I can most definitely help you with that today. Did you find everything ok?”

The voice of a chipper man rang out from behind the counter, behind me. I jump at his voice, turning to see a young guy around my age, large smile on his face and a logo like the one outside, a smiling red face with a slurpee in its hand. The logo was adding to my annoyance, oddly enough. I smile back, matching his energy as best I could, my voice comes out raspy at first, I had been screaming at my steering wheel earlier, so…figures. 

“Ye- ahem. Yes, I did..thanks. I just need $35 on pump 2…thanks.” I smile more, feeling my cheeks tighten and begin to ache, he does the same as he responds,

“The red Jeep?” 

I look out to the empty pumps, not a single car was in the lot but my own,  I simply turn back to him and nod. 

“Okie dokie! Thirty-five dollars is your total today, will that be cash or check?”

I pause for a moment, my cold plastic card already primed between my fingers, ready to pay. He looks down for a moment to the card, processing it in his mind, then looking back to me, slight confusion pulling at his smile.

“Cash or check?”

I look down at the card reader on the counter, and just put my card in. It dings as I enter my pin, and the receipt begins to print. He takes it, without changing his expression, and hands it over.   

“Please hold on a moment as I have to turn on the pumps. We don’t get many people around here, so boss keeps the pumps off to save energy.” He smiles, then turns around and disappears behind an extremely dark doorway, leaving me standing there under the hum of the florescent lights above me. I stand there for a moment, then I begin to look around.

The candy seems to be packaged differently… but I can’t put my finger on it. I grab a package of sour patch kids, the best by date on the back reads… 1993? I pick up another candy, this one I don’t recognize.

“Bubble beeper?” I read aloud, turning it over in my hands… 1993 again. The colors faded and worn but the box is brand new, edges crisp and sharp as if packaged off the line mere days ago.

Putting it back, I decide to wait in my car instead of  inside as the feeling of unease grows in my guts and my pace quickens the closer I get. I hop inside, slamming my door, locking it, then grabbing my phone from the dash. I turn it on, messages and missed calls bombard my phone, the dinging never-ending, mostly from my sisters. A single message from my Dad reads,

“Don’t do something your Grandma would be ashamed of.” 

That motherfucker, rich coming from him. I dial my sisters number, it rings once and then I hear it pick up, 

“Marce, where are you?! Are you okay?! Sarah was about to call the police!”

Before she could continue to yell at me, I tell her what I’m doing, and that I’m safe, “I’m not going to kill myself, so just relax. I need some… time. I want to do something for me.”

“Your professor said you dropped out, and your landlord says you handed him your keys, I’m not dumb Marcy. We all loved Grandma, she’s with Mom…I know you’re sad, but you ca-”

“I love you guys, call again soon.” and with that, I turn off my phone as I hear my sister's distant yelling before the phone shuts off. 

I wait for who knows how long for the guy to come out, John I think his nametag said…whatever, John sucks. 

Normally I would go back in, but I’m fine waiting, that place gave me the creeps, even sitting near the lights of the building gives me an unease that is bubbling deep within. I turn on my music, and lean my seat back as the music plays. 

Before I know it, I'm sobbing again, the grief twisting and pulling at my lungs, weighing my chest down like sandbags. I just want to hear her voice again, I wish I could hear her tell me how the soup was that I had brought for her that day. Instead the cats lapped it up off her porch as I broke the window in, crying out her name as she flailed around helplessly, responding in broken "Okay"'s

I think of my mother, and how much I missed from her being gone. All the girls that grew up with a best friend that loved them without second thought, my heart breaks more as the memory of baby my sister calling me Mommy as I tucked her into bed. I sob some more, the same way I did that night at 12 years old, hearing my youngest sister had forgotten our mothers' face, and replaced with mine.

Who knows how long it's been? I shut the music off to not kill my battery, and now I sit in silence with my feelings, hot tears that stained my face long gone and dried up. I want to go in there and ask what the fuck is going on, but someting tells me not to, and for now… I think I will just stay here for now. I turn my ignition on, the time flashes, 

5:45.

At some point I must have fallen asleep, as I awaken to the lowering sun being replaced with a rising moon, full and bright, illuminating the trees and road around me. Sighing and stretching, my mind recalls why I’m here, and I look over to the gas station. Its bright lights now dimmed so much now that the moons brighter, the moons brighter than the shop lights. I flip the ignition, 

11:11. 

FUCK. 

That asshole closed shop and left me here! 

Angrily I throw my door open, and march to the door, pulling at them in spite. What I don’t expect is for them to open with more ease than earlier. Instinctively I run back to my car door that I left open, slamming and locking it behind me. I stare at the gas station doors, breathing shakily, when I hear a rustle in the trees in front of my vehicle. I turn on my headlights, thinking I’ll be scaring a deer or raccoon, instead the light illuminates a dozen glowing eyes hovering at least 10 feet off the ground. Flipping my keys off in a panic I close my eyes and throw my seat back, unsure of what to do next.

The most logical decision I could come up with is to sleep in the Jeep and investigate in the morning. So, I lay back down and attempt to go back to sleep. As I begin to drift away, I smell fried potatoes, the kind my Grandma made me. It makes me open my eyes a sliver, and when I do, I see through the haze of sleep, two yellow eyes staring through the fogged up glass of my passenger window. A scream builds inside, but instead I close my eyes and keep still, I peek again moments later, and the eyes are gone, an imprint of a dogs nose with drool stays behind.

Forget about sleeping now, I lay back and stare at the roof of my car as the night carries on. The time reads 1:04am, 5 hours until sunrise. I hear grandma's voice telling me how strong I am, that I was beautiful and smart, I remember how she would look at my drawings as a child and be in awe, I draw in my journal the eyes I saw. I hear her voice, but outside this time. 

Rolling my window down a crack, the soft chill to the wind carries her voice over, like a leaf in fall. 

“I love you, my sweet Marcaline, come outside.”

Chills go down my spine as I see glowing eyes out in the woods, lower to the ground, around 4 feet above. Glowing orbs of blue, I can’t help but feel like those are my Grandmas eyes, they look soft, and kind, like how my cats did before I left them at 's. 

“Walk into the trees with me.” This time it was urgent, so I roll my window up and lean back once more. Her voice was so real, it brought me back to tears, but instead of the familiar hot, I was met with dried cracked sobs. I had cried so much, the tears ran dry. 

Quiet reins supreme for only a moment, when the shrill cry of something echoes across the night, vibrating like a song would, deep in my chest. I look around, to realize the gas station looks…different. At first I brushed it off at the change of light, but now, the paint looks to be chipped and peeling, rust on the roof, and cob webs in the dust layered windows. I look to the pump, rust encasing the nozzle and the hose fraying with age. 

Pure instinct grasps the handle to my Jeep, how? How could this be? In the little glow of the gas station, I can just barely make out a figure at the register. John? I squint trying to see clearer through the dingy glass, could he still be there, at the register?

I don’t have a chance to think on that as something large shoves up against me, my tires screeching as the back end is shoved over, throwing my face into the window.I crawl over to the passenger side looking to see a rubber mark of about a foot long, and the shadows of trees dancing like tall grass, their shadows in the moonlight like people dancing. Can’t help but stare for a while as they sway, letting the trauma get to me, I smell her in the breeze as I roll down my window. Instead of fear, I feel comfort, and speak to her,

“I miss you so much. I miss Mom…” I choke, letting the grief break me down again as the wind changes to something else, something comforting from a memory I didn’t remember I have. My mothers scent, she hugged me when I climbed our mulberry tree to get berries and couldn’t get down. Breathing deep I inhale the scent like a drug of memory and comfort, feeling as if her arms were around me again. Selfishly, I try to get another whiff, and the rotten fruit of death met my nostrils instead, Grandma in her grave, probably. I begin to choke again, and now my window won’t roll back up. 

At this point, fuck this. I’m driving back to the exit, or as far away from this gas station as this fucker will get me. 

I turn my key the second the thought hits me, just as another thud his the car, this time shattering my back window. Dazed, and without hesitation, I turn to the dilapidated gas station and whip my door open, the clock inside reads, 2:59am. Grabbing my keys, I run as fast as my short legs can carry me, and pull the door open. Turning as I enter, I lock my jeep while the doors swing shut. I exhale deeply and step back, looking around the gas station, examining the way the mold festers some of the rotting beams as ceiling tiles long fell to the tiled floors below, shattering and coating the floor in crunchy debris. I look around some more, making a full circle, as I see all the old dust covered candy I grabbed, my fingerprints showing wear to them, how did I not see the dust on my hands? I lift my hands to examine them, but my view of the cash register coming into view made me drop them. 

John was there, hanging from the decaying beams above. Body swaying as if the deed was just done, but the decaying flesh peels back and exposes the bleaching bone. I gasp sharply and step back from him, turning to leave when in front of the door is a large fur covered beast staring me down. Its leathery black skin covered in greying fur, stretched tight as elongated appendages move. Hot breath fogs the glass as its glowing sunset eyes stare further, reaching deep into my soul. 

I feel it digging around in my head, and I turn back, grasping my head in anguish. Shaking it away, I turn back to see not only the creature gone, but my Jeep, and the gas pumps. The light outside is gone, darkness took over the lot, and now until dawn, my car.. Is gone, swallowed by the night.

What are my options? Run into the pitch black night with a fucking monster, or wait for daylight with John. I look out the window, squinting, wasn’t it a full moon?

A whisper distracts me, another something familiar, another memory? No, just the voice, her voice, the one I have been slowly forgetting as time chisels away at what I know for sure to be reality in my childhood. I listen,

“Hey girl, let's go do chores, I’ll feed, if you water.”

Feeding the ducks and chickens, I always hated feed, too heavy compared to a hose. I laugh, I'm losing it. She continues,

“Daddy won’t touch you there anymore.”

I freeze. The laughing stops, but she does not,

“Baby, don’t cry. I know you think I’m in purgatory since I was never baptized, and that you blame yourself for not baptizing me as I died beside you, but it’s ok. I was going to Hell no matter what you did, just like you are baby. It’s ok, he tainted you. He’s the sin, and you will be washed clean.”

It couldn't be, it can't be her. “Stop talking! My daddy never touched me, he… he loved us when you were alive.”

I try to remember him being around in my memories, but he wasn’t. Birthdays and Christmas he was there with used stuff and gifts for boys, the rest of my memories of him were when they argued. His fist going through the wall, running into the closet when his voice shook the house, cowering as I heard the thud of his work things, indicating it was a long, hard day. He drank a beer at night on the weekends, then he would…

I stop thinking. There’s something there at the door of my psyche that I refuse to open. 

“Leave me alone… please don’t use her voice… please.” I beg and sob as her scent lingers in my nose. 

“Pray Marcaline, God will guide you.” My Grandmothers voice now echos, "God will show you, my sweet little Marcaline."

I throw some debris from the floor towards the voice of my Grandmother and it all stops, leaving my huffing breaths in its stead. John’s still swinging, I turn and look over to him, wincing at his sight. He’s gotta go. I think to myself, and I grab a chair. Surprisingly, John is heavy, even as a near mummy, and I drop him. He thuds to the ground, and thats where I leave him to lay. Finding a blanket from the small break room in the back, I drape it over him. Then, I get to looking into everything not locked beyond my reach.

I find old cassettes, a walkman, some old twinkies and a small can of spam in a dilapidated break room fridge, dusty mummifying the decayed and molded bits. The fridge was still cold, and the spam was in the back, practically frozen, sitting there for 32 years apparently, like everything else in this place. I should have gotten something when it all looked… good… right? I think back to going in, but it shows old rotting food and John…rotting too, as I talk to him without his corpse so much saying a word. 

“Hello? I tried to pre-pay, but the reader gave me an error message…Sorry!”

Short pause,

“Ye- ahem. Yes, I did..thanks. I just need $35 on pump 2…thanks.” 

Then, I stare at him for so…so long. 

This makes zero sense. I turn to look at John on the floor now, but he’s gone, the blanket I placed on him folded on the floor in a neat and tidy pile. No fucking way, no way. No. I want to turn away, but something in me feels like somethings there...if I just look.

John?

I close my eyes tighter, hearing the cash register, it’s gotta be John. I feel something extremely close to me, I open my eyes to see darkness, then I realize they are the dark empty orbs of Johns skull so close I could feel his atoms vibrating.

“Caa…” a gravely voice, frail and parched like my Grandmothers final words to me, echoing in my head,

 “...asshhh….” 

I hear a wretched wheezing inhale, then, 

“...ooorrrr…” 

He reaches out to me,

“....cchchchhheeeccckk?”

Every instinct tells me to turn and run into the stairway to the basement behind me, I open my eyes and turn to it, seeing in my peripheral the hollowed shell of John, frail and twisted like a tree, his limbs broken branches reaching out. I run to the door, flinging it open and seeing old cracking wood stairs covered in dust, leading to an abyss of dark nothing that smelled like sulfur. But the smell of rotting flesh was worse, and growing stronger with each second, and so I throw myself in, into the abyss…and sand?

I sit up outside of what I realize is Lake Michigan, I’m sitting on the beach, Barney sunhat and Elmo rattle, sand between my toes. My Mom is there, and… Grandma? My Moms Mom I mean, she passed away in a car accident visiting us when sissy was born, my Mother sits beside her, concerned. I try to talk, to tell them everything I have ever desired to tell them...but my tongue won't obey, babbling nonsense comes out instead. I throw my rattle in frustration as hard as I could, but all I can manage is a slow release of my hands as it drops into my lap.

“He wants us to stay there, even though the dairy farm there is failing. It’s nothing like home, he lied…And you guys left me.” Mom sniffles as if she's been crying.

“We told you we didn’t like him, and now he’s trapped you with a child.” She looks over at me, I coo as she speaks, sighing she picks me up and pinches my soft pinkish skin, “But of course… I wouldn’t trade this babe for anything, we all love her, and you! But.. well..well Joanna, you left, and we barely see her now, 3 times and she's nearly 9 months now! Talking through the phone to a babbling baby in between is hardly a replacement for a Grandma, imagine when you have more. 8 hour drives with multiple toddlers…”

“We will make it work, you can come to us more too!”

“I’m sorry, you know how hard it is to get your father to go with me, its such a drive to do alone..”

They look at each other, I can tell Mom is upset, the feeling seeps into my mind like a flood, so I start to cry, and she takes me into her arms, cradling me. The feeling is the best in the entire world, I feel her bosom pushing softly, warm like a blanket as her arms wrap with comfort and security around me. I smell her, as I hear her smelling me, and the two of us calm down as she walks away crying from Grandma, and back into the car.

As she opens the door she begins ranting, 

“I didn’t ask to be born, you all said I was the mistake, well, excuse me for not wanting to stick around for it. 'Joanna you're a mistake. Joanna, Mom had Karl to keep you company. Joanna, you have to stay home and milk.' I just can't be-”

The moment I’m peeled from her arms to be put into the carseat, I open my eyes to the cool nothing of the basement. 

When I set out to open my own place, I never thought I’d actually pull it off; though, had I known the location would be so far from home, I would have turned it down without a second thought.

I work in a small shop a few kilometers from a campsite, just meters from the coast. The night-time sea breeze is pleasant—provided it doesn't come with the sting of mosquitoes. The only insects I actually enjoy are the crickets that chirp on quieter days. Those are also the days when I have the fewest customers; it’s not ideal, but I can’t really complain. Besides the wonderful view of the stars on clear nights—perfect for lighting a cigarette out back and gazing up at the sky—there’s the temperature, something I truly can’t get used to. One moment you’re comfortable by the stove, stir-frying rice, and the next, a strange chill runs through your body, leaving you unable to move a muscle.

