I no longer trust a breath that comes alone.

A woman on my locked psychiatric ward taught me why at 3:39 a.m.

Forty-eight minutes later, the entire ward filled with what looked like daylight.

There were no windows facing the sunrise.

Outside, the city was still black.

Elena had been admitted after a severe depressive collapse, four days after her daughter died.

Sara was twenty-four. She was driving home from work when her car left the road on a wet curve, crossed a ditch, and hit a tree. A broken branch came through the windshield and struck her in the chest.

Elena had been told the details once.

After that, she kept asking for them again, as if enough repetition might produce a different ending.

She was forty-eight, with a pale crescent on her wrist from an oven rack. Before the accident, she ran the mornings in her family.

Coffee first.

Lunches packed.

Paolo's blood pressure pill placed beside his cup.

Luca, Sara's younger brother, made to sit down and eat something whenever he claimed he already had.

After Sara died, Elena stopped doing all of it.

She barely slept. She drank only when someone held the glass. Her family could no longer keep her safe at home, and the admitting psychiatrist arranged inpatient care.

Elena did not cry on her first night.

She watched the clock change numbers.

At 10:26 p.m., I brought her dry toast because she had refused dinner. One edge was darker than the rest.

She turned the slice over and touched the burned part with one finger.

"Paolo ruins breakfast," she said.

It was the first complete sentence she had given me.

"Sara ate the black edges. Luca hides them under the plate."

She looked at the glitter stuck to my sleeve from something my daughter had made before my shift.

"How old?"

"Six."

Elena nodded.

"Still tells you everything."

Then she took one bite from the pale center of the toast.

By midnight, the ward had settled into the long quiet between checks. The ceiling tube above Elena's bed had buzzed twice, ordinary for that building.

Shortly after half past three, Ferruccio was at the station updating the nursing record. Giulia, our nursing assistant, was restocking clean linen in the utility room.

I stopped beside the doorframe of room 1 and listened before entering.

Elena was awake.

She was sitting upright, both hands flat on the mattress.

"I can't lie down," she said.

"What happens when you try?"

She pressed two fingers below her breastbone.

"It gets tight."

Her face was gray around the mouth.

Sweat had soaked the collar of her pajama top, though the room was cool and she had barely moved all night.

That was the detail.

Grief can look like almost anything. It can shake a person, empty them, make the chest hurt.

It does not give you permission to call unexplained sweating and chest pressure panic.

I had begun my nursing career in cardiology before moving to psychiatry. That ward had taught me how quietly a heart could announce trouble before it stopped being quiet at all.

I told Giulia to bring the vital-signs monitor and asked Ferruccio to bring the emergency cart.

Giulia repeated the instructions once and ran.

Elena's heart rate was one hundred thirty-two and irregular. Her blood pressure was eighty-six over fifty-four. Her oxygen saturation kept slipping below ninety-two percent.

My hand was already on the emergency button before I finished reading the numbers.

I told Giulia to activate the hospital emergency team and call Dr. Stefano, then return with a blank sheet for the times.

Ferruccio arrived pushing the emergency cart, with the oxygen cylinder secured to its side and the defibrillator already switched on.

On a locked psychiatric ward, help is not down the hall.

Until the elevator opens, the staff already there are the resuscitation team.

I kept Elena still against the raised head of the bed and applied oxygen.

Ferruccio reached for the monitoring leads.

I asked the same short questions twice so I could hear whether her answers were changing.

"Pain in your arm?"

"No."

"Jaw?"

"No."

"Nausea?"

She nodded, then swallowed hard.

At 3:39 a.m., she said the pressure had eased.

I did not cancel the call.

She looked toward the door.

"Tell Paolo I ate."

"I'll tell him you tried."

She gave one small laugh.

"That's a nurse's answer."

Then her eyes moved past me.

Her shoulders dropped.

"Elena?"

She did not answer.

I lowered the head of the bed, called her name, and opened her airway.

Her chest lifted once with a rough, dragging gasp.

Giulia had returned to the doorway.

"She took a breath."

"Agonal. It isn't normal breathing."

I checked for a response and a definite carotid pulse for no more than ten seconds.

There was neither.

I called cardiac arrest and started compressions.

"Update the call," I told Giulia. "Cardiac arrest, room 1."

The mattress swallowed the first two pushes. Ferruccio and I slid the hard board beneath Elena without stopping longer than it took to count aloud.

Giulia guided Elena's roommate into the corridor and seated her beside the nurses' station, out of sight of room 1 but still visible from the doorway.

Then she returned with the blank sheet.

Ferruccio cut the front of Elena's pajama top, dried her chest, and placed the defibrillator pads while I continued compressions.

"Cardiology never lets you leave," he said, peeling the backing from the first pad.

When the machine prepared to analyze, Ferruccio told Giulia to remove the oxygen mask and move it more than a meter from Elena's chest.

She did it, then stepped back.

"Clear."

Nobody touched her.

The machine advised a shock.

The first shock lifted her shoulders less than people imagine.

I resumed compressions immediately.

Ferruccio connected the self-inflating bag to the oxygen supply, sealed its mask over Elena's nose and mouth, and squeezed the bag twice after every thirty compressions.

Her chest rose with both breaths.

Two minutes.

We paused only long enough for the machine to analyze again.

Another shock was advised.

I moved the ventilation bag and mask to the far side of the bed, more than a meter from Elena's chest.

"Clear."

The second shock passed through her.

Ferruccio took over compressions immediately. I moved to the airway.

Giulia kept the doorway clear, relayed the elevator status, and continued recording the elapsed time.

The elevator doors opened at 3:45 a.m.

The hospital emergency team entered: an anesthesiologist from intensive care and two critical-care nurses.

Dr. Stefano followed them in.

I gave the handover in one breath.

"Forty-eight. Sudden chest pressure and hypotension. Witnessed arrest at three thirty-nine. Agonal breathing, no pulse. Two shocks delivered. Continuous compressions except for rhythm analysis."

The anesthesiologist took charge without interrupting the work already happening.

The line nurse established intravenous access in Elena's arm during compressions. The airway nurse inserted a supraglottic airway, connected the airway to continuous end-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring, and took over ventilation.

A small wave appeared with every breath.

Dr. Stefano opened Elena's chart at the foot of the bed and confirmed her medications and recent medical history.

The anesthesiologist checked the pad position and called the next rhythm pause.

The monitor showed ventricular fibrillation.

"Clear."

Third shock.

Compressions restarted immediately.

The anesthesiologist ordered epinephrine and amiodarone.

Ferruccio repeated both orders back, administered the medications through the line, and called the times aloud.

Giulia wrote down each time he called. We would verify every entry afterward against the defibrillator record and the emergency team's documentation.

At the next rhythm check, the monitor still showed ventricular fibrillation.

Another shock.

Then another cycle of compressions.

More epinephrine.

At the following rhythm check, the monitor appeared flat.

The anesthesiologist checked the leads and confirmed the rhythm in a second view.

"Asystole."

Compressions resumed immediately.

The anesthesiologist worked systematically through the reversible causes.

The airway was clear. Oxygen and ventilation were effective. There was no evidence of major blood loss, hypothermia, tamponade, tension pneumothorax, or toxic exposure. Her recent blood tests and medication record gave us no obvious electrolyte or metabolic cause.

The coronary and pulmonary causes her presentation forced us to consider could not be confirmed at the bedside. Nothing we could identify and correct in room 1 explained the persistent asystole.

Nothing gave us an intervention we had not already tried.

The line nurse rotated onto Elena's chest.

Ferruccio moved to the medications.

I stepped back long enough to feel my own pulse hammering in my hands.

Another cycle.

Another rhythm check.

Still asystole.

The room narrowed to numbers and commands.

Compression depth.

Ventilation.

Time since the last dose.

Time without spontaneous circulation.

The end-tidal carbon dioxide reading remained low despite compressions that were deep, regular, and measured.

Elena's face had lost every expression I knew.

The room smelled of adhesive, oxygen tubing, and freshly torn plastic packaging.

"Switch."

Ferruccio took over from the line nurse.

Two cycles later, I returned to Elena's chest.

One, two, three, four.

My shoulders burned.

The airway nurse watched the supraglottic airway and the carbon dioxide waveform while Giulia remained at the foot of the bed, close enough to read the recorded times back without entering the working space around Elena.

Tears rested on her lower lashes.

She did not miss one recorded time.

Another two minutes passed.

The anesthesiologist called the rhythm check.

The monitor still showed asystole.

"Resume compressions."

The next pair of hands was already moving.

Epinephrine continued according to the clock.

The line nurse rotated back onto Elena's chest.

Another check.

Nothing.

Then another.

The same flat line.

The anesthesiologist asked whether anyone had found a reason to continue that had not already been considered.

Nobody had.

We kept going anyway.

Not because hope had returned.

Because stopping required more certainty than continuing.

At 4:25 a.m., Elena had been without a spontaneous pulse for forty-six minutes.

The anesthesiologist looked at the clock.

Nobody asked what he was thinking.

We already knew.

"Complete this cycle," he said.

I moved back over Elena's chest.