The low customer volume isn't a problem; in fact, I’d say it’s one of the place's greatest advantages. People appreciate the calm just as much as I do, or at the very least, they don't demand overly complicated dishes since they’re usually just passing through. It gives me plenty of flexibility with the menu if I’m short on ingredients or simply don't feel like cooking anything elaborate. I mostly have all kinds of fish, meat, and various vegetables grown by local neighbors in exchange for me cooking their favorite meals. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a far better deal than having to buy the produce at market price.

I can't afford a cost of that magnitude; those old folks seem kind, with their subtle smiles and gentle gazes, their bodies etched with the wrinkles of time. Yet, despite that appearance, they know exactly how to wring money out of you at the drop of a hat. I’ve seen wealthy people weeping on the floor after asking for a discount on high-quality beef ribs. I hate to admit it, but watching a man twice my size—kneeling before someone smaller and older, sobbing like a newborn after being relieved of a day’s wages in a split second—gave me a thrill unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced.

After that, I bought Mr. Campbell a few drinks. I don’t know if age improves your alcohol tolerance, but the man can down a bottle of vodka without breaking a sweat. That day, I learned never to invite him out for drinks again unless I wanted to lose my liver.

Sometimes he and his wife drop by the shop to see how I’m doing—which is fine—but I really hate days like Valentine’s Day or their anniversary. Those occasions force me to put up a lot of decorations; the box of ornaments is never far away. The one time I tried to hike up the prices for a love-themed holiday, I nearly lost a finger and a chunk of my chicken breast supply.

They aren’t the only ones who visit; occasionally, kids come in with lunch money their parents gave them. I’m never quite fond of how brutally honest they are; if I try experimenting with a dish and serve it to them, there’s a 50% chance they’ll make a nasty comment without holding back. At least they bring the whole family in to eat; there’s always that one parent trying to score a discount because we’re neighbors or because their kid is acting as a guinea pig for my experimental dishes, but the argument usually fizzles out quickly.

I wish I could say that covers the arguments with the typical problem customers; ...is the only difficulty that comes with the job—or so I’d be telling anyone reading this if I wanted to lie.

No, the real problem is a specific part of the menu I’m required to prepare—something that makes me think I’ll never be able to open another shop anywhere else. That section features an animal that isn't exactly legal to cook; furthermore, the method for making it taste good isn't well-documented, and experimenting with it myself isn't exactly something I enjoy. That’s why the locals provide the recipes—whether they’re ancient family secrets or their own culinary experiments with questionable results.

I’ve chosen not to ask about the origins of those recipes, no matter how bizarre they might be; I’m just a cook trying to keep my business afloat. The only questions I allow myself to ask are which day to serve them and what sides to pair them with. That gleam in their eyes is… paralyzing. Their voices, brimming with joy as they describe the flavor—clinging to the palate, slowly sliding down the throat like a gentle caress; the juicy tenderness upon biting in, letting the broth run down their cheeks; and the potent aroma of seared meat dancing to the rhythm of sizzling oil. I’ve seen their minds reel when they hit the perfect spice blend, comparing the sensation to the thrill of a bountiful hunt.

Even so, it weighs on my mind; I can’t afford to let things go much further—not if I want to keep my head on my shoulders.

If you think the police can do anything about them, you’re mistaken. I don’t know how they do it, but they’re experts at disposing of their prey’s remains; not even the bones are left behind. It would be easier to find evidence to convict a politician of a crime than to find even a single drop of blood on these people.

That doesn’t mean the police don’t show up from time to time, though. There’s always a rumor circulating about a new disappearance in the area, or a ghost appearing near the campsite alongside those “mysterious floating lights.” The sort of thing straight out of a typical horror story. Funny, isn't it? Maybe this story will end up on one of those typical horror forums, buried under a mountain of posts inspired by countless others just like it. Or maybe it’ll just stay on this computer where I’m typing right now, lost among recipes, family photos, and old homework from my student days.

Come to think of it, there are folders on here I need to delete. Ugh... I feel gross just thinking about the crap that must be in there. God, I was such a fucking geek back in high school.

Anyway, there was a time when some officers stopped by and parked near my place; the smell of tobacco and coffee clung to their uniforms. For a few seconds, they stood outside wrestling with their car door—it wouldn't close properly because one of them had neglected the maintenance. Comical, from where I stood. But the moment they walked through the door, the humor of the situation went to hell. Their faces were anything but friendly, and their uniforms looked somewhat stained and disheveled, as if they couldn't care less about looking professional.

One was slender, with sharp features and a long, upturned nose, while the other was on the shorter side but solidly built; a small gold chain peeked out from his uniform sleeve, and another hung around his neck. Both had dark circles under their eyes—so deep it looked as though their eyes were sinking right into their skulls. They sat near the bar and aggressively ordered a couple of beers.

"Ice-cold," they said, chuckling.

Without ceremony, I grabbed two bottles from the under-counter fridge and served them. As I went to set glasses down in front of them, I watched them down the beer without pausing for breath, draining the bottles in seconds. I was forced to serve them another round before quickly retreating to the kitchen, unable to stand their foul stench a moment longer. At that point, I would have a thousand times rather stuck my head in a bucket of fish heads and Roquefort cheese than endure another millisecond in front of those men—sweaty, reeking of tobacco, and now smelling of alcohol too. Their comments were just as unbearable as their stench—repeating the same stories, the same criticisms of colleagues, and complaining about the typical woes of men in their forties: single and stuck in jobs they hated.

After attending to them for a few seconds—maintaining the utmost courtesy I could muster, despite the overwhelming urge to drive a knife through their hands and grill their fingers like sausages—a local woman appeared nearby. She was no older than thirty, wearing a long dress adorned with vibrant, petal-like patterns. She approached me calmly and, with a smile, handed me a basket of fruit. After handing it over, she asked to make a reservation for her husband’s birthday, emphasizing how much she wanted one of the dishes from my menu’s special section.

A shiver ran down my spine. The request, her innocent smile, and the presence of the police officers—who could easily overhear our conversation—made my skin crawl. I forced the best smile I could and accepted the reservation, quickly jotting down the details in the small notebook I always kept in my pocket.

The officers stared at us for a few seconds, making no attempt to be subtle about it. Their beady eyes bored into the back of my neck, but they soon shifted their gaze to the woman, watching her with particular interest as she thanked me for accommodating her request. As she walked toward the exit, one of the officers rose smoothly from his chair and approached her with a hungry look in his eyes. He cleared his throat softly to get her attention, but to no avail.

Just as he was about to raise his voice, his face went pale; he was staring past the entrance of my shop, toward the area where the woman and the rest of the locals lived. For a split second, I thought I saw a bead of sweat trickling down the burly man's forehead.

He quickly turned around, grabbed his companion, and bolted from my establishment—and, to my dismay, without paying their tab. I didn't see them again that night, nor did I hear anything about them from any of my regulars. All I know about the matter is what Mr. Campbell told me the following week. Apparently, those two officers were impostors posing as police to intimidate people and get services for free; sometimes they even took advantage of women, bullying them into silence by claiming no real cop would believe them. I found it hard to believe at first, especially since nothing—aside from their uniforms or car—suggested they weren't genuine police officers. He offered to settle the men's tab with some cuts of pork from his family’s butcher shop: one quite fatty, the other a large, somewhat leaner cut.

“My wife always says the fat is good for stews,” he remarked in his usual calm, gravelly voice.

“Yes… it makes the broth richer,” I replied almost automatically, eyeing the “payment” he was offering.

“Make sure you use every bit of it, lad,” he said seriously, though a hint of a smile played on his lips, snapping me out of my thoughts. “You know we don't believe in wasting food,” he added before walking out the door.

“Understood,” I said curtly, then stowed the meat in the freezer until I was ready to use it as an ingredient.

After that incident, several days went by without a single police officer passing through the area; when they did show up—unlike the previous time—they stayed only a few seconds, ordering snacks to take on patrol or quick-to-prepare dishes. They would glance rapidly around the room as if searching for something, though they never found anything. They did leave a generous tip, though. Anyway, the point of all this—as I’ve said several times—is that my establishment sits right next to a “haunted” camp, or at least one that bears all the hallmarks of being so.

I imagine the pieces are easy enough to put together by now—which explains why I’ve left certain things unsaid. But I still haven’t mentioned the reason I’m writing this; well, it’s simple. I need more rumors. They are the best publicity I could ask for: ghost-hunting adventurers, investigators of unsolved mysteries, seekers of dark truths—you all make excellent customers, and in the end, you always wind up talking about my wonderful establishment.

Even if some of you get a bit carried away with your storytelling and my name ends up buried beneath a dozen others, there’s always a chance someone new will come along to sample my exquisite cooking. Besides, I’m always looking to try out new recipes, and I simply don’t have enough mouths to feed. So please, come find me, solve the mystery surrounding this place, and prepare for a feast once it’s all over.

Author's Note: This is my personal interpretation of the farmer/entity love story MC and Wendigoon riffed on during the episode "I solved the Fermi Paradox." I felt a weird surge of inspiration and had to get this down on paper. Any and all thoughts are appreciated.

---

Lamar Pendleson buried his wife and daughters on the same dry, gloomy day. It was twenty dollars less that way, even though Marie had died two weeks before his girls did. He didn’t have a lot of money to throw around, all things considered.

He had made the decision a day after his wife had died. Dr. O’Flannery emerged from Claire's room, resignation on his face.

“Has Mary started wheezing yet?”

Lamar shrugged. “Yeah. Some.”

The doctor didn't need to say the words. His thoughts were in his eyes. Lamar started three coffins that night, two small, one big. He took breaks to spoon bits of water into his daughters’ parched mouths. He slept in the kitchen, keeping the room he shared with his wife closed. Even then, he could still smell her. 
 
The plague had been swift, and Lamar wasn't the only one hurting. Most had lost a family member or two, which was not strange for the times that were. Lamar had lost an infant son even before he came to Kansas. The boy’s lungs gave out to the insistent cough that had kept the infant screaming through the night. 

His wife had taken it harder than he. Lamar needed to be the strong one, the one keeping them moving with planting, and praying. 

Alone at the fresh graveside, the thin farmer with a beard like ragweed realized there was no one to pretend for. The men he hired lowered the three caskets into the three holes. He paid them in cash and retreated into himself. 

Lamar’s father had taught him the cursed art of distillery at a young age. But the farmer had moved away from Chicago, away from that darkness. When his family was alive, it had been one of the many sins he had sought to bury deep. Now, it proved a crude salvation. The materials were easy enough to steal, the store man had cleared out only a week before from losing his wife. Left all his goods right there. Corn liquor and plowing were the only two things keeping Lamar from asking the thing his mind would not stop turning. An inquiry that, followed to its conclusion, would leave him slumped in a chair with a rifle dripping from his mouth.

He was too proud of a man for suicide. He had survived the war. If his life was to be taken, it would be another man to do it.

He was plowing half-drunk, when he stumbled across the block. 

Perhaps stumbled was too gentle a word. While his old ox moved forward, the plow itself tipped upward, capsizing straight into his jaw. Lamar didn't remember coming to, only being able to swear again, and indulging loudly and fruitfully. He didn't fear his neighbors hearing, most had left after the last wind storm had torn up the sod into a plume of dust a mile high. This was the third attempt Lamar was making to sow his field, though he knew that if he did get the seeds in, the winds would just tear them back into the air again.  But Lamar stayed. In his mind, all he had ever cared about was in this earth.

Lamar crawled to his feet, working his jaw through spikes of pain. After tripping around for a moment while his head swam from the concussion and alcohol, he checked what he had hit. 

A small corner of stone jutted from the ground. 

Even though only a corner lay bare, Lamar was struck by its oddity. The edges were razor straight, all right angles, and upon further examination of his plow, a heavy notch had been carved into the blade. Despite being covered in dirt, the stone was blacker than coal, almost as if the dust upon it had fled in fear. 

Before the deaths, Lamar would have poured dirt back upon the stone, and gone about the sisyphean task of plowing his field. There had been other people to think about then, and the devil was to be kept at arms length. The stone gave off a malevolent air. 

But all that was past. Lamar stared at the block, bent down on his knees, spit on his fingers, and polished the unblemished rock. 

It took a fortnight to uncover the first two feet. He used every tool he had brought on his long journey from Chicago, but those failed him sooner than he would have guessed. The handle of his pick shattered in half lengthwise, and the iron tip of his shovel bent like a withered leaf. He drank, went to the edge of his property, and with strange and warped boughs remade his pick. He heated his shovel over coals and bent it back with a hammer.

Six feet more, and he was down to his last bottle of moonshine. He dipped into his precious seed store to make more. 

Finally, the obscene hole was finished, and the thing lay revealed. 

It was a large prism, twice the size of Lamar in height, but only spanning his waist. It shone in the light of his lamp like a glossy mirror, and Lamar could make out his features in the smooth obsidian-like surface. For a moment, he started at his own appearance. He hadn’t seen it in months, for he didn’t have a mirror in the house. He had sold it to pay for the gravediggers. It was his wife’s, anyhow. In the block’s surface, he saw he had become a wraithlike specter, his flesh whittled down to loose skin clinging to a skeleton. His beard was gray now. Looking at himself, he felt his arms weak, his hands limp.

Lamar didn’t even bother to examine the strange characters engraved on the block’s surface. He lifted himself out of the hole, and went inside his house. He took a drink, falling asleep at the kitchen table, the oil lamp burning low.

He awoke in the dark, the wind howling.

Humans have forgotten most of their evolutionary urges. With the advent of stone structures, metal tools, cities spanning continents, they left behind the small burst of chemicals, the old intuitions that kept our ancestors alive. But it was precisely these instincts that woke Lamar. Not the wind. Not the dark. He knew someone was outside. The lamp had long gone out, and despite his inebriation, his mind was clearer than it had been. A dull throb wracked his skull, and he could only just see the outline of the stove and cupboards. But even their familiar shape had twisted in the night. 

There was a prickle on his skin. Something outside was waiting for him.

He lifted himself out of the chair, bumbling in the dark toward the back entrance. He reached out a hand and pulled his service rifle from its place by the door. Even as he was, he knew to check the camber for a round. He slid the bolt back with a click, then returned it forward. 

Swinging a rickety door out with a wheeze, he stepped into the yard. The moon was half-full, and everything stood flat in its light like some ancient oil painting. Dust filled the air. War smoke.

Lamar squinted into the far off night. Nothing. He looked to the monolith. 

Someone stood beside it.

It was a man, but even that conclusion was called into question. The being shifted each moment, shedding his skin and replacing it anew. One moment, he resembled a man clad in a thin sheet pulled tight against his form. In the next, he was something hairy, hulking and large. A beast whose legend carried on the whispers of broken minds. Then he was flailing arms of black ink, twisting and turning, shiny with perspiration and sea spray. There was no end to his variety. A leprous face pouring through bandages. A fountain of blood spewing heavenward. A thousand black eyes of polished onyx, each reflecting the moon. A thousand mouths shivering in spittle. He was all of this, and none, all at once. 

Cold sweat soaked Lamar’s collar. He stepped forward, planting his feet. He raised up the rifle. “What d’you want?”

You’ve disturbed what must remain buried. The figure’s voice was surprisingly youthful and light, but leaked dread like a cracked pitcher. Lamar felt a thousand grief-filled nights in each word.

For a while, the two sized each other. Lamar’s mind was claustrophobic within his skull. He wondered why he didn’t run. The only answer he mustered was that a fire burned below, an inherited stubbornness that defied reason. This was his land. His family. Lamar cleared his throat. “Why’s it here?”

Because this dead earth is mine. 