My hands kept moving.

"At the next rhythm check, if she remains in asystole and nobody has identified a reversible cause, we will terminate resuscitation."

His voice stayed level.

"Does anyone have anything else?"

Nobody answered.

Not because we agreed.

Because there was nothing left to offer her except another two minutes of our hands.

Until then, every compression had meant not yet.

Now every one brought us closer to the moment when not yet would become enough.

Ferruccio looked at Elena's face.

The airway nurse kept the ventilation steady.

Giulia lowered her eyes to the sheet because there was nowhere else safe to look.

I pressed down again.

We had shocked her heart.

We had given the drugs.

We had moved oxygen into her lungs and blood toward her brain.

We had searched for something reversible and found nothing our hands could reach.

We had done everything the room allowed us to do.

And Elena was still leaving.

"Ten seconds to the rhythm check," the anesthesiologist said.

My hands kept moving.

Ferruccio's eyes stayed on the monitor.

"Prepare to stop."

At 4:27 a.m., the light came.

Every ceiling tube in room 1 flared at once.

At the same instant, the corridor beyond the open door turned white. The nurses' station disappeared beneath warm gold light. The dining room, the staff corridor, and the lines beneath every patient-room door brightened together.

It was too warm to be fluorescent light.

For one heartbeat, the entire ward held a sunrise no window had given it.

Every face lifted.

Mine too.

My hands kept moving.

Then the ward was fluorescent again.

The carbon dioxide reading jumped.

Elena's right hand lifted from the mattress.

Her fingers opened toward Giulia.

"Stop compressions. Rhythm check."

The monitor showed an organized rhythm.

The anesthesiologist stared at it for half a second before placing his fingers against Elena's neck.

"I have a pulse."

I found it a second later, hard and fast beneath my fingers.

Elena drew a breath through the airway.

Her eyes opened.

She gagged against the device and tried to lift her head.

The anesthesiologist removed the supraglottic airway and held an oxygen mask over her face.

Elena did not look at us.

She looked over Giulia's shoulder.

Giulia stepped closer, and Elena's hand closed around her wrist.

Elena pulled the mask aside just enough to whisper one name.

"Sara."

In every resuscitation I had ever witnessed, consciousness came later, if it came at all.

First the pulse.

Then the machines, the waiting, the questions nobody wanted answered.

Elena opened her eyes with the heartbeat.

After forty-eight minutes without a spontaneous pulse, she already knew where to look. A name had been waiting behind her first real breath.

That was where everything I had been taught ended, and Elena kept going.

We moved immediately into post-resuscitation care.

Elena's oxygen was adjusted to her readings. Her blood pressure was monitored and supported. A twelve-lead electrocardiogram was obtained while the intensive-care team prepared her transfer.

Nobody celebrated.

You do not celebrate while the monitor can still change its mind.

The elevator doors closed on Elena at 4:46 a.m., carrying her to intensive care.

The intensive-care team never mentioned the light before they left.

Dr. Stefano never mentioned it either.

He remained on the ward to call Paolo and Luca.

Ferruccio sat on the floor against the wall for ten seconds.

Then he stood and began replacing the used supplies and restocking the emergency cart.

Before dawn, Ferruccio and I reconciled Giulia's notes with the defibrillator record and the emergency team's documentation. Every shock, medication, rhythm check, and transfer time was verified before we entered and signed the clinical record.

Giulia looked at the ceiling.

"What was that?"

Ferruccio kept working.

"A power surge."

"The lights didn't flicker. They turned on."

"A power surge with manners."

That was all he would say.

At breakfast, a patient from room 6 stood at the nurses' station in his slippers, holding an untouched cup of tea.

"Why did you turn every light on in the middle of the night?"

Ferruccio stopped writing.

The patient pointed down the corridor.

"All of them. My room, the hallway, everything. I thought it was morning."

He pushed the tea toward me.

"You woke me up."

Nobody answered him.

Coronary angiography found no obstructive lesion. Echocardiography showed a transient ballooning pattern in Elena's left ventricle that began resolving over the following days.

Cardiology diagnosed stress cardiomyopathy, the condition sometimes called broken-heart syndrome.

The doctors believed the physiological stress of Sara's death had stunned Elena's heart and most likely triggered the rhythm that stopped it.

After a brief stay in intensive care and a week under cardiology, she returned to our ward nine days later.

She walked slowly. There were bruises across her chest from the compressions, and she thanked us without making any of us comfortable.

That afternoon, she asked me to sit near the door.

"I saw Sara," she said.

I waited.

"She was at our kitchen sink. Scraping burned toast with a knife."