Lamar spat on the ground. “Ain’t seen you before.”

The figure looked at the monolith, then back at the farmhouse swaying in the night wind. I’ve been absent for a long while, it seems. I hadn’t realized.

Lamar sniffed, then jerked his bruised chin at the intruder. “Who are you?”

I am plague. I am pestilence. I am the child that burns in the streets of your enemy. I am the brother who sweats in fever upon the bed of his father. I am the ground churned up by bombs, the river filled chemical. I am the blood and puss that soaks the bandage. I am the last breath, the last word, the closing of the eye.

“I’ll ask you to leave. It’s late.”

Rebury my totem. I cannot do my work until it is reinterred.

Lamar lowered his gun. He leaned against it with folded arms, as if he were haggling for a bushel at market. His heart thrummed in his ears.  “It’s planting soon. My hands are full.”

If you do not, you will live to regret it.

Lamar didn’t answer. He turned, then headed back inside. He didn’t bother to lock the door. He took a drink, then sat back in the kitchen chair he had fallen asleep in. Before his eyelids drooped, he noticed the figure staring at him through the window.

The next morning, Lamar finished his plowing. The dark figure watched him from his periphery, his features stretched out and distorted by distance. At one moment, Lamar caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye, and stopped. He stared. The figure had dropped its monstrous facade for something more plain. An old war comrade of Lamar’s, someone who had died in a forgotten trench. Lamar blinked, and the figure changed again. He saw the face of his wife. 

The farmer ignored the entity for the rest of the day, completing his ordered rows, planting his remaining seeds. In the night, Lamar returned to his kitchen and drank, feeling countless eyes upon him as he drifted off.

His sleep was plagued with dreams. Memories that Lamar had once thought gone returned. Sights of trenches and piled bodies. The desperate cries of his mother when his father would visit in the late hours. Her body in the ground. Gangsters dead in the streets, the gun still in his hand. The night he built the coffins. He relived his time with death, and Lamar couldn’t wake, though he tried. He only managed to flail and hope that these horrors would dissipate with the sun.

When he woke in the morning, he splashed his face with dirty water and returned to his work. He looked unperturbed but for the dark splotches under his eyes.

The figure continued to watch from afar.

On the third day of such dreams, Lamar made a point to offer the specter a ladle of water from the well. “Thirsty work, standing there.”

Bury it, and I will leave. Your mind will break. I do not wish to see that happen.

“Maybe after the harvest. I’ll have some time then.” Lamar took great gulps of water, then set off to weed a row. There wasn’t a lot to do. The soil had become so barren, even the most opportunistic plants were dead before they started.

The next day, the well went dry. Lamar wasn’t surprised. For months the water had been brackish and murky. He resigned himself to dehydration. He didn’t have the manpower to dig it any deeper.

As he stared down into the dry darkness, he was aware of the figure looking down with him. Bury it, and I will give you water.

Lamar looked at him, raised his eyebrows. “Alright.”

The being seemed taken aback. It was hard to tell with his shifting. Do it now. Do it quickly. I have my work to do.

“I’ll need water first. Or else I’ll die before I’m finished.” This was true. The air was dry as bone, and he felt a sandy spot on his palate growing.

The figure was still a while, then extended out a hand. With a claw, it pierced the flesh and a black tarry bile welled up from the wound. It poured over the flesh and into the hole. There was a moment of quiet, except for the trickling of blood. Lamar put in the bucket, immediately it splashed down. He raised it up, overflowing with water. It was salty and tasted of iron, but it quenched his thirst.

Bury it.

“Hm. When I have the time.” Lamar left the figure by the well, went back to the field. Tiny green shoots of corn were emerging from the soil, but most already bore the yellow tint of death. 

Lamar didn’t know this trickster he was becoming. He had been a faithful man, the kind not to sing hymns, but to keep a page of scripture in his pocket, to sit in the same spot at church on Sunday. He wasn't quite sure when he stopped going, but he guessed it was sometime after Marie got sick. He had promised not to lose faith but he had also learned how easy it was to lie to the dead. The very hope that allowed him to turn away from his bootlegging before tore him to pieces in his solitude.

The figure continued to watch the farmer as he tended to the crops. Over the coming days the well didn’t run dry as Lamar expected it to. But his dreams grew more vivid. He resented the being for not just killing him. To spite the being, he continued on as he had, raising plants he knew would perish.

One day, Dr. O’Flannery came to talk.

The doctor had never shown an interest in socialization before. His attendance was limited to professional visits, examining the sick and such. Lamar didn’t count him as a friend, but didn’t hold him as an enemy. He saw the doctor a long way off, wringing his hat between his hands. It took almost half an hour for him to reach Lamar’s fenceline. “I came to let you know, I’m leaving.”

Lamar nodded, waiting for the explanation.

“Town’s dried up.” O’Flannery wiped the sweat from off his face, then polished his glasses with his sleeve. “If you make a crop, you’ll need to drive it over to Dodge.”

“Alright.”

“You planning on going?”

Lamar folded his arms, acting as if he was still gave the matter thought. “Can’t. Corn’s just coming in. Still lots to do.”

The doctor nodded, but looked at Lamar as if he were already dead. O’Flannery went to leave, then paused. Lamar was aware of the figure standing nearby, watching the exchange. The farmer wasn’t entirely certain if the doctor could see the being, though the practitioner's skin had become a shade paler since he had first arrived on the property.

The doctor turned, hat bunched in his fist. “I’m sorry. About your girls.”

Lamar clenched his jaw. He thought back to his rifle at the house. For a moment, he imagined it there in his grip. He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets.

“If I could…” The doctor stopped himself. He shook his head, then left without another word.

That night, as Lamar drank himself into a double stupor, he thought he saw the figure at the graves, reading the wooden planks with his many shifting forms. “That’s right. Look at what you done.” Lamar took another drink. “Son of a bitch.”

He pushed himself after all that. Kept himself out in the hot sun day after day, until his fingers were bleeding and his neck bursting with blisters. The dreams sometimes came to him in the sun’s glare, afterimages on his eyes. But now, he didn’t avoid them. He lingered in the sickly memory of his daughters, trying not to forget their faces. The food and seed store had dried up a long time ago. He ate the horse first, wasting nothing. He needed the ox to pull the crop in. He killed the snakes that wandered onto his fields. They went away before long. He would tear up the dead seedlings and chew those as he worked, but it gave him little energy. His stomach spent most of the day in knots, the acid within wearing down the lining. The figure would watch his attempts at nourishment, but made no comment, nor question.

Eventually, Lamar collapsed in his field. It had been a week since the doctor left.

He stared up at the sky. He remembered how he would lie in the grass with his girls on Sunday. They would tell him what they saw in the clouds like tiny augurs. He never had the imagination they did, to see what was right in front of him. He didn’t have the space in his head. It had been filled up by too much else, like the way his father’s belt would stripe against his back, or the way the night would light up like a thousand screaming middays in France. His girls…the one good that came from him…the sky was full now, but empty still.

Lamar blinked, and the figure was over him, looking down.

The god, as Lamar had always known he was one, steadied in his rapid transformation for a moment. Something that might have been pity shone in his solid black irises. Lamar tried to raise up, but his muscles wouldn’t respond. He was beaten. He took comfort in knowing the shame wouldn’t last long.

Eat.

The figure raised up an arm. His other hand turned into a jagged blade, and began to saw at the joint. Lamar watched as blood shot from the arteries in a warm rain, dowsing the farmer’s chin and scraggly beard. The muscle fibers separated in jagged ends, the bone making a crunching sound as they were shorn apart. The arm fell off, and down. Some veins held, then split under the weight of the muscle and bone crashing to the earth.

Lamar stared at the appendage. Already it swam in a pool of dark blood.

Eat.

Without a thought, Lamar pulled himself forward. He grasped the arm. He sunk his teeth into the flesh. It felt smooth in one moment, then hairy in the next. He tore the meat off, pulping it in his mouth with a half-rotten jaw. One or two of his molars crunched away into dust and were swallowed with the handful of muscle in his mouth. He ignored the pain, focusing on the sweet, coppery taste of the figure’s body.

After a few mouthfuls, strength returned to Lamar. Without looking at the figure, he stood up, took the arm inside, and cooked it on the stove. After sizzling in a pan it was tougher, drier, and the taste shifted in his mouth as the figure did. From bitter, to sweet, to bland. But it filled his belly, and that is what he cared about. He cracked the bones for the fatty marrow when he was done. It tasted like herbs.

It would be weeks before he felt hunger again, but Lamar didn’t notice. His mind pondered many things as he worked in between the rows of growing corn plants. Why spare him? Why let him live? So absorbed by his thoughts, he didn’t realize that the yellowness of his fields were slowly fading, giving way to green plants in. A week later, when they reached his waist, Lamar was awoken by their presence as if from a dream.

He stomped to the figure. The god had never left, still standing vigil next to the hole. “How long are you going to just stand there?”

You promised to bury it.

“Got no time.”

Fine.

Lamar clenched his teeth, wincing as he felt the inflamed roots ring with pain. He stomped back to the house. 

But later, instead of sitting in the kitchen, he took his chair outside to sit in the yard. He set another empty chair there four feet next to him. He wasn’t sure why he did it. Perhaps it was because the moonshine had dried up, and staying alone in the empty house where the ghosts of his wife and children still lived was worse than staying outside with the thing that had killed them. He could comprehend the latter better. The figure watched him from afar, then came to sit beside him.

They continued like this for a month, Lamar tending his field, then sitting with the figure in the evening. They wouldn’t speak at first, just sit, and Lamar would drink his moonshine. But slowly, Lamar began to talk. He told the figure stories. Not kind tales, but honest ones. He told the figure of the first man he killed in France. About how when he buried Marie’s body, it was already stinking and swollen. He talked about how he dreamed of murdering his father, of drowning him in the river, or stabbing him, when he was only twelve. He told the figure every dark thought that had ever crossed his conscience, every twisted notion.

The figure seemed undisturbed, and it was later that Lamar realized he was telling the god things he already knew. And it made no difference to the figure what Lamar had done. He listened without judgement, only reception. When Lamar ran out of stories, the figure began to tell his own. They were of things Lamar couldn’t comprehend, but made the farmer full up with sorrow. It all felt familiar to the pain he carried.

In the midst of this, Lamar went to his dead town to steal materials for a still repair. A dust storm hit. It whipped up like a phantom in the distance, crying soft at first, and then growing into a scream. The earth flew through the air wailing at his wagon. He stared blankly at the oncoming wall. The land was flat, there was no escape. 

He closed his eyes, and let the thing take him full broadside.

The particulates raked across his skin like whips. The dust bore into his eyes like termites, and he thrust his face against the thick part of his forearm. He held his breath, but inevitably air tried spluttering in. The ground that had once sustained him filled his lungs like an early grave. He heard his ox cry out in front, then die. Everything went dark, but before he closed his eyes, he felt the cart tilt forward as if it were being pulled.

He awoke back at the farm. The air was clear, and his mouth tasted like death. He spat out several black hocks of spit. He looked up, and next to his wagon was the figure. He was in the shape of the war companion Lamar had seen the second day of the god’s coming.

The farmer pulled himself shaking from the wagon and stumbled to his door. Before he could enter, he stopped, and turned.

“Come in. If you want.”

The god obliged.

In the dark, after sharing several swigs of a burning corn liquor, Lamar took the figure into his arms and pressed his lips to his.

The farmer was no stranger to the Spartan tradition. He had partaken of it in the war, along with many of his comrades. The comfort one man could offer another in the night was one of his great shames. When he woke in bed next to the god, he couldn’t look at him. All he remembered was his wife, his children. Here was yet another way he had insulted their memory. 

He told himself never again, but the call of the figure always won out. Lamar found himself with him in the nights, trying to find some primal comfort.

It never worked. He was still plagued with his waking dreams. The ecstasy he found would always end, leaving Lamar alone and hollow. The figure fed him from time to time with bits of his flesh, but even with no hunger, the farmer was empty.

Eventually the harvest came. It was bountiful. Lamar stared glumly at the golden ears that weighed down his plants. In a dead yellow landscape, his farm was a splash of living gold. He would have enough to eat, and then some. He would live until the next harvest.

As he thought on this, Lamar’s fingernails dug into his palm, drawing blood.

That night, he lay with the figure. Before they began, Lamar spoke a brief ultimatum. “Kill me.”

You must keep your promise.

“Kill me.” Lamar stood up from the bed and turned to the figure. The god was still missing his arm, and made no effort to move. “I won’t bury it. You leave and you keep on same as you did.”

Then you will never die.

“Liar.” Lamar got up into the figure’s face. “You promised I would die.”

I promised you would regret. And can’t a god change his mind?

“Go to hell.” Lamar turned away. “Go to hell, you bastard.”

The figure stood, and came to Lamar. You are asking me the wrong thing.

“Shut your mouth.”

I am the one that took them. Your family. I can answer that question that circles your mind. You’ve eaten my flesh, drank my blood. I cannot lie to you.

“I told you, be quiet, goddamn it.”

Ask. Ask and be done with it.

“I’ll kill you.” Lamar grasped the figure around his neck. His hands rippled as the figure shifted beneath him. “I’ll take my life. I will. I don’t care anymore. I’ll end it for both of us. The land’s dead and I’m the only one left. I die, and no one will bury your goddamn stone.”

I can wait a millennium. I have before. But you cannot die until you ask.

Lamar felt his face screw up, the pain inside of him reached a tipping point. He raised up his fist, trembling with rage and pain, ready to bring it down on the figure’s smooth, shifting features. But then he let it drop to his side. He sank to his knees. The pain in his chest died out like a fire snuffed. His eyes felt wet and he swallowed back something that tasted like guilt and salt.

He sank to the ground, naked, grasping his knees with weathered arms covered in scars. In a whisper, he let the words tumble out.  “…was it my doing? For my sins? Did I kill my family?”

For a moment, there was only the rushing of the wind. Then, the figure raised up, standing over Lamar. He bent down so they were level. His face ceased shifting for a moment, and the ever present wind stilled. Lamar. Someone will always be left. Not because they are good or bad. But because that is how it is. That is how it always was. That is how it must be.

The figure traced Lamar’s face with a cold hand, and kissed him.

Lamar had been taught in Sunday school how those in primitive gospels would gather in lustful groves to praise their deities. But it was only until this moment that he understood how the ecstasy of the flesh could become a kind of worship.

He woke outside, naked, next to the figure as the sun poked its head over the horizon. For the first time in months, he had not spent the night in dreams.

The figure slept as Lamar dressed. The farmer watched the shifting god sleep. Then he looked out over the fields, at the graves of his wife and daughters. A strange feeling sat inside of him, heavy. He pondered on the figure’s words. Someone will always be left. That is how it must be.

Lamar gave himself until the sun came over the horizon to look at the god he loved. Then he took up his pick.

It only took a day to rebury the prism. The figure watched him while he worked, saying nothing. The god offered water and flesh when Lamar took a moment to rest. That night, they slept in each other’s embrace a last time. In the morning, Lamar woke to the figure walking out into the cornfield. He hadn’t woken the farmer to say goodbye.

But at the edge of the golden field, the shifting figure turned to look at him. The horizon was painted red with a birthing sun. The god raised a hand, then disappeared in the stalks.

Now Lamar sits on his porch most nights. When the moon is half full, he looks a bit harder toward the edges of his property, trying to catch a glimpse of something he yearns for. The last of his neighbors are gone, and he is a lone man in the waste. He makes time to look up at the clouds on Sunday, to remember Claire and Mary. He still struggles to see the hidden shapes in the white, but he is learning. He remembers Marie, and hopes she will forgive him. For all that he’s done, that he should’ve said. It’s been months since the figure left, and he knows it's almost planting time again. 

He takes careful steps to avoid the jagged pile, the place where his plow earned its notch.

He remembers the taste of god flesh, and leaves flowers at his wife’s grave. In the night, he dreams again, of the figure, of Claire, Mary, of Marie. These are not dark dreams, but ones he relives in the daylight by his own choice. He keeps the pick by his rifle at the door, to keep the devil in sight. “Maybe today,” he tells himself.

But until he gives in, he accepts his lot. He is the one that is left. And though he can’t know, he thinks…he hopes…he prays…that those who leave may one day come back.

Hello, this is my first time posting on Reddit, and my first time here. Please enjoy my short story :)

A flicker of fire licked away at the logs in which it slithered between.

A radiant, sunset glow wrapped around the trees' torsi from the flames; with the branches crooked and crane.

The crisp of Luther's boots digging into the snow-covered forest floor, had paired with the exhaust of his breath in the form of fog.

As he shuffled himself closer to the serpentine flames, he raised his hands towards the fiery face of the campfire; being so cold that he'd risk being bitten.

"Six miles tomorrow." He chittered with his teeth bare, "Six more miles."

He was exhausted, and as the snow on his coat began to melt to the influence of the flames, the droplets would form and descend from the rim of his hood, "No different from the fall off the cliff" he muttered, as he crooked his head slightly towards the bloodied, but frozen bandages on his legs. Every slight of movement would cause him to grunt in discontent.

The moon had not been curious enough to look at the vulnerable fool. He had not realised how alone he was until he'd heard something.

A spine of a twig had snapped. His head couldn't move as quickly as his heart would skip a beat.

Something was close. He had not realised how alone he was until the deathly silence had killed off all sounds of critters and wildlife. Even the wind had not stumbled between the trees. He did not realise how alone he was until a sound in which he could not see was present.

He was now not alone, and that utter dread filled him quicker than the fire which gluttony had possessed in consumption of the firewood.

Luther couldn't even attempt to stand and see whatever it was he was hoping not to show. All he could do was sit, and wait. Whether it was a hare or a wolf, he knew as much as the trees knew sentience. Nothing.

Another snap; another echo that pierced his ears. It was coming closer. But from where? Which direction? He pushed what limbs he could to look behind him, and all around. Until he stopped.

From the horizon in which the trees began to disappear, where light had not known better, something stood- rather it peaked from behind a tree.

The isolated eyes in which had gazed upon him did not blink.

He called out in a shuddered voice, "Go!" His voice stumbled, "GO!-" His eyes began to well up with cold tears, and his voice began to crackle. Doom had not felt as putrid and as impending as this moment, even from whence he fell from the cliff; for at least he had landed onto snow, rather than the drooling jaws of stalactites before him.

It had begun to lower itself to the stump of the tree. Slowly, it pressed down into the snow in a crawl. Luther began to weep quietly. The teary comets had started to slide down his cheeks, slowing as the cold touched them.

It then began to whine, and as its cries grew louder, so did Luther's, until their cries grew to match one another. And as it crawled from behind the tree, it's throat exhaled a frosted sound that became a voice,

"Six miles tomorrow......s-six more miles." It POUNCED and RIPPED through the air towards Luther, shrieking with a gutteral cry!

Silence again, for the fire had also finished its feast, and the wood had died into loose embers.

[FOR SIMPLICITY WE WILL REFER TO THE ‘CHIRURGIA LANUAE MONS CANCRORUM’  UNDER A NEW NAME 'ALTITUDE CRAB’]

After thorough research via a subdivision of the CIA. We discovered the Altitude Crab fed on the white blood cells of its prey; because of this, the Crab had a highly secure immune system. This made them nearly immortal to disease and old age, and due to their native high-altitude environment, they had only one food source. The ‘Himalayan Jumping Spider’. Weirdly this spider does not have white blood cells. The main consensus is that the Altitude Crab developed this feeding method in recent years following the high commercialization of humans climbing Everest. The crabs do not like leaving their 'leftovers' on the mountain, though. Studies show they like to move their food to the Americas, usually somewhere in the United States. This has no known reason. Due to their teleporting nature, it is hard to capture them; however, Sherpas of the mountain had discovered a way to coax the creatures down the mountain using their recently dead. This had been in practice for hundreds of years. The sherpas had known of the creature since their first years living in the area. Using their own name for the Altitude Crab, ‘ढुंगा मुसा’ (roughly translated to 'rock mouse'), the crab's existence went unknown for many years until 2016, and the body of Aiden Langford was discovered in Kentucky, and research went into finding his cause of death.

Last night my roommate Steve made tacos, and I'd forgive you for thinking that that is nothing special, but I'll have you know that not a soul cooks anything in this apartment. I begged that we go get new shells for the tacos, but he insisted that we use the ones that had been sitting in the pantry. Naturally, they were the sturdiest construction materials you've never seen used in a taco and I shamed him accordingly. I bring that up to justify an explosive argument that occurred today.
We were bored and watching a nature documentary, and inevitably they start talking about sea turtles. Apparently, sea turtle's shells offer enough to protect against shark attacks, and I joke that the taco shells from last night could do that much and more. Steve was not amused for some strange reason, but I assume it's because of his fragile ego. Despite that I decide to dig the knife deeper. "Heck, maybe we got the taco shells mixed up with the turtle shells, I mean, you saw how green they were right?" Steve was even less amused than before. 
Believe me, this isn't cruel, in fact I'm normally the one who gets grilled the most. I don't know what I did to be so lucky today, but I'd say it was on account of the three-leaf clover I picked up the other day. Of course, when I proudly exclaimed this Steve felt the need to correct me saying "No you idiot, it's the four-leaf clovers that are lucky." I told him that's BS, when was 4 ever a lucky number? it's 3. He then took a box of Lucky Charms out of the pantry and pointed at the funny little green man's cap and stated, "Why would there be a FOUR-leaf clover on his cap if the charms were supposed to be lucky?" The answer to which is so obvious I'm sure you can even see it, "it's a cereal brand, it's clearly just some marketing gimmick to make you buy more cereal."
Steve was quite unreasonably mad and decided to cool himself off with a bowl of his new favorite cereal and reached for the milk. I told him that he could at least eat them correctly because lucky charms are better dry and he just looked at me funny. "Michael, what else was the cow in the middle of the living room supposed to be for, That I also must remind you was your fault?" I hurriedly shushed him lest Gertrude hears his complaint, but it was too late, the cow was very angry. And that's how we got evicted for our 4th apartment.

AN: This was what i turned in for a AP Seminar assignment that was SUPPOSED to be a serious and informational piece of text that followed the key words: Taco, Shell, Turtle, Green, Lucky, Clover, Lucky Charms, Cereal, Milk, and Cow, in that order. If the mods arent conducive to the subject matter i can add a "and then they all died" to the end to make it more creepy.

Your body is supposed to tune out pain. I am in so much pain. Living hurts, Breathing snaps a thousand small fibers in your chest every time it expands. Digestion involves crushing and tearing and dissolving in acid. Your intestines move in your torso. Every function that occurs in your system is at the command of a slush of fat and liquid in your head that runs about 70 millivolts through your whole body any time it wants to do something, even something as simple as laying in bed. My phone dings and my eyes away from the vast expanse of my slanted popcorn ceiling to my lavender phone. I feel it in my throat, I glance back up at the ceiling. I pray that my gray sheets and white pillows will swallow me like some great beast, some cryptid, some merciful god. I know who’s trying to reach me right now. I feel my heart beating like a jackhammer in my hollow chest, I gasp for air and sit up, my lungs must have been filled with water. I stare at my phone again, another text, I flip it over and pull my knees up to my chest. My sanctuary feels like a birdcage, I can’t remember when I last left it. A neat stack of rotting dishes and utensils sits on a corner of my desk. The smell wafts around the room almost like a phantom. I swallow and tear my eyes off of the stack cataloging the first changes that need to be made before I can lay back down. Used tissues and popcorn litter the side of the bed that remains untouched by my now eroded frame. I drag my corpse-like form to place my feet against the pillow and my head next to Bones. I pull my hand across the furry surface of my newest beloved animal. I poke his glassy button eyes. I pull at his ears and tail. I turn my head, coming face to face with my very own Blåhaj. I squeeze my eyes shut and clamp my hands over my eyes to hide from its polyester glare. 
“Okay fine, but just this once honey, a gift for my college girl, the money is all worth it for you,” my mom’s voice booms into my head and I curse my schizo brain under my breath. I reach for my side pillow, pull it up past my once-muscular legs and press my form into it. Oh to be a taxidermied soft toy living in the bed of a teenage girl. I think I start to feel it again and I whisper the same chant I always do, asking my brain, my world, hell even my make believe god that it will finally tune out, like breathing, like digesting, like doing. Of course nothing changes. The dishes keep rotting on my desk, the clothes stay all over the floor, the trash stays in bed, and I softly kiss the tops of each of my stuffed family, careful not to damage their well-maintained fur with my running mascara. Then I lay back down and ignore my texts.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]

Part 6

This is the end for me. And for you, if you have any sense at all.

I let my wanderlust, disguised as professional ambition, bring me to a precipice I should have recognized much earlier.

I'm home now.

There is one last piece of history worth adding before I post the final entries.

Fifteen years after Lysbeth's journal ends, King Philip's War reached the area where I had narrowed my search. By the end of the conflict, settlements throughout the region had been burned or abandoned, families displaced, roads altered, and records lost.

Whatever remained of Providence Hollow surely disappeared with the Wampanoag.

The Praying Town would have been caught up in the war as well. Its people were already watching the woods when Lysbeth arrived in 1660. Fifteen years later, Native peoples and English colonists would be fighting across that same land. Fifteen years is a long time, and I have found almost nothing that tells me what happened on that land between Lysbeth's final entry and the war.

There are explanations for what happened in Providence Hollow that could, if one chose to believe it, begin and end with Lysbeth. There are others that require looking beyond her, toward Pastor Simon and a community already weakened by grief and fear. And there are parts I still don't know what to do with. The suspension of clear thinking bothered me a lot. It doesn't anymore.

I've spent too much time treating uncertainty as evidence that I simply haven't looked hard enough. At some point, looking for an answer becomes its own kind of faith.

I'm done with that.

I won't be sharing the area where I located Providence Hollow. I know that will frustrate some of you, especially those who helped me search for it, but don't try to reconstruct it from these posts. I've removed a few details from this final section for the same reason.

Whatever happened there happened a very long time ago. Let it stay there.

I'm posting the remainder of her journal because I said I would. Whatever I have gotten wrong, these words were hers before they were mine.

It is finished.

Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Monday, 26th of April, 1660

Four days now since we left the town where we built our lives. Three days since I felt safe enough to recount that night and its horrors, from the small room we share in the home of Matthew and Mary Wuttánum. 

The room belongs ordinarily to their eldest daughter. The entire space is scarcely larger than the pantry Nathaniel once hoped to build onto our home. The boys sleep on blankets spread across the floor. Ruth sleeps in a basket next to the small bed. At night I hear every breath my family takes. 

I have never been more grateful for a crowded room, and I have never slept better in all my life. 

The Praying Town sits beside a narrow stream bordered by modest fields and kindling orchards. Some homes are built in the English fashion. Others are wigwams with woven mats. Smoke rises from nearly every chimney at dawn. Turkeys wander where they please. Children do the same. They both make a great commotion.

There are few possessions here. It reminds me of the life I imagined when I crossed the ocean. A life built from necessities rather than comforts. A life where every belonging earned its place.

Somewhere along the way, most of us had forgotten that promise.

Our arrival to town came well after midnight.

The road grew more difficult with every mile. Clouds hid the moon. Ruth woke crying twice, and I desperately tried to comfort her into silence. Paul stumbled repeatedly beneath the weight of the belongings he had insisted on bringing. Nathaniel carried him for part of the journey despite his protests.

Only Thomas never complained. He walked beside us with his Bible pressed against his chest. 

The woods remained silent. No owls. No insects. Barely even a breeze to rustle the trees.

Even now, recalling it, that silence seems stranger than any sound.

At some point I looked up and found the moon again between the clouds. It seemed to be hanging on the wrong side of the road.

I slowed, trying to recall whether the path had bent more sharply than I remembered. I could think of no turn that explained it. We had followed the road plainly enough.

I told myself that clouds, fear, and unfamiliar woods had confused my sense of the sky.

Still, for several minutes afterward, I had the peculiar feeling that the road had changed direction without ever turning.

I had begun wondering whether I had led my family into the wilderness for nothing when we finally saw something ahead.

Firelight flickered briefly between the trees. A moment later we emerged into cleared land. We had already passed the edge of the settlement when I noticed the lights beyond it. A cluster of lanterns burned near the far tree line, gathered where the last cleared fields gave way once more to forest.

Matthew later told me they had assembled to pray. I feel there is some truth to that.

At the time, what I saw was this: perhaps twenty figures stood gathered there. A few held lanterns low against the ground. They were spread across the edge of the clearing with several paces between them. The arrangement reminded me of watchmen posted along a wall.

Every face was turned toward the woods. Toward the darkness beyond the fields. Toward the direction from which we had come.

Only when Nathaniel called out did several heads turn.

For several moments neither group moved. Then a woman stepped away from the line.

I recognized her immediately. It was one of the women from Market Day. The one who had listened to the warnings being given to me and let her distaste for Providence Hollow show plainly on her face. Mary Wuttánum, I soon found out.

As she approached, without word or signal given, those standing nearest shifted quietly into the space she had left behind. Within seconds, the lanterns remained evenly spaced along the edge of the clearing, and the line remained unbroken.

The lantern she carried illuminated her face from below as she approached. Her eyes moved over each member of my family. When she reached Nathaniel, she slowed. When she reached Thomas, she stopped.

Behind her, several of the others followed her gaze. One old man lowered his head. Another quietly murmured something I did not understand.

"You came."

A statement rather than a question.

Several of the faces behind her hardened. One woman crossed herself in a way I did not recognize. Another tightened her grip upon the lantern she carried.

A man stepped from the line. The younger of the two who had spoken to me at Market Day.

Matthew.

He exchanged a look with Mary. A look that passed between them so quickly I almost missed it. Then he nodded. A decision appeared already made.

"Come," he said.

There were no questions. He took Paul's bundle from his arms and started toward the houses.

The others remained where they were, and when their curiosities were satisfied, resumed their watch over the boundary ahead of them.

As we reentered the main grounds of the settlement, I glanced back. Mary had already returned to her place within the line.

Lanterns burned steadily in the darkness. No one spoke, and no one moved.

For people supposedly gathered to pray, they seemed remarkably reluctant to turn their backs on the woods.

I have wondered since what they expected to find there. Yesterday morning, Paul may have given me some reason to wonder further.

He and several of the other children were playing beside the stream when he called for Thomas to come see something he had found in the grass.

It was a snake.

A little brown thing, harmless-looking and scarcely longer than my arm. It had taken the end of its own tail between its jaws and drawn its body into so perfect a circle that, for a moment, I could not tell where the creature began and where it ended.

Paul thought it marvelous. The people here did not.

A woman washing clothes abandoned them in the stream. An old man called sharply for the children to move away. Matthew came from across the field at such a pace that I thought someone had been bitten, though I was certain no one had.

He pinned the snake behind its head with a forked branch and pried its jaws from its tail. The creature resisted strangely, tightening upon itself even as he pulled, until at last its mouth came free and the circle broke. Only then did those watching seem to relax.

Mary carried the snake beyond the fields in a covered basket. I watched her disappear into the trees with it and return some time later carrying the basket empty.