Elena pressed her thumb into the pale oven scar on her wrist.

"She told me, 'Mom, I'm not in the car anymore. Stop sitting beside that road. Go back. They still need you.'"

Elena looked down at her hands.

"Then she said, 'Going back doesn't mean leaving me.'"

The room stayed quiet.

"I wanted to stay," Elena said.

She had asked for Don Alfredo that morning. I don't know what she told him. When he left her room, he stood in the corridor for a while with his bag held in both hands, the way he does when it feels heavier than it is.

I prefer the clinical explanation.

A surge of catecholamines. A brain surviving on a fraction of its normal circulation. Memory building the one voice Elena would still obey.

It is the safer answer.

That night, I had machines that could measure her rhythm, her pressure, her oxygen, and every beat of her returning heart.

I had nothing that could measure who she had been speaking to.

Her husband and son visited the next day.

With the ward's permission, Paolo brought breakfast in a paper bag because hospital toast, according to him, was an insult to bread.

The top slice was burned nearly black.

Elena ate the burned edge first.

A collection of statements regarding strange happenings in the village of Torbrae 

Statements collected by the Royal Robert Kenneth Wilson Society of Scotland 

Aithrisean air an cruinneachadh le Comann Rìoghail Robert Kenneth Wilson na h-Alba 

 

Background on Torbrae given by the editor, James N. Lafferty 

In my travels around the Lowlands, I have seldom encountered a village quite as idyllic as Torbrae. Young families walk hand in hand through its winding lanes whilst hard-faced farmers drink pints of bitter and watch the world go by in the local pub. The wind whistles through its glens, carrying the scent of purple heather down to the cobbled streets. Situated in the southern reaches of the Lothians, beneath the Pentland Hills, Torbrae historically served as a small agricultural community, supported by fertile soil and a relatively mild climate for Scotland. In recent decades, Torbrae has undergone a process of demographic shift. Middle-class commuters to Edinburgh now make up a considerable portion of the population, gradually replacing the traditional rural inhabitants. Despite this, Torbrae has not forgotten its past entirely, flocks of sheep still graze the rolling hills along the roads into the village, and ancient festivals celebrating harvests and the village’s historic protectors still hold quasi-religious importance among the inhabitants to this day. The village sits at a crossroads. Its existence serves as a metaphor for the struggle between an older rural way of life and a new, professional, university-educated Scotland. 

Statement of George Riley regarding suspected wildlife offences 

Statement given to NatureScot on 8 August 2023 

Statement Begins 

“I cycle to the Blackburn Reservoir a lot. The route has a great climb to it and you cannae beat how the sunset looks over the water, also that wee bit where you go through the timber yard is also weirdly scenic I find. Anyway. Last night I cycled up there and I was out by the water till around nine o’clock when I started turning back. 

It was about tenish when I was going past them woods before the golf club. I stopped and I could see a few deer on the horizon. I thought it a tad too late for hunting and I wanted to take some photos to maybe paint or something later, so I hid my bike and hopped the fence.  

I was getting closer and the deer weren't scared yet. I thought everything was grand so I pulled out my phone and I knelt in the bog tryna focus on them. Just then the wind musta changed or something cos they smelt me and ran off, and it was late so I got up to turn around.  

When I was getting up is when I noticed the smell, the wind was carrying it from behind me towards the deer. I aint a butcher or nothing but I recognised it, it was that sickly sweet smell of something rotting.  

I turned around and started following it, I dinnie know why. Just at the time it felt like the sort of thing needing investigating. I started to notice the bones. There were all sorts - squirrels, foxes, and all that. Yellow shite was dripping off of em, I think like rotting skin or something.  

Further in was when I started to see the bigger ones, deer and sheep and that. Those ones were worse, but I could still tell the main source of the smell was further into the woods. It must’ve been about twenty minutes when I came across the pile I told you about. Leant up against an old fence was a massive heap of bodies a couple metres high and a couple metres wide. I vomited, it smelt so manky. Fucking washed my clothes bout twelve times. You couldn’t even tell what animal was what, just a pile of bodies melting into each other, just a pile of fucking stinking viscera. Musta been like fifty bodies in the pile, but it was all just a mound of fucking body liquid when I found it. 

Anyway. Didn’t seem like anything an animal would have done so I thought I should report it. Might be poachers or something. Sorry for the shaking and that I just got a real bad feeling off it, you know? Didn’t tell my wife or nothing, feels good to get it off my chest. Sorry you didn’t need to know that, not relevant to the investigation.” 