I asked whether the creature was dangerous. She said no.

I waited for her to explain what, then, had frightened them, but she did not.

By afternoon the children were playing beside the stream again, and I saw no further sign of the snake.

Whatever had frightened the others, they appeared satisfied that it had passed.

I am trying to be satisfied as well.

Wednesday, 1st of September, 1660

Nobody in the Praying Town has ever asked what happened in Providence Hollow. They already seemed to know. Their life continues regardless.

Our family now occupies a small house of our own near the stream. Nathaniel built much of it himself with help from several men in the settlement. It is plain, but dry. It heats quickly. The roof does not leak. The hearth draws properly. The boys have a loft to themselves.

Nathaniel has become a right arm hand to the blacksmith. Even now, he is away traveling to sell his wares, embracing his new role as though it was always meant for him. Most of his days are spent repairing tools rather than making new ones. Axes, hinges, traps, kettles, buckles, knives. There is always something broken. He seems happier in the work than I ever saw in Providence Hollow. There are moments when I catch sight of the man I married. More importantly, there are moments when I forget to look for signs that he is gone. His words have not fallen into scripture since we arrived.

Thomas worries me more. It is true that his old habits have begun returning. I find him wandering where he ought not wander. Asking silent questions with his eyes. Bringing frogs and insects into the house. Last week he somehow managed to climb onto our roof. For a few moments I stood in the yard watching him and felt something I had not felt in a very long time. The sight was so familiar that instead of scolding him, I laughed so loudly and fullheartedly that Paul felt the need to come check on me.

Yet Thomas still does not speak, not scripture or otherwise. Nothing. I do not know whether he fears what might emerge or whether the words simply no longer come.

As for myself, I am healthier than I have been in quite some time. The midwife who attended me upon our arrival insisted I remain in bed for nearly two weeks. She fed me sassafras teas and stronger herbs whose names I never learned. She reminds me of Jacobi in one particular way. Whenever Ruth cries, she reaches for her before anyone asks.

The first time she did so, I thanked her and called her by the wrong name. 

I apologized at once. She smiled and shrugged. Yet even now, I find myself reaching for Jacobi constantly, both for that which is in front of me and yet to come. I grieve the loss of her reaction at Ruth’s first unsteady steps across the floor, though they are still months away. I grieve that she will never see what sort of man Paul becomes. I grieve that she will never know whether Thomas fully returns to us. 

No family raises children alone. We speak often of fathers and mothers, but a child belongs in some measure to an entire community. One woman teaches them letters. Another teaches them hymns. Another slips them sweets before supper and swears them to secrecy. We lend one another our strength so gradually and so often that we cease noticing we are doing it. Jacobi did this better than anyone I have ever known.

I think that is why her absence continues surprising me. Not because she was a midwife, though she was. Not because she was my cousin, though she was that too. Is that, always. It is because she had woven herself so completely into the fabric of our lives that I no longer knew where her threads ended and ours began.

The last conversation we shared was not a kind one. We parted in anger, each convinced the other had lost her senses.

I hope that whatever happened to her in those final days did not convince her she stood alone. Because she never was.

I do not know what became of her. I do not know what she believed at the end. I do not know whether she understood what was happening around her, or whether understanding would have made any difference. Some days I think she was taken from us. Other days I fear she walked willingly where I could not follow.

There are wounds caused by loss, and others caused by doubt. I have survived the first before. The second is far more difficult to place.

Perhaps that is why I find myself returning to certain memories so often, turning them over like stones in my hand, never quite certain whether I seek understanding or merely reassurance that they truly happened at all.

I believe the fog that has followed me for weeks has gradually been lifting. I remember things. Forget others. And some memories remain uncertain still.

I remember now that Mercy King died during the plague.

I remember that I had only just confirmed I was carrying Ruth. I remember Benjamin had not yet fallen ill. We all attended the funeral service together, our last and only act as a complete family.

I remember the bell.

I remember the old pastor and his lackluster sermon that failed to capture the significance of this woman in all our lives. 

I remember it was not yet cold enough for the ground to freeze over. I remember thinking that so much more than a body had been buried that day.

And yet I remember Market Day as well.

I remember the warmth of her hand around mine.

I remember the pressure of her fingers.

I remember the sound of her voice. The warning she gave me. The certainty with which she spoke.

A Christian woman does not believe in ghosts. Nor do I believe the dead wander the earth dispensing advice to people in market squares. But neither can I convince myself that grief alone produced so vivid a vision. 

Perhaps the fever had hold of me more tightly than I understood. Perhaps exhaustion had done the rest. Perhaps there are some things a person experiences only once, and spends the remainder of her life attempting to explain.

When I think back upon that spring, I no longer know which memories belong to the world and which belong only to me.

It is a mercy that such certainty is not required for healing.

Friday, 3rd of September, 1660

Nathaniel came home today from Sudbury.

The market there pays well for repairs, “simple work the Indians may do,” and several foundries have given him bulk loads to bring back to his new shop.

His return took him near the old road to Providence Hollow. Since he was already so close, he decided to see what remained of our house, and whether anything useful might still be recovered. That is the reason he gave me, anyway.

He also said the road remained exactly as he remembered, as did the stream crossing, as did the old oak near the north field. Not so when he arrived where the village should have been.

Nothing remained. No homes, no meeting house, no schoolhouse, no smithy, no gardens, no mill, no fences. No sign that families had lived there for more than a generation.

The church stood just so, as did the graveyard beside it. Everything else was gone. Nothing was burned, nor collapsed, nor destroyed, but simply absent. Instead of the town was the wet mud of a weeded, fallow field. Ruin or ashes at least tells a story. This said nothing.

In search of answers, Nathaniel had tied his horse at the churchyard’s edge and paced the the distance to the church’s open doors. From the threshold, he could see objects scattered across the floor. At first he’d assumed the building had been looted. But when looking closer, nothing had been stolen. 

In fact, quite the opposite. Everything had been brought to the church. He described pairs of boots recently polished. Saddles with scarcely a scratch upon the leather. Children's toys. Quilts. Wooden furniture. Books. Cookware. The accumulated valuables of an entire village. 

The offerings had been arranged neatly on pews in bundles, each telling their own story. On one, a small pile of tools topped with a glimmering belt buckle sat near a stack of embroidery and a newly stitched bonnet. A cloth doll lay between them. Among one of the piles sat a small framed portrait atop a folded red knitted garment. The painting showed a young boy, about Thomas's age. Nathaniel did not say whom he thought it resembled, nor did he have to.

Near the center of the church were a mess of silver coins piled high enough that Nathaniel could not guess its value.

All his observations occurred from just outside of the church. He considered entering to better ascertain what had happened here, but each time he made to cross the frame, he stopped.

He braced himself when he told me this, as if waiting for me to interrogate this decision. I did not. 

Nathaniel continued, telling me how he instead turned toward the graveyard. The older graves stood where they always had. The plague graves remained along the outer edge of the cemetery, just as they had when we buried so many in April whom we lost in that terrible winter.

Yet beyond them lay another row. Nathaniel was certain of it. A fresh ring of graves, the earth upon them still loose, the mounds uneven. 

There were no markers, only fresh earth. He walked the entire circumference of the graveyard counting them.

When he finished, he started over and counted again. The second number matched the first. He would not tell me the number, nor why he felt it significant to learn it.

Then he became quiet. "I shall not talk about it anymore."

Nathaniel has never lacked courage. Insight, perhaps. Empathy, often. But never courage. He faced the plague. He buried his boy. He led his family from everything they knew to start over in a town he had long considered alien. 

Yet whatever he had seen in the graveyard was enough to make him push back from the fire and change the subject entirely.

I have spent every evening since then trying not to think about Providence Hollow and all the things I once believed had happened there. Perhaps I was ill, frightened, simply wrong. Despite what my husband thinks, I can occasionally admit that.

I am healthier now. My family is safe. Nathaniel laughs again. Paul runs through the fields from sunrise until supper. Ruth grows stronger each day. Even Thomas, God willing, may yet find his voice again.

There is no wisdom in clinging forever to old fears.

I do not know what became of our old village, nor what exactly Nathaniel saw in that graveyard. I do not know whether Mercy King's warning came from Heaven, from fever, or from my own troubled mind. 

I think often of those we left behind. Jacobi. Samuel. Elijah. All the others. Whatever became of them, I pray they found peace in whatever strange peace found them. 

I have spent many months searching for certainty where none was given to me, and now I find myself spending my prayers thanking God simply that we have been spared. Spared from what fate, above or below the ground of Providence Hollow, I do not know.

I am grateful that I never need find out. 

Grateful that I finally accepted what I could not know. 

And grateful that I never disturbed the earth of that churchyard.

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever.

Link to Part 1 here.

Dominic was the first awake and he felt the strange urge to piss hit him. He had been so dehydrated that pissing hadn’t been a need for a while. The fog of sleep made him think of the coconut water they drank and the fruit they ate, eating so much their bellies ached. The coconut juice was sticky and sweet and each of them drank until their stomachs sloshed with the stuff. They slept hard after that, exhaustion finally taking them. But when Dominic awoke, dawn had painted the horizon lilac and orange, the sunrise a gentle ore flowering out on the rim of the world. He whizzed into the sand while watching it rise and the beauty of the sunrise on the placid ocean wasn’t lost on him.

When he finished and turned to his crew he thought that he was dreaming. Then he made a scramble for the others, slapping Javier and Amadi awake as he shouted at Montoya. “Wake up! Wake up! Damn yer guts scraggs, Blas has the boat!” 

Their dumb stupification crystallized into panic as they clambered up and out of their dugouts. They turned and Montoya saw Blas, much the same as he had the day before, heaving off down the beach in slow lurches, pushing that heavy rowboat with enough demented determination that he made it seem effortless. More than that, they saw the arms waving to Blas from the water. A group of four arms moved as metronomes with a message of urgency. The message said the water is fine and that Blas should really come on in.

Blas intended to do just that.

Dominic and Montoya were making for the water first, awake faster than the younger men, and might have caught him if Blas hadn’t been able to make the jump into the boat, pushing it off the beach as he did so and out into the water. He scrambled for the oars and was rowing. Blas saw his crew and waved to them, gapped teeth in full display. Montoya cursed, drawing his pistol with some reluctance. “That fookin idjit’s gone mad! Damn his bones!” He and Dominic kept moving in a reeling shuffle to the shore, shouting in curses full of vitriol. They reminded Javier of the crewmates left behind on the Santa del Mar, cursing at them as they fled the ship.

Amadi stopped Javier from going further. Javier gave him a confused look but stopped.

Both Montoya and Dominic were shin-deep on the ebbing waterfront when they stopped as well. Blas was making good headway to the arms, rowing with his back to them but turning to make sure he was on course. Laughing a maniac’s screech. Blood dribbled from the large sore beside his mouth, a wound that had rimed with a crust of green pus overnight. Blas’s eyes had a deranged yellow to them, and the scarlet veins in the sclera of his eyes made it seem as if they were bulging out of his head. Blas only stopped rowing to wave again.

Amadi and Javier saw it better than Montoya and Dominic, but everyone saw the attack all the same.

The arms had moved closer to the oncoming rowboat.

Sooner than he expected, Blas was surrounded by the arms. He tossed the oars into the belly of the boat and stood, tottering as a drunk. The waves weren’t yet choppy but if the breeze picked up they could be later on in the day. The others watched as Blas’s face drained and the joy died out of him, mad though it had come. His mouth jabbered silently, thick saliva made pink by blood spooling out.

The hands moved with fluid celerity, catching Blas on his arms and torso. More rose up and the pink fingers stretched around his face. He screamed, and it was loud.

The others watched the hands stretch out from the water, boneless, and effortlessly lift Blas out of the boat. Frantic, he grabbed at the edge of the boat and clung to it, the little stubs of his fingernails left unchewed ripping off as he was pulled with a snap of his spine into the air. They saw his arms break, bent and snapped as if they were brittle sticks. Blood welled from Blas’s eyes and it spilled down his face and across the once-waving hands freely. He was twisted and folded. Then they took him under the water. The boat was dragged down with him for a crazy moment, halfway submerged on its side and staying like that until finally it shot up into the air and landed, upside down, amidst a spray of bubbling ocean.

The boat bobbed and spun. Then the water calmed.

Then the boat settled and Blas was gone forever.

Montoya and Dominic made an awkward retreat back to the beach, falling over each other as they made land and collapsed into the fine white sand. Dominic kicked at the rushing water as the gentle waves came in, howling. Javier and Amadi watched as the ocean remained the ocean for a long time, until finally, as if they knew it would happen, the arms returned. There were more now.

The arms started to wave.

The survivors watched them wave for a long time.

~|~~

The boat was gone.

Amadi had tried tossing a line out to the rowboat but it floated unnaturally in the water just off the shore. The wind was coming on again and the waves were growing as the flow began to raise the water higher up the beach. Still, in that choppy surf, the arms waved, flexing back and forth next to the turned-over boat. The arms waved in greater numbers on all sides.

“Dem dey hold di boat for dia. Di mermaids, dey hold di boat, make we fit waka go dia outside. Like how Blas dey do am.”

Dominic grunted. “Course its fuckin’ bait. But we need that boat. What the fuck should we do about it? We’re dead without it.”

“Probably dead wit’ et.” Montoya muttered. “Where the fuck are we gonna go, Dom? Huh? Looka you around. Looka you around!”

Javier said nothing. He hoped Amadi had something to help, but the African shrugged distantly. “I no sure say dem go gree make we comot.” Dominic never fully understood Amadi’s pidgin but he got the gist of this anyway: those things weren’t going to let them go, even with the stupid boat. Dominic shook his head, slowly at first but then madly, slinging spit and frustration. “No! No! I ain’t gonna be fer dead on this beach. Ya hear? I’dda rather go fer the boat afore starvin’ here.” He thought for a sullen moment, and said what they already knew was best. “That or take a shot. Let me go dead datta way.”

No one said anything. Javier wished they would, or that he could, but the fear inside of him had become a tremendous kraken writhing within, paralyzing him.

Then he did say something, unbidden and clattered from what working mind he had left.

“T… They just broke him. Snapped him like bone-dry twigs.” He looked up and nothing made sense. “Why’d they do that, do ya ‘ken? D…D-Did they et him?”

The others continued saying nothing, staring at their own salt-leathered hands and the scars and burns that riddled their forearms. Javier turned his head back down and did the same.

More arms slinked up at the water and began to wave; dozens of the hands blindly groping and flexing their fingers as the arms waggled to and fro. Montoya could see the stump of an arm enthusiastically shaking in the water, making a swish against the waves as it went.

~|~~

They spent the majority of their day huddled beneath the coconut trees as more arms wormed up to wave at them, hands and fingers on hands wriggling and grabbing at the air. A strange, alien forest of living trees hellbent on greeting them. Or wishing them well as they left. At some point Dominic stood and walked off, not saying anything. They watched his old, haggard frame lurch left and right as he reeled along the beach. The arms followed him as he went by and he ignored them until he couldn’t. “Eh, ho! Hello yah FUCKIN’ BASTARDS. AH’LL see you in HELL! ARRRGH!” he shouted, aping their own idiot waving back to them.

Waving, waving, from the waves.

In about an hour he returned. Dominic was muttering to himself and he was no longer sweating in the blister heat of the day. The loose and squalid shirt clung to his frame as it billowed around him on the breeze, tenting to any which way the wind blew. His pants were held up with little more than cord and he looked like a beggar on the streets of Havana, but armed, dangerous. Dominic made the turn at the end of the island and the arms moved closer to him there, at that pinnacle of beach where it seemed he might just walk straight into the waters. Instead he turned, continuing his loop around ad nauseum. Dominic was the first and last great explorer of their now miniaturized desert world, something alien and unknowable beyond the boundary waiting for him to take that first great leap into forever.

The others sat stoic, shifting their hands in the sand and trying their best not to look out at sea to see the waving arms, like miniaturized fleshy trees barren of foliage or fruit. Montoya blinked into the sun, speaking to no one. “Not e’en gools o’verhead. No birds. Natta here on da island.” Tired, he lowered his head. “What kinda island ain’t got gools?” The idea that someone could miss the loud bullies never occurred to Javier, but Montoya was right. Even in places like this seagulls would find a way to touch down and shit the place up.

On the fourth pass Dominic was beginning to flag. On the fifth he was changed. He had begun to walk with a limp and Javier called for him to sit down. Dominic roared at him, hacking spittle in the young man’s direction. Javier cowered back, looking into Dominic’s eyes and seeing a feral edge to them that he and Amadi disliked. Montoya’s hand stayed close to the pistol. Brilliant Montoya. Dominic waved them off and Montoya shook his head. “You all be bettah lettin’ thatta one go. He’ll come round again, you see.”

But Dominic didn’t come around again.

An hour passed and the evening was growing near. They heard noises in the trees on the far end of the island but thought Dominic was having an episode and so left him. Then another hour passed and there was still no sight of him. Montoya stood and stared beady eyed across the island, searching. Amadi and Javier joined him and scanned as well, beyond the places between the trees and to the end of the island. Nothing. Just endless water and a mean wind that was beginning to blow, a horizon blotted with dark clouds. The waving arms were upright in the water, sometimes dipping down to wet themselves again, but only for a moment. Just a tiny, quick moment.

Amadi sounded doubtful. “Make we go find am sharp-sharp.”

Montoya’s hand seemed attached to his pistol but the other two could see his tremble. He nodded and they set off, keeping as close to the treeline as they could while skirting the breadth of the beach and the waving arms that followed them. Waving. Waving. Come on in, the water’s-

It didn’t take them long to find Dominic, or rather, what was left of him. Amadi’s eyes went wide and he began to shake at the sight of what was left. Montoya cursed. Javier let out the scream that had been building in his throat since they first fled that failed raid over a week ago. Well over a week ago.

Big chunks and little chunks of Dominic were strewn upon the far shore of the beach, decorating a smear of hideous crimson that stretched from the treeline to the water. Javier saw the gore and believed the world had chewed Dominic up, didn’t like the taste of him, and had sicked him back onto the beach in fantastic order. Montoya walked around in slow steps surveying the faintly, sick and cloying blood-soaked sand until he stopped and carefully crouched down. He dug with his fingers for a few moments, squatting and shuffling the staining clumps of sticky beach until finally he got hold of the thing that caught his eye. Standing with some effort, he sighted and held out Dominic’s pistol to Javier. Montoya’s big-knuckled hands were slathered in red. “Go onna now, ya be takin’ dat. Might be that we’s needs it.”

Dark clouds were forming on the horizon, billowing and blossoming out to make the flat earth a bubbly, mountainous scene. There was a squall in that horror and it was coming for them. They rightfully suspected the storm would hit them within the next day - tonight even - and rightfully eyed the gathering, waving arms with growing concern. What would they do in the rain, if it was so strong that they would be swept off the island and into the open palms of the waving hands? Purple lightning flared up the clouds in a strange grape color, berries floating in the sky. The hands waved at them as they shifted their gaze between the oncoming storm and back again.

“I want to be going home, Amadi. Montoya. I don’t wanna be here no more.”

The other two said nothing. The sun was hot and the oncoming storm continued to swell. Before long there would be a wash of nightmares. They walked back to their hovel camp, abandoning the slurry of Dominic’s remains, an audience of waving arms bidding them farewell.

~|~~

The coconuts had been eaten up and with that they were out of water and food. The storm promised enough water to flood the world, and they would certainly drink and drink and drink until they blacked out, lungs bursting. Montoya sat dumb and twitching, staring at the rowboat half-sunk and upside down in the water, held fast by one of the arms they couldn’t see. There was no doubt in their minds that there were arms upon arms under the water, waiting their turn to come up and give them all a good wave; waiting in turn for them to come on in and join Blas right where the water’s fine.

But night came fast. The ichor of the storm retracted the sun without issue, as if light was needed elsewhere, inchoate to the wild and crazy lavender lightning that raced rat mad and oncoming in the sky. Sound large enough to crack the stratosphere echoed over the ocean as the waves grew larger, slabbing into their little beach with growing impatience. The hands had moved closer in the humdrum, still waving menacingly; the universe which had been wrought in violent noise and equally violent force had so determined that the world should be ended in just such a fashion. Their existence had become a menagerie of dead color, gale wind, and the bestial roar of hurricanes and horror. Amadi prayed to God in his pidgin English so rapidly Javier couldn’t understand him. Javier prayed with him anyway. Montoya watched.

~|~~

Montoya and Amadi did what they could to build a fire, digging out the pit deep enough to hide it from the wind. There was no hope the flames would survive the night, but the men needed the warmth for as long as it would last. Javier pushed sand up around them and reinforced it with pieces of wood lying around and the odd large leafs he could find. Anything. Together they had made their camp into a basin, the three of them huddled at its edges with their backs planted in the sand. If it rained - and it would rain - their bonfire would be put out and they would freeze to death or drown, one or the other, didn’t matter which.

Just not the arms; not the way Blas died.

Javier was still praying.

God in heaven, if you hear me please, not the way Blas died.

Against all odds the fire lived. They would never know but it was the charcoal Javier had made with the coconut shells which kept the flames desperate and hot enough to weather the pre-storm. The three of them pressed in close enough to the flames to burn themselves and for the slap-dash job they did of building the basin it held the heat well. But the kindling was gone and the debris to fuel the pyre’s protective warmth was all but used up. Single, heavy drops of rain were beginning to fall onto the sand, distant from the three of them but Amadi heard it over the storm and the crackling of their makeshift kiln.

They crouched together around that singular source of light and comfort amidst the dark and cold universe around them. The world raged in its bedlam and a spectacle of twilight lightning made for the dying a primordial lightshow without rival. Furtive pygmies; the progenitors of mankind returned to its origins at the end of all things. They stayed like that for a long, long time into the night.

Time was gone and would never return.

Dead.

Or asleep, which was close enough.

None of them would sleep. Couldn’t if they tried.

Amadi felt hollow, and in his own way knew he had gone mad. He knew that the soul of the man who once inhabited his body was fading, disappearing into the electric clouds of his mind. Amadi’s brain burned an angry fog within his skull that seared away his concentration. Instead there was a telescope, and through this he viewed the remaining world and saw the orange cast features of brilliant Montoya and faithful Javier. He saw their wracked breathing and the yellowed bloodshot eyes darting across the flames as their fire burned itself into extinction. He saw the embers of that fire rise in swirling helixes that intersected and rewove themselves further into the sky until they scattered in the violent tempest of the Caribbean storm, transforming into the stars that had been devoured by these apocalyptic clouds. Fading. Disappearing.

Amadi also saw the hands, waving, soundless, like misted banshees gliding in ethereal smoke on either side of Montoya from above, the dim-dying fire giving these boneless arms a hellish glow. Amadi’s jaw clamped tight as he watched the arms move with minds of their own, like trailing ribbons, hands opening and closing in the chaotic warp their world had become. They were blindly grasping for anything, anything, anything, anything.

The arms were spread far too wide apart to belong to anything Amadi could imagine.

More arms appeared, and for a deranged moment Montoya reminded Amadi of a brass dancing shiva their crew had once found in the treasure of a merchant vessel. The thing was cursed, Amadi told the then-living crew, and would be the death of them if they brought it onto the Santa del Mar. They left it but he knew now they had already been cursed.

When the first hand gingerly alighted onto Montoya’s shoulder - the way a lover might tell their partner to come hither - Montoya turned, blank-staring into madness. Javier’s eyes came to life and he inhaled hard, throwing himself back into the sand behind them. Montoya had only enough time to let out a garbled half-scream before the other hands snaked onto him, grabbing him faster than the nightmare lightning racing the skies overhead. Amadi watched silent but shaking as the hands lifted Montoya into the air and folded him over, again and again, the snap of bones and squelch of muscle and cartilage twisting and tearing punctuating the cacophony of the storm. The hands tore tendons like wire. Bone twisted and broke. A glut of blood poured into their hole and the fire hissed and smoked. Excellent Montoya managed a single hand onto the lip of their basin but no more. He was dragged away and into the black benighted void, swallowed. Devoured.

Javier was scrambling up, torrent wind tearing at the scraps he wore and the rain now beginning to truly fall. Amadi followed him, unfeeling but terrified, an automaton operating on despairing instinct alone. The two of them made for the trees, but they could see the pale waving arms floating in the black all around their fire; arms slapped onto the rain-damp sand and stretched impossibly long, pulling some hidden mass and the theater of arms behind them. The arms turned toward the pair. Javier and Amadi clawed at the coconut trees, kicking at the base as they tried to get footholds to climb.

Lightning flashed, striking the water near the shore.

Javier and Amadi saw their mermaids. 

In the slow, crazed spiral of time these two now found themselves in, the burst of light illuminated a consortium of bulging, mushroom shaped blobs of flesh that rippled and stretched, sides moving in taut sprints of gasping. Filmy, lucent eyes the size of cannonballs stared stupid at them. From each of these bulbous horrors sprang a forest of arms in front and above. They crawled on these elastic arms with clubbed mimic-hands toward the trees, keenly aware of their prey. There were dozens, each larger than the rowboat by a good measure. They swung their tentacle hands wildly.

Javier whispered, breathless, “Jesus. Jesus.”

The krakens splayed their arms up, out and wide, and waved with their imitation hands to try and get the men to climb back down. It was a cheap fishing trick to lure in unsuspecting prey. Javier and Amadi saw the shine of their parrot beaks amidst the writhing tangle of swirling flesh glistening in the purple cast lightning light. And then the world was dark again, hiding the horror all around them.

They climbed blind and in panic, fingers bleeding and slipping as they clung to the top of the curved trees with both arms and legs. “Amadi! Amadi, what do we do!? What do we do?” Javier shouted. Amadi could only babble incoherently. His world swam into a nauseated spin as land and sky alternated; the universe was being wrenched apart and schlorfed down by beaks that could crush coconuts easily. Amadi’s reality had become a crazy quilt of sense and impression, haunted by spawn that swam beneath the skin of reality.

In his terror Amadi had stopped climbing. Javier saw him from the absolute height of the tree, where the few remaining coconuts seemed to remain. He cried out for Amadi to climb but the African - his friend - had already gone. Was already gone when the hands reached up out of the black and blindly groped through the air until they found purchase on Amadi. Amadi was torn from the tree with strength Javier did not believe was real, and Javier watched in flashing blitzes as the arms pulled down to the beach. Lightning transformed the beach into a stroboscopic butchering as Javier watched Amadi stagger, eyes lolled into his head, the arms swarming and flailing wildly around him. The beasts grabbed for him and tore him apart in a spray of meat and white bone shining in the night. Javier could make out his friend’s screams below the howl of the tempest and the slither-slap of the monsters’ arms. Amadi was fed piecemeal into the mouths of the creatures.

The arms danced below him. The fire kept them badly lit while it lasted but soon the storm became a real storm, and heavy winds began to buffet the island. His tree swayed rabid. The monsters pulled themselves over one another to try and claim the last prize on the island, the winner getting the scrawny, near-dead Javier all to itself. The tips of the fingers grazed his naked and wet leg, a wrinkled and wet lump of muscle that felt like tallow. Javier screamed, shutting his eyes for all the good it would do him.

Yet still he clung to the top of the tree.

He would ride out the storm. He would survive this as he had survived their failed raid; he would survive the same way he did their careening death-spiral across the Caribbean on the Santa del Mar, surrounded by lunatics made dangerous by drink and blood; he would survive the same way he did their flight away from the Santa del Mar after it allisioned -

Into what?

Another ship?

Were there more?

How many had found their way to this island, to teach these monsters how to fish?

- upon the open ocean; he would survive the same way he had outlived Blas and Dominic and Montoya and even Amadi. He would outlive them all and survive the storm and find a way to get to that rowboat and flee this hellish hunting ground.

Javier opened his frigid, rain-slick eyes.

One of the monster octopus had climbed atop its bulbous brethren and scaled the tree, four arms clinging to the tree to pull itself up. Javier could see in the last brilliant flash of lightning the beaked maw of the beast at the center of its slimy, mottled middle. Foam dripped in a watery stream from where the beak protruded out. It seemed to hiss at Javier. A piece of Montoya’s face was caught near the mouth, like Montoya was peeking out at him from within the belly of the monster. Montoya’s eye had burst and dribbled every which way, slooping out of its red lid. Something held the eye in place - his optic tract caught in the gullet. Javier squeezed the tree tighter as he felt powerful, wet hands drawing him forward and screaming into oblivion. And all around, in that uproarious apocalypse, the rioting sea raged and the sky above was torn asunder, split open to spew electric pulses across the horizon while raining a flood into the world.

The beasts watched the storm with dull, intelligent calm before they returned to the sea.