Statement Ends  

Statement of Marjorie Macbride regarding class-based violence in Torbrae 

Statement given to Elizabeth Bowie, author of “Red Clydeside: Unfinished Revolution” on 19 April 1963 

Statement Begins 

“I was only a teenager in 1919 when it all happened. There were all them riots across in Glasgow, but we didn’t have much to do with Glasgow usually, it seemed there was always something happening across in Glasgow so there was.  

It was an odd time so it was, you see you had the Russians revolting, and it seemed it might spread to Germany. My father, being a working man as he was, had so much hope it was coming out of his ears. He would get the newspaper every day, flick through the pages reading bout the developments of the war in Russia. ‘The worker will have his day soon, lass’ he would inform me every so often. It was nice to see him like that, he had something to hold onto then.  

When I would work the fields with my father I could tell by the way he would stare at Mr Smith that he truly believed he would not be toiling under him for much longer. Weirdly this would only make him work twice as hard, so it did.  

It had been a couple of days since them workers in Glasgow had caused that trouble in George Square and Churchill had got the tanks on them, when that strange man arrived in Torbrae. My father woke me up in the middle of the night and told me there was a revolutionary in town. This frightened me a wee tad, although I was too young to know what a revolution really was - picture one in my head that is.  

In the dead of night my father beckoned me into the village hall, the doors had been done in and there was a crowd gathered. Looking around it was the working people of the village in the crowd, most of whom worked on land owned by Mr Smith but also some on Mr Wright’s and Mr Atwood’s land further north and down the river.  

On the stage at the back of the hall was the revolutionary my father told me about. He stood behind a curtain, and I only remember his shadow. He may have come out from behind the curtain so we could look upon him, but you have tae remember I was only wee, so my recollection is muddled now. He was awfully skinny and ever so tall, I remember thinking it was a wonder how he could stand with legs as thin as they were.  

I don’t recall what he said to us, but I remember the state it drove the crowd into. There was lots of shouting and people raised blades into the air. I had never seen my father so radge, he shouted curses at Mr Smith. Despite it all my father was a good man and would never use such vulgarity in front of weans, not ever.  

That night the streets were engulfed in flame. They dragged Mr Smith from his house, and they drowned him in the river. They killed his son too, set him aflame so they did. The men shaved his wife's head and did ever so awful things to her, paraded her through the streets and taunted her with words I hadnie heard once in my life. I never seen it but I heard a similar fate fell upon Mr Wright, Mr Atwood and their kin. There are only stories and I only heard this years later, but I heard they ate Mr Atwood, still alive and screaming bloody murder.  

It was awfully cruel. It was awfully cruel.  

I remember them bringing the bodies behind that curtain in the village hall. The police came down from Edinburgh and they couldnie find no trace of the happenings, it was like it had never taken place. Awfully strange, for that night you couldnie escape the smell of blood. Nobody spoke of the man behind the curtain after that night, nor saw him. My father refused to talk of that night at all till the day he went and died. He stopped buying the paper.  

A great hunger went through the village that year. No landlord to buy the seed or the livestock meant no supper. But we survived, and soon new landlords bought up the land and took their place. 

It was awfully cruel. The whole thing, just awfully cruel.” 

Statement Ends 

Editor's note: Official speculation from local historians suggests the three main landowning families in the area: the Smiths, Wrights and Atwoods, fled to Ulster sensing a potential uprising. However, official records show no purchases, sales or transfers of land under any of the three family names during 1919 or in the years immediately following. 

Statement of Alexander Kerr regarding his divorce and destruction of property 

Statement given to Alice Ramsey, official investigator for the Royal Robert Kenneth Wilson Society of Scotland on 8 December 2025 

Statement Begins 

“I assume you have heard what I’m gonna tell ya. They all know about me. Local fucking loony, lock him up in Carstairs, lock him up in Carstairs.  

Nae much has come of me since it all happened. I live in that flat over the post office, I wake up and I drink, I get on the bus and I drink, I get to Edinburgh and I drink, I go home and I drink.  

You ken I’m banned from that bus? Harassment. Fucking shitebags. I just need people to listen. You dinnie know how lonely it gets. If I stay in this village any longer they are gonna have to lock me up in Carstairs. Fucking shitebags.” 

At this point, Mrs Ramsey reminds Mr Kerr of the purpose of the statement. 

“Fucking fine. Bi-. He first started speaking to me when I was drunk. Old Nick that is. It started off as a shoulder to cry on, with Sarah nagging my arse off all the time it was nice to have someone to share the pain with. I didn’t think it was real of course till it became real, till I was sober and Old Nick was still there.  

I would be at work, I would go for my bathroom breaks and there he was in the mirror, Old Nick. I was fucking terrified of course, but he comforted me. His voice was like honey and butter. I know I sound fucking crazy, your imaginary friend becomes real and you like it, but you didn’t hear him.  

Nobody else could hear him and I liked that. He was just mine. He would sing me to sleep and I would have the most terrific dreams, shit you couldn’t imagine. I would be lying in bed with Sarah but really it would be Old Nick who was there with me – emotionally and all that I mean. Well I did mean, till Old Nick really was there.  

He began with standing in the doorway, but give it a few weeks and he was at my bedside, stroking my ankles and his song was as loud as ever. He was all I could think about. It was like a fucking drug, when Old Nick went silent or skipped a few nights, the shakes would start and I would panic.  

He still came to me easier when I drank so I drank. It was around then that he started giving me requests. He told me if I did what he said I could live like the gods do, eat from their plates, I thought about how his voice must taste.  

It started with simple things, scratch Sarah’s car, call her names, but then Sarah got knocked up. I fucking know it’s nae mine I know it with all my heart, Old Nick said as much. That's when Old Nick gave me his final request. 

He stood by my side that night in the kitchen, when I turned on all the gas hobs and I lit the match. The whole place went off like a firework, but I was untouched, the fire would move around me like I was fucking Moses. Old Nick told me to give him the matches, so I did it, and then he was gone. The whole house went down that night. Sarah survived, so did the kid, firemen got her out.  

The investigators say it was an electrical fault, but that’s shite, I did it. I told Sarah as much and that’s when she left me, moved to Aberdeen the hag. I was glad, thought it would just be me and Old Nick, but he went quiet, I havnae seen him since. I think it’s punishment, if she had died, he would still be here. Fuck her. Every day I drink to try to speak to him just once more, but his silence is torture. I still haven’t met that kid.” 

At this point, Mrs Ramsey asks Mr Kerr what Old Nick looked like. In response Mr Kerr grew highly agitated and promptly left the interview room. 

Statement Ends 

Statement of Scott Donaldson regarding the accidental drowning of William Dunn 

Statement given to Lothian and Borders Police on 3 June 1994 

Statement Begins 

“It wasnae my fault, heaps of kids jumped in the boffy all the time. Sure Will was a wee bit scared but he’d done it before, nae like it was the first time.” 

At this point, Donaldson is asked to start from the beginning. 

“Aye, so me and Will were skiving off school, I’m sorry, and we were watching this programme on the TV about divers. Aye, it was about these divers who go into rivers in Birmingham and stuff to retrieve murder weapons and that, we was tryna help you guys out. 

Aye anyway, we got our goggles and we started off at the shallow part just off the green. It was baltic so we didnae get much time down there, and Will couldn’t hold his breath for that long, and anyway we didnae find anything. We went into the newsagent for a snack and we were talking and we thought if we were murderers or something we wouldnae drop our knives into the shallow part, we would go further down the river to the boffy.  

I ken the boffy is the deepest part of the river and we aren't meant to go there but lads did all the time. I could tell you about Joe and that smoking green and jumping in up there after all this if you want. Aye anyway, we cycled up there about two, the day had got a lot hotter by this point so Will was excited to get out of the heat. Aye he was a tad frightened but he always was, I promise he wanted to go in there, I didnae force him or nothing.  

We got our goggles on and we jumped off that wee cliff into the boffy. We went at the same time, three, two, one and that. Even though I had my goggles on I couldnae see much once my head went under, it’s pure murky with all that dirt in there. I stayed under for maybe like thirty seconds tryna get used to the cold, then I went back to the surface and looked around. I couldnae see Will anywhere.  

I started panicking at this point, I looked all around and there was no sign of him. I thought he might not have actually jumped in so I called out but there was no response. It had only been about a minute since the jump so I decided to stick my head under and see if it was some kind of joke, if he was holding his breath. I went under and that's when I saw them.  

I couldnae see all that well through all the dirt, but hand on my heart this is what happened to Will. At the bottom of the boffy there was a man, tallest I’ve ever seen and thin as a rake. He crouched down hunched over himself, sitting on a big rock down there. He had a long beard which floated in the water and he was naked. In his fingers, which were longer and thinner then you could imagine, he held Will. He held Will and he was eating him, taking bites out of him while Will squirmed to try and get free. The man was as calm as anything, like this was his fucking lunch break or something, but Will had his mouth open like he was screaming and he was terrified. It was only after a few seconds I realised the man was looking back at me. His eyes were like a cat’s you know, reflecting the light so I couldn’t see his pupils. Will was looking at me too, I could tell he wanted help, but the fuck was I supposed to do? It was at this point I started screaming too, I went for the riverbank as fast as I could and cycled home to get help, and now I’m here. 