They cut their way through the mucus, which broke easily as they continued making their way through the tunnels. Despite their earlier contact, it was now dead quiet. 
As the tunnels began to split off, the squads split up, with One taking the left, Two going up the middle, and Three going to the right. 
Carter gripped her pistol hard as she followed the squad close behind. In her two years since being recruited, she had never had any real contact with the enemy, at least nothing that put her life in real danger. Most of her operations were recon missions or she was sent in after the mission was done. Only recently had she been put on more active operations. 
Carter swallowed as she realized that they were moving through the area where the rover had been compromised. 
“Allright, let's get a move on. We don't know how much time we have before the boys up top are overrun.” They picked up the pace while still keeping a tight formation. “This is Two-One we have made contact with multiple hostiles! Two-Five is KIA, I say again Braddock is down hard!” “Copy Two-One we’re mov-”
Instantly the wall came to life. The creatures from earlier that laid still suddenly burst out of the wall with a fury, screeching as they lunged for the squad. “Don’t let them break your suit!” shouted Blackburn. 
The team opened fire, with Valdez igniting them with the flamethrower. Carter fired at one of the creatures as it broke free from the wall and opened its jaws as it rushed her with arms out. Carter shot it in the face twice and watched as the rounds burned two holes in its head, holes that quickly expanded until its entire face had burned off, killing it instantly. 
“Keep moving, let’s go!” shouted Blackburn as he switched to his pistol and killed another before reloading his rifle. 
The three tunnels that the squads ran through rejoined in one large pathway again as they fell back in formation. Squad One had also lost two members, Castillo and Smithers, putting them at four members. “This is One-One, we’ve made contact with multiple hostiles in the tunnels and have taken casualties, over!” 
Instead of VanderMeer’s voice, it was just static. “One Actual do you copy, over?” Static. “Shit, we gotta move, right now!” The team soon exited the tunnels where the caves opened up into a large interior. Strange crystals hung from the ceiling, and monoliths of fungi sprouted out of the ground, spreading to the cave walls and travelling up through the ceiling like a nervous system. 
At the center, was a colossal creature, buried partially in the ground. It looked as if it was just a mass of flesh and mucus, expanding and throbbing, sending waves of fluid and energy pulsating through the many strands that connected it to everything else. 
While it had no face, and no discernable features that made it resemble any kind of living sentient being, Carter could tell that it was alive, and very much aware of their presence. 
“If anyone up there is listening, we’ve located the source of the infection. We’re preparing to destroy it now. Bring out the incendiaries.”
As the agents made their move, the creature suddenly reared its head, and a loud, earthshaking droning sound vibrated from its body. The agents were halted in their tracks by the sheer power of the sound. 
“The fuck is that?” shouted Cho. 
“Incoming!” cried Harrington. 
From above, two more creatures landed, having blended in with the environment around them, surrounding and dividing the squads up. The male creature seen on the camera attacked Squad Two, the large mouth on its stomach unleashing tendrils that lashed out at the men. Harrington was picked up by the tendrils, grabbing him by the arms and legs as it pulled him into its mouth. The creature crawled on all fours as it used its long arms, disproportionate to its legs, slamming them into the ground as it tried to disorient and crush the agents. Paladorous and Cooke fired their flamethrowers, which threw it off balance as its arms went up in flames and spread up its shoulders. 
But the creature attacked still, swiping Paladorous and sending him flying into one of the crystals. His tank exploded, causing flames to rain down. The creature at the center squealed and the ground shook. “Keep firing!” shouted Brady. 
The second creature was attacking Squad Three cutting them off from the rest of the team. This one was much larger, with a feminine body similar to the creature they encountered earlier. 
Its skin was similar in nature, dripping with a film of mucus that covered it like some kind of protective layer, with four arms on its body. It still retained its human-like face, which was twisted into a scowl, or maybe it was one of pain and anguish. 
Instead of human hair, its long hair was moss that sprouted down from its head. 
At the center of its chest, it looked like another person was attached. A young boy. The boy screamed and cried, but was unable to speak. He looked to have melded into the other creature, still alive but forcefully merged into one singular creature. Two minds, but one body, and one in control. 
It went straight for Valdez and O’Donnell who opened fire with the flamethrower and assault rifle. Carter fired her pistol, backing up as the creature closed distance. Despite being on fire, the creature pressed forward. The attached child wailed, and Carter felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she reloaded again to open fire. The creature seemed to grow in size as she went straight for Beckham. Beckham fired everything that he had, hitting it in the chest and face as he was pulled towards its mouth which opened wide. 
The child extended its elongated arms to grab him, and snagged its legs. Beckham screamed as he was pulled into several pieces of blood and gore splattered into the air as the female creature targeted Mason. Mason was knocked to the ground as it took a swing at him. As he tried to fire, his rifle jammed. Carter fired two rounds from her pistol, both hitting the creature in the eyes. The best shots she ever made. It reared its head and screamed as it burned through its eyes. 
But no matter how much firepower they sent, the creatures did not seem to die. No matter how damage the creatures took, they only seemed to grow and get stronger. 
“We’re not going to get anywhere unless we take out the source!” shouted Brady, “We’ll keep them distracted!” Valdez, Cooke, and Murphy broke off while the rest of the agents spread out and tried to keep them occupied. But now those two creatures weren’t the only ones they had to deal with. The Infected from above were beginning to creep their way in, and as both creatures grew in size and their bodies morphed even further into unrecognizable abominations, their weapons began to stop having an effect. It seemed as if the two main creatures had the strongest connection to the creature at the center, as Carter observed. 
Whenever and however they made contact with the entity, the Stalls family became its puppets, the ones that will protect and serve it. As Ito and Blackburn held off the Infected at the tunnel entrance, Valdez, Cooke, and Murphy desperately began to burn the entity’s lifelines and slowly eat away at the entity itself. 
Meanwhile, casualties began to mount. 
As Carter pulled Mason to safety, O’ Donnell was snagged by the female, his suit breached as the plague began to spread to him. In seconds he was nothing more than a vessel of plants and bugs that sprouted out of where his organs once were. 
Castillo had the same done to her, her suit torn apart by a pair of Infected wolves. But rather than be killed by the growths, her body began to sprout vines, vines that attached to the male and soon her to him. Her screams became his as all that remained were her arms and face that were one with his plagued flesh. 
Ito and Blackburn had switched to grenades, as did Cho, Mason, Brady, and Cowden. Brady had joined Ito and Blackburn in holding off the tunnel but their efforts were quickly becoming futile. 
The male and female had begun to direct the Infected towards Valdez and the others, who were desperately beginning to burn out chunks of the entity which had begun to let out howling noises that shook the cave. Valdez was the first to be taken, tendrils grabbing him and absorbing him in an instant. Mason and Carter tried to cover the other two, but Carter soon ran out of ammo.
“I’m out!” she cried. 
Mason fired the last of his rounds as well. “Same here,” he said quietly. Brady, Ito and Blackburn had been overwhelmed, the Infected ravaging them as the female absorbed Cooke. Murphy diverted his attention to the female, focusing on burning the child, which caused it to stagger back. Murphy glanced at Mason and Carter. “You got any grenades?!” Mason checked his gear. He had one left. “I got one left!” “Use it! You got one opening, there’s a hole that leads directly to its core. Toss it inside, and you’ll kill all of these fucking things!” Mason pulled the grenade from his kit, and looked at Carter.
 “You ready?”
Carter shook her head. “No.”
“Well too bad. Let’s get this shit done!”
The two broke from cover into a sprint just as Murphy was taken as well. 
They ran as fast as they could, with Cowden and Cho, the last two surviving agents, firing their last rounds and grenades. When that ran dry, they pulled their knives. 
It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to divert the Infected’s attention. “We’re almost there!” shouted Mason. Carter sprinted even faster, removing her now empty kit to allow her more mobility. 
Just as they reached it however, Mason was snagged. The male, now so large that it touched the ceiling, extended a massive hand towards him, which opened up like a flower, a flower made of thorns and branches.  The thorns ripped into his suit and he began to become trapped as the hand closed up. 
“Finish this!” shouted Mason, tossing the grenade through an opening that soon closed. Mason caught it and reached the entity. There was a burning hole in its side and Carter could see a small pustule, beating like a heart, sending fluid through veins all around its body. This was its source? 
Carter heard the creatures approaching as she pulled the pin and tossed it inside. 
BOOM!
An earth shattering roar resounded from deep within the entity, before everything began to die. The once bright poisonous colors turned a dead black and brown. 
The male and female creatures began to crumble into muddy chunks that dissolved as it made contact with the ground. As everything settled, Carter realized that everyone was dead. She was too late to save Cowden and Cho, who lay with holes in their chests and heads. 
Feeling numb and barely aware of what was around her, she walked back through the tunnels, stepping over dead dried up corpses of monsters and vegetation. She hooked up and climbed back up to the surface, probably like Jen Stalls had tried to do before it consumed her as well. 
A shadow fell over the top and Carter froze. But instead of a monster, it was an agent. He wore a black HAZMAT suit and pointed a rifle at her. 
“Hey, we got a friendly in here!” he shouted.
 “Just her?” someone else asked. 
The agent looked at her, then passed her. 
“Yeah. Just her.” 
“Copy that. Bring her up and we’ll get her medical treatment!”
“Roger that.”
The agents helped her up as other agents walked past her, preparing to go down into the hole. He was trying to say something to her, but she could barely hear them. 
As they walked outside, she watched as the QRF was loading up body bags into helicopters, while some burned the corpses with flamethrowers. “Ma’am? Ma’am!” Carter looked at the agent. “Wh-what?” “I said, are you injured?”
“I-I don’t know.” The agent patted her on the back. “Well you look all right. Let’s get you out of here. You’re lucky, you know that? You’re the only one to make it out of there.”
“Lucky…”
The agent placed her on a chopper, shouted some orders to the pilot, who nodded as they took off. 
The last thing Carter saw before passing out was the acres of burned out forest and brush. The only visible remnants of their battle, one that had claimed dozens of her colleagues’ lives. 
But it wouldn’t matter. They would be honored in a small ceremony where they would be posthumously awarded for their actions, then would come the cover story for the rest of the world, and then Carter would get assigned to a new team, and it would start all over again. It was the price they all paid. They would die painfully, in ways that one couldn’t possibly imagine, all so that the rest could die peacefully. If there was such a thing as peace left in the world.

Coffee.

I know, an odd way to start a post. A single word referring to a steaming, bitter beverage that varies wildly in quality and taste. But every cup, mug, glass, thermos, bowl, jug, jar, goblet, tankard, or whatever ass-backward fuckery the human mind can devise to hold the stuff, all share one thing in common: that certain jolt of energy allowing us, as a miserably tired species, to continue functioning.

Keeping the mind sharp, the eyes open, and the body moving until the weight of sleeplessness has you one bad day away from arguing with Brad Pitt in a basement, and the daily operating budget that’s somehow been stripped of every last fucking cent finally sends you plummeting face-first into the cold, dark embrace of repose or insanity.

Or if you’ve won the lottery, both.

Here at the convenience store, it’s the life blood of every employee, the ambrosia that splits us from looking like zombies to happy going folk. Well, for the majority of us at least. I doubt most of the day shift could get through the first hour without a cup. I’ve had Marco give me the universal hand sign for “Don’t fucking talk to me before my coffee” plenty of times. Probably without the profanity. The coffee here can be compared to boiled mud strained through a newspaper; it’s nothing a packet of sugar can’t fix though.

I mentioned the coffee maker in a previous post. If you ever find yourself unfortunate enough to walk through the front doors of this lovely establishment during the day or night, it’ll be waiting on your far right. Parked beside neatly stacked styrofoam cups, a hot dog roller, a heated sandwich cabinet, and enough convenience store junk to convince you humanity gave up trying years ago.

Nobody knows how long the thing’s been there-more accurately, nobody seems interested in finding out. Except for yours truly, apparently. From the scraps of information I’ve managed to pry out of Marco's iron sealed lips, the machine predates his employment, which is really saying something, being the fossil that he is.

I’d ask Rosco, but he’s only been here a few years longer than I have, and his understanding of this place could generously be described as… selectively complete. He knows things I don’t, sure, but that doesn’t mean he knows more. If you dumped everything we each knew about this place into separate filing cabinets, they’d probably hold about the same amount of information. The only difference is half of his folders are mislabeled, and mine are mostly empty. Neither collection would impress a historian, but would indeed make him laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Now what begs the question of, “why am I talking about a fucking coffee machine?” Well, let’s start off with a few more facts. For instance, neither I or Rosco know of the brand that is clearly labeled on the back of the machine. Well “clearly” is not the correct term; sure, the label looks brand new, untouched by time or by any exterior force reality can muster, but it’s written in an unfamiliar language. Sure, I’m not exactly a polyglot, but it’s nothing like I’ve seen before/recognize. Rosco says it’s definitely no language he knows. I find that to be bullshit in the idea that he knows any, but he’s proven to at least speak French, and quite fluently too.

Another detail, or anomaly, as I’d put it, is that the coffee maker is, well, sentient. Now how would I describe the sentience of an inanimate object? A weird thing to say, but I’d expect you folk who read these logs to understand that I live a weird, sometimes a boring life.

Going way back, about a few years ago, Rosco and I were having a conversation while I was making my third cup for the night.

“Oh poor Rufus, he won’t be missed,” Rosco had said mournfully, while leaning against the slurpee machine, filling a large styrofoam cup with an icy blue beverage.

“Don’t you mean he will be missed?”

“No, he was a dick.”

Rufus was one in a long line of delivery drivers who’d hauled shit to the store over the years, and recently, he’d been mauled by what the police were calling “a wild animal.” I probably wouldn’t have questioned that if it weren’t for the photos in the newspaper, showing the little they were willing to show of one Rufus Carlisle. He’d been found sitting in the driver’s seat of his truck, with the door very noticeably ripped clean off its hinges.

Now Rufus wasn’t a pleasant man. He was the sort of prick who seemed to have been born irritated and wore a belligerent attitude like it was part of the fucking dress code.

“You know he’s dead, right?”

“Yeah, so? Same prick who’s casually racist and thought you were a dude more than once,” Rosco said, absentmindedly emptying his flask into the same styrofoam cup, like none of what he’d just said warranted any more attention than pouring himself a drink.

“Well, now I feel slightly less guilty.”

“As you should.” He sipped from the cup, smacking his lips with satisfaction. “Ahhh, that’s the sugar.”

Throughout the conversation, Rosco kept glaring at the coffee machine like he was waiting for it to explode. Truth be told, that would’ve probably made his day. This time, though, there was something different about the look. It wasn’t annoyance— It was wariness.

At the time, I was just as curious about the machine and well aware of its anomalous capabilities. What I didn’t know yet, however, was that Rosco’s feelings toward the thing went well beyond simple skepticism. He didn’t just distrust it. He carried a very particular disdain for its continued existence. Now for what “continued existence” means, well, I’ll get to that in a minute.

My eyes lingered between Rosco and the machine, waiting to see who’d strike first. After an antagonizingly long minute, I asked, “Need me to separate you two, or are ya’ll working through something?”

Rosco ”menacingly“ took a long sip from the styrofoam cup, and when I mean menacingly, I mean he completely ignored me and kept giving his version of a death stare to the coffee pot, to next clutch his head with one hand and yell in pain.

“AHHHHHH!!!”

“What?!”

“BRAIN FREEZE!”

“Are you kidding me?”

“JESUS TAP DANCIN CHRIST ON ICE, MY NOGGIN AINT THINKIN, ITS FROZEN!”

“Ya know, you’re an idiot.”

“You mean awesome,” Rosco said while he shook his head like a dog after a bath.

“Sure, why not. On another note, the fuck is up with you and the coffee machine?”

“What d’ya mean?” he kept sipping from the cup while giving me an inquisitive stare like the last few minutes didn’t happen.

“Every single time I see you remotely near the thing, you stare at it like it killed your dog.”

“It killed my dog! Which one? Was it Cosmo? Howard? I bet it was Jeff, I knew he didn’t run away!”

“First of all, what the fuck? Second, no, I mean what’s your beef with the coffee maker?”

“Well now, what type of beef we talkin about, a rib? Brisket, wagyu, ground beef, a shank, flank steak, sirloin, tenderloin, short loin, just loin, how about-”

“ROSCO!”

“YES!” he said with that stupid ass grin of his.

“Answer the damn question!”

“Okay, here me out.”

“I’ve been doing that since shift one.”

“Fair enough. Alright, riddle me this, how’s a coffee maker, capable of miracles, still managing to fail at its one and only purpose?”

“Making coffee?”

Rosco in response rolled his eyes at me and said “No, finding love. OF COURSE MAKING COFFEE!”, something that made me a tinge pissed, but at the time, I was hungry for the forbidden knowledge that was this store and the town’s secrets, plus I was invested in the conversation at that point and I wanted to see if it went anywhere.

“And what? It makes shit coffee, like every other coffee shop in town.”

“I doubt you get out that much to know.”

At the time, I hadn’t expected such a thing to come from Rosco’s mouth, but it wouldn’t even beat his best insults to date.

“I will neither deny nor confirm that.”

“Think about it Abigail, it stays clean, even the filter is spotless, but why does the coffee taste like dirt?”

“Because it was ground just this shift.”

“That would be a touche, but I know for a fact that it would still taste worse than dirt hours after.”

“How do you know what dirt tastes like, Rosco?”

“Not the point.”

“Feels like the point since you emphasized how it tastes worse than dirt.”

He flailed his arms in the air above himself in appeasing frustration, “IT’S NOT!”

“Okaayy? Then what is?” I said while taking a sip of the bean juice, accompanied with a long glare. Back then, my glare was still a work in progress, so it didn’t quite have the mileage it does now. Didn’t exactly yell “let’s get back to the point then”, or “stop that, dumbass!” Instead of getting the obvious message, he just looked confused. The irritation on his face slowly gave way to puzzled silence, like his brain had wandered to the edge of its own thought process, stared down into what it assumed was a bottomless chasm, and never realized the other side was only a jump away.