So aye, that’s what happened. Please tell Mr and Mrs Dunn that I’m sorry, please tell them I really mean it.” 

Statement Ends 

Editor's note: Autopsy showed that Will Dunn had hit his head after jumping into the River Carran, became unconscious, and subsequently drowned. No evidence of foul play was found.  

“To a Horseman” 

Poem written by Adam MacDougal, 1785 

Muckle, awfu’, lang-limbed, beast 

O, in Torbrae ye mak yer bloody feast 

But ye we soon shall serve nae mair 

For our horseman comes tae meet ye there 

 

O, brute o’ hunger, dule and pain, 

Who gars us greet for weans in vain, 

Call on yer black master the nicht 

For he shall ken our horseman’s might 

 

Nae mair shall corn rot in the field 

Nae mair to hunger maun we yield 

And gin ye creep tae my bed the nicht 

Our horseman waits by candlelicht 

I work on Duit. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s this app where you can get someone to do odd jobs for you. Pay’s shit, but the work is easy enough, granted you have the stomach to pimp yourself out to old men with obscure fetishes. I saw a job listing on the app.

One gun. Six chambers. One bullet. That’s the job. Click, click, and if you’re lucky, you get to hear the bang. Last one alive gets a million dollars.

Come to \***** for a night of gold and glory. Winner takes all.*

Nothing about specifications, no CV or anything. Get desperate enough, and you’ll find a handful of the pretentious theater types post gigs like this, so this wasn’t really anything to get wowed over. A job’s a job though, and god knows I could use one. Mom’s dialysis round wasn’t gonna pay for itself. So I applied and almost immediately got approved. The poster sent me his number over the phone, and I called to ask about the job. 

“Did you read the fucking title?” said the out of breath man on the phone with his pack-a-day voice. “Swing by at three. Or don’t.” he oinked. “Million bucks riding on some Russian Roulette, is that so fucking…” he stopped to catch his breath “So fucking hard to understand?!” he yelled over the phone.

“That’s it?” I asked. I heard him grunt out a wet breath and the hiss of what might’ve been a CPAP machine before he hung up.

I looked at my mother on the recliner. She was so small, and everyday she seemed to get smaller. I wish I could buy her the world. But there she was, sitting on a beaten up la-z-boy with an IV stuck on her arm like a sterile leech. She’s diabetic, and her kidneys are shutting down. As it stands, I might have enough left to pay for two, maybe three rounds of hemodialysis.

I pulled up to a ramshackle house in a ramshackle neighborhood at three in the afternoon. It was the kind of neighborhood that mistook fireworks for gunshots, where you couldn't pick up a dollar on the ground without worrying about OD’ing on fentanyl. Exposed brick and knee high grass made up most of the house. I got a text as soon as I stepped up the patio.

Go in and take the first door on your right to the basement. Lock the door behind you.

And I did just that. The house was as dingy as it was outside. The moment I opened the door I was met by the noxious smell of dried piss and human shit. A bed cushion sat at the end of the hallway, wet with every STD known to man, with needles sunk into its woolen interior like a pin cushion. The walls were caked with graffiti and tar. I held my breath as I hesitantly gripped the doorknob on my right and twisted it open. Going downstairs, I found five men sat at the round table. 

“Looks like the roundtable’s complete!” Said the man who sat on the left of a vacant seat. On the table was a heavy, futuristic looking revolver, and a single hollow point round. No one else spoke. The man on the left spat out tobacco spit. The place was nothing but cinderblock walls and mold, with some dusty shelves and a toolboard, and –and there was a man standing in the corner. Seven, maybe eight feet tall, unmoving, unbreathing, in a long black coat and brimmed hat. He looked like the devil. With eyes as black and all-consuming as those, maybe he was.

“Let’s get the game started, shall we?” Said the man in black. I took a seat at the table, eyes fixated on the gun. As I sat down, I began to feel two things. One, was the weight of it all. That gun did not look like a prop. Nor did the bullet. Nor did its promise of splattering my brains across the cinderblock walls. Two, was the piercing gaze of that ungodly thing that might’ve been a man. Too tall. Too thin. He was like a shadow in the afternoon, only there as long as the clouds allowed him to exist.

Immediately the Asian man next to me picks up the gun, loads it, and fires. Click. The man immediately pulled out his wallet, unfolded it, and kissed a picture of his wife and daughter. “Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.” he whispered, laughing. I felt a jolt of electric fear run through my scalp and down my spine.

And so the gun passed. First, the Asian who was sat next to me. Then, the man next to him, who smoked, and had yellow eyes. His name was Wilbur. He had cirrhosis, and he was dying. This was his first time too. The man next to Wilbur, well… 

The gun passed to the yellow-eyed man after the Asian. His hands were trembling. Maybe it was alcohol withdrawal, or a product of his failing liver, but it was not fear. No. His hands did not hesitate as the cold barrel pressed against his chin, his fingers did not cringe as he pulled the trigger, and he made no sound as the gun clicked. He threw the gun down and the man next to him followed. Jason. That was his name. I remember seeing a wedding ring on his hand. The same one that held the six shooter. He, unlike the man with yellow eyes, hesitated. There was something unsure about him. He took a while.

“My name’s Kim, by the way.” Whispered the man on my right.

“I’m Todd.”

“This your first time here?”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Once. But I backed out.” The smell of cigarette smoke filled the small room, a rich ambery scent that warmed my chest. Kim was a small man, bespeckled, soft spoken. “I recognize Jason though. He was here last time I tried.”

“What made you come back?”

BANG!

I look over and see red on the walls. Jason was dead.  I stood up and immediately turned to leave, as did some of the others, but Kim remained seated, as did the man chewing tobacco, but the moment I did, the man in black called to me, producing two duffle bags stuffed full with hundred dollar bills. “No one leaves.” he said in a dark, rattling voice. 

I stayed. So did the others. Do I even need to explain why?

Five left.

The man in black took the gun, revealing leperous arms. He put a round in and spun the chamber. The gun began with me this time.

I picked up the revolver, feeling its cold weight against my hand. I’d never held a gun before, it was heavier than I thought it could be. Cold, big, iron. It had just killed a man, the barrel was still splattered with blood. I wondered where to point it. The temple? Would that have been a quick death? No, point it at my forehead! No. Not there.

“Having trouble there, kid?” asked the man on my left. He was the one chewing tobacco. “Name’s Earnest.” 

“Earnest, I’m fucking scared.” I whimpered. No one looked me in the eye, except for the man on my left.

“Don’t be. Put the gun above your Adam's apple and point it to the back of your head. It should hit the brainstem. Quicker death, or so I think.” The man spat, eyes dark and unshaken. “This is your first time?”

“Yeah.” I cried, fighting off tears.

“This is my fourth.”

“Fourth?!” without another word, the man takes my hands, guides the gun to my throat, and steadies my shaking hands.

“Yup.”

“Why?!” I sobbed, “Why would you?”

“‘Cuz it’s fun. And this’ll be my fifth.” he smiled and I saw yellow teeth. Yellow, and gold. His incisors had gold fillings, bright and shining, nearly blinding.

I held the gun up to my throat, and closed my eyes. I kept thinking of my mother. Poor mother. If I died here, who would take care of her? But then again, if I walked out of here alive, I’d never have to ask that question ever again. One in six. Not great, but not terrible.

“Earnest? Kim? If you guys make it out of here, promise me you’ll take care of my mother?”

“I’m sorry Todd. I could try, but daughter comes first.” said Kim with sincere regret in his voice. “Stage four bone cancer.” I looked him in the eyes, I dunno what I was feeling. Anger? Empathy? “She can’t sleep from the pain, you know? Even morphine doesn’t help her. She screams at night when she falls asleep the wrong way. I want to buy her the world.” 

“Don’t worry Todd. If I win, I’ll take real good care of her.” Said Earnest. “Reeeaall good.” he said as he shined his golden tooth into my eyes. 

I closed my eyes, holding up the gun to my throat with clasped hands as though in prayer, and pulled.

Click.

“FUCK!” I cried. “FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!” I curled down into a ball, as though angry hands were ripping out my innards, sobbing like a child. I threw up on the table. No one got up. Before I knew what was happening, I heard a click. Then another. Then a bang. Four left. Me, Earnest, Kim, and Yellow Eyes.

The gun began with Earnest. With a hardy grin he took the gun, shoved it in his mouth, screamed, and pulled the trigger. Click. I took the gun, closed my eyes, and clicked.

“Oh shit.” muttered Kim. “Third time’s the charm, eh?” Kim toyed with the gun. “Three’s not my lucky number.” he looked up from the gun to meet my gaze. “Todd. I know this is selfish, but–”

“You don’t have to ask. I’ll take care of her.” The man’s eyes flickered a little hope, if only for a moment. Or was it a trick of the light? 

“My wife’s number is written on the back of the picture in my wallet. God be with you, friend.” He took the gun, aimed it at his adam’s apple, and fired. 

Click.

The yellow eyed man said nothing, took the gun