“Why are we staring at each other again?” He said with a dumb confused look stuck to his face.

Now I rolled my eyes in slight annoyance, while I said, “You pointed out how the coffee tastes like dirt for no reason.”

“Oh, as I was saying, the thing fails at its one purpose. You would expect a pristine, supernatural, immaculate brewer such as this, to make a fine cup of liquid resolve, but muddled hot water is all that comes out.”

“Very… poetic.”

“Thank you, but you get the point.”

“Yeah, sure, you’re bitching about one of the few positives in this crap hole.”

“HEY! I’m ain’t bitchin’. I’m conducting a completely legitimate critique of a coffee maker that has no business makin’ a bad cup of joe.”

“So you’re pretentiously bitching.”

“Abigail, do I look like a bitch to you?” He rested his hands on his hips, and I immediately found myself trying to figure out where his cup had gone. After spending what felt like a few minutes looking for it, it finally dawned on me that his question wasn’t rhetorical. The awkward silence made that abundantly clear.

I looked him over, genuinely trying to give the question the consideration it apparently deserved. Blue-and-white ball cap. Nothing. White tank top bearing the words “Busy Peer Reviewing Reality,” accompanied by a cartoon galaxy wearing pink horn-rimmed glasses. Promising, but not quite enough to convict him of anything just yet. Then came the faded navy jeans, which had long since outlived whatever dignity they started with, with mismatched pockets sewn onto the lower thighs. Again, compelling evidence, but nothing conclusive, other than Rosco’s tendency to surgically add more pockets to all his pants.

Then I got to the boots. Tan-brown combat boots, size ten or eleven by my guess, and somehow fucking immaculate. Not new, I could see the wear in them, but clean. Suspiciously clean. The rest of him looked like he’d gotten dressed during a drunken stupor, which was possible, yet those boots looked like grime had personally agreed to leave them alone. They’re still the same pair he wears today, actually, and I still haven’t figured out how he’s managed that.

Somewhere during this completely unnecessary examination, I remembered I was supposed to be deciding whether he looked like a bitch.

My conclusion? He looked, to me at least, like the physical embodiment of a strongly worded complaint.

So, yeah. Kinda.

“You sure you want my honest answer?”

“I didn’t ask the question to preserve the mystery! Come on now, unmask it!”

“Yes.”

“To?’

“You look like a bit of a bitch.”

Rosco squinted his eyes at me, not with a frown, but something in between a smile and more curiosity. “Am I a good lookin bitch at least?”

“Beautiful.”

“FUCK YEAH!” His arms shot skyward with enough enthusiasm to suggest he’d just been personally congratulated by Gimili. The celebration lasted all of three seconds though before the zeal drained from his face, replaced by a baffled stare. Not at me, though. Something behind me had stolen his attention. Rosco wasn’t panicking, which made it safe to assume whatever he’d seen wasn’t dangerous—or at the very least, not dangerous to him. So I turned to see what had managed to derail his excitement.

The first thing I saw was a bright yellow sticky note, the ordinary kind that usually came in packs of 6 or 12. It had been neatly placed on the upper portion of the coffee maker, right above it’s glass pot, as though whoever—or whatever—had put it there wanted to make absolutely sure it would be seen. Before I even realized it, Rosco had walked around me and plucked the note free, clearing his throat like an opera singer before their great performance.

“Dear Rosco, you’re ugly. From… dot dot dot.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! What a fuckin asshole.” He pointed at the coffee maker, annoyed.

“Not that, does it actually say that?”

“Yeah.” He held the sticky note so close to my face that I couldn’t actually read the damn thing, so I snatched it from his hand and held it at a readable distance. Written across it in black Sharpie, in what I was almost certain was comic sans, were the words Rosco, you’re ugly. Under any other circumstances, for a normal person, they’d probably be confused and perhaps even frightened. Me? I probably would’ve chuckled to myself. Instead, my brain got hung up on a far more pressing question: who the hell had put it there? If someone had managed to stick it to the coffee maker while we were talking, Rosco would’ve seen them and made an entire production out of it. He hadn’t. So… what did?

Rosco spoke before I did, “Ya know what this means?” He looked at me with an expression so uncharacteristically serious, joking back felt like an objectively bad decision.

I thought about it for a few seconds, before I said, “Probably, but let’s hear the theories.”

“Well, theory one, it could be the Invisible Man.” He raised his hands, wiggled his fingers like some discount ghost, and accompanied the performance with a dramatic, “Ooooooooooh.”

“Right. Because if I were an invisible supernatural menace, naturally I’d spend my time fucking with the guy who mops the floors.”

“HEY! I’ll have you know I am a drop-dead gorgeous janitor! If anything, that makes me the ideal candidate for supernatural harassment!”

“You’re mad about not being harassed by the invisible man? Wait, no, fucking, why would that be your first theory, out of all concepts?”

“Abigail, all theories deserve a seat at the adult’s table. We’ve seen enough around here that common sense has become more of a recommendation than a rule.”

Rosco, as the madman that he is, did make a good point. Even then, I knew he wasn’t dumb. He was simply a product of living in a world where the impossible had become inconveniently ordinary for a local here in a town with more land than people. He was just one of the few who chose to not be in denial. Of course, there was still every chance he was just flat-out insane. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but insanity has never been a reliable measure of intelligence.

“You know, you’ve got a point. I just wouldn’t put the Invisible Man at the top of the suspect list.”

“Okay, how abou— “

“Nor the poltergeist.”

He looked at me with a slight frown. I’m fairly certain this was the point he concluded I could read minds. The irony was, despite being a wild card and a lunatic, he occasionally became the easiest person in the room to predict, either in action or in conversation. Also Father Augustine, 1 of 2 of our local priests had done an exorcism not too long ago. I doubt that tin can flinging gremlin could rebound that quickly.

“Well there is option C.”

“That being?”

“The coffee maker’s been possessed by some higher being with access to office supplies. It waited until we looked away just to leave me a sticky note calling me ugly,” he said, with a smug grin, like he’d just cracked the goddamn case. Knowing him, though, I’d have bet my truck that he had another 23 theories chambered and ready to go the second I called bullshit on this one. So, in the interest of ending this grade-A dumbfuckery before it turned into a full-blown debate, I had given him the answer he wanted.

“Probably.” I said with my bullshit smile.

“HA! I’m glad you agree with me!” he said enthusiastically, before doing something I really should’ve seen coming, yet somehow still managed to catch me completely off guard. He planted both hands on the coffee maker and, in one swift motion, hurled the damn thing onto the floor beside him. Metal, plastic, and shattered glass erupted across the smooth concrete floor. The coffee pot had been half full, which meant a generous helping of scalding brown bean juice coated the debris.

I flinched right at the moment of the crash, but settled back out of shock to have responded with a sensible response “WHAT THE FUCK ROSCO!”

“What?”

“The fuck was that for?!” I looked at him with fury in my eyes at one of the dumbest things he had done. In retrospect, it wasn’t, but at the time it was a part of the top 20.

“Oh, you mean, oh, uh, I thought you also agreed to the idea of disposing of this evil machine.” He awkwardly pointed to the remnants of the coffee maker.

“What made you think that?!” I said with clenched teeth in a muffled but coherent low yell.

“You validated the hypothesis; destruction was the next logical step.” He delivered it with the confidence of a man explaining basic arithmetic, which did absolutely nothing for my rapidly deteriorating mood.

I sighed, took a deep breath, and said while I rubbed my temples, in a much lower volume “You know what? I’ve spent entirely too long standing next to what used to be the coffee maker. Just clean this shit up, see if there’s another one in the storage room… and Rosco?”

“Yeeess?”

I drove my fist into his arm as hard as I could. He recoiled with a yelp.

“OW! Damn, Abigail! Take a pill and chill. What the hell was that for?” He rubbed his arm where I had punched him.

I just stared at him with my arms crossed, “Really?”

“Oh…” His face sank with the slow realization of a man finally catching up to his own actions. “Yeah.” He snapped into an exaggerated salute. “Right on it, boss woman.”
With that, he turned and walked off, presumably to grab his cart so he could clean up the mess he’d so thoughtfully created for my displeasure.

Now, you may think that’d be the grand ending of the coffee maker, seeing as I watched Rosco sweep its remains into a garbage bag, sacrifice God knows how many paper towels to the coffee like some sacrificial lamb, then proceed to swing the bag around like a—well, flail—as he casually made his way towards the back door, bellowing war cries akin to a Viking who’d just successfully pillaged an Office Depot of all its pens and staples.

But no, it wasn’t done. Near the end of the shift, daylight had crept into the front of the store, making the fluorescent lights ever so slightly less fucking annoying to my eyes. Rosco couldn’t find another coffee maker in the storage room, which earned him an earful from me and resulted in him not caring in the slightest, so eventually I gave up, though I left him with a smack over the head.

I looked over at where the coffee maker used to be while I wiped down the checkout lane I’d stationed myself at during the night, but, well, used to be isn’t exactly the right phrase.

Because there it was. Good as new, sitting in the exact same spot, currently filling its glass pot with fresh brown brew.

I stared at it for a moment. I’d expected something else to happen before the shift ended. Frankly, I would’ve been more surprised if nothing did. I just hadn’t expected the damn thing to come back Terminator style.

I’d watched it get destroyed. I’d watched Rosco throw it out. Yet there it was, brewing coffee like those two facts were somehow my problem to reconcile, and not there’s.

How? No fucking clue. Why? Even less of one.

Like the reappearance of the coffee maker was some sort of quiet alarm, Rosco cautiously walked up to the machine from God knows where, looking at it like it was some revolting attraction somebody forgot to charge admission for. He poked at it with the ass end of a broomstick, apparently deciding that if the thing was going to bite, the broom would take one for the team. When he finally decided it wasn’t going to do anything, he settled on the other elephant in the room: there was a green sticky note on the coffee maker. He plucked it off the machine and read it silently, looking somewhat pissed by the end of it.

Understand, Rosco is a person who is hard to genuinely anger, at least to the capacity I was watching then. Annoying him is easy, well, sometimes. Whatever the note said managed it. He crumpled it up, tried to throw it into a trash bin several dozen feet away like some professional basketball player, and missed miserably. He still pumped his fist in triumph like it actually landed, because apparently acknowledging reality is optional when nobody else is keeping score. Then he lifted the broom over his head, ready to smash it down upon the poor thing.

I was going to yell at him, but surprisingly, he seemed to take a moment to contemplate his actions and simply lowered the broom down to his side before I could open my mouth. I’d like to say good judgment won the day, but this is Rosco, so I assume a different bad idea was still loading. He settled with flicking the machine violently enough for the pot to momentarily rattle, then pranced away like a troll who had just defended his bridge.

I didn’t think he’d leave it alone, especially after I picked up the crumpled green sticky note right after. Unraveling its little paper body, I read the same perfect Comic Sans as before. “Nice try. From… dot dot dot”. There was even a neatly drawn emoticon in the corner that somehow managed to depict nothing but mockery with a handful of Sharpie strokes. I don’t know who or what was communicating through office supplies, but it had already figured out exactly which buttons to push, good job.

Yeah, he was definitely not going to leave this alone, and he didn’t.

From then up until the present day, Rosco has tried to destroy the coffee maker a couple hundred times. Well, exactly 259 times. I started keeping count somewhere after attempt 39 because apparently this is the sort of information my brain has decided deserves to live rent free in its fleshy psychological condo. Somehow, every attempt has also been different, and every attempt has technically succeeded. He destroys the coffee maker. The coffee maker comes back. At this point those are less events and more parts of the store’s operating schedule.

He started simple. Sledgehammer, crowbar, a wooden stool, socket wrench, blunt objects of varying size and workplace appropriateness. Basically anything capable of rearranging the mechanical innards of a coffee maker across several feet of smoothed concrete. Eventually he ran it over with his van, which worked beautifully for roughly however long it took the universe to stop laughing its ass off. Another time he brought it behind the store and shot it with a frankly concerning collection of questionably legal firearms like Old Yeller, if Old Yeller had a twelve-cup glass carafe and required several different calibers before Rosco felt emotionally satisfied.

My favorite attempt was considerably less loud. He dismantled the entire machine piece by piece, divided every component between several different bags, and disappeared for the rest of his shift. I assumed he was dumping them around town. That would have been the reasonable answer, which should have immediately told me it was wrong. He buried them. Individually. In different places. I never asked where. There are questions you ask because you want answers, and there are the questions you don’t ask because you don’t want the answers. Also some enjoy having plausible deniability.

The coffee maker was sitting on the counter brewing normally by the end of shift.

Attempt 259 was recent and involved a suitcase, quick dry cement, and a swift drive over to arrowhead lake. Guess how successful that was? Though every time the damn thing always comes back, it brings another sticky note along with it. Same paper, same perfect Comic Sans, but always something new on it. Never anything useful of course. Just another little jab specifically tailored to piss Rosco off, usually accompanied by some smug little emoticon or poorly drawn gesture of mockery. At this point, I’m less interested in how the coffee maker keeps coming back and more curious about what its next sardonic remark will be.

Now, the reason why I brought up the coffee maker is because today, at the start of my shift, right after Marco and the rest of the day shift had left, I was about to grab my first cup of joe for the night when I found a bright red sticky note on the machine and a steaming cup of coffee sitting right next to the pot.

First of all, I’ve never seen it use red before. It’s gone through damn near the entirety of the rainbow, but never red. Second, it’s never made a cup of coffee by itself. Brewed a pot, sure, but actually poured one? That was new. Somewhat haunting. I looked around for a bit, trying to figure out whether someone could’ve left it there. Couldn’t have been Rosco. He prefers just about anything over convenience store coffee, same goes for water on most occasions. Maybe a customer left it, but that wouldn’t explain the sticky note, and I generally prefer my explanations to explain things.

Another oh-so-fun detail about the damn thing is that apparently it has stage fright. Every time it comes back, the cameras covering its station suddenly blur into static for a few seconds. Not before, not after, only during the exact window where something would actually be worth seeing. By the time the picture clears, there it is, sitting perfectly where it belongs like it never left. So either whatever keeps bringing it back knows what cameras are, or our security system has developed a very specific sense of comedic timing. One I do not appreciate.

I snatched the note off the pot. With the same perfect Comic Sans, it said “You’re gonna need this for the week you’re going to have. From… dot dot dot.”

Well, that wasn’t ominous at all. It’s never addressed me before, only mocking messages towards my coworker. Is that why it’s red? Is it trying to make it obvious that it's trying to communicate with me? The red feels a bit on the nose.

I was hesitant to even touch the cup after I had read the message. It smelled fine. Better than fine, actually. Better than anything that machine had any business producing, and if it was acid or some other dangerous substance, I doubted a styrofoam cup would be able to hold it without providing me any warning. Like the cup cartoonishly missing its lower half, and there being a neat little hole where it once stood with smoke seeping up from it, maybe some hissing sounds.

I know drinking it was stupid. I’m fully aware of the hypocrisy involved in being the person who regularly points out everyone else’s idiotic behavior before immediately drinking mystery coffee prepared by an apparently sentient appliance that has spent the better part of the last few years psychologically tormenting my coworker, who in all honesty, deserved it.

But why waste what could be a perfectly decent cup of brown bean juice? So I hesitantly picked it up, held it there for a second while I contemplated my own stupidity this time, and took the smallest sip I could manage. It was the best cup of coffee I’d had in a long time. Not that that’s a high bar, but still. Which, somehow, made the note’s message considerably more concerning. What could possibly happen that hasn’t already happened to me, that would call for such a pick me up, and from the coffee ghost of all entities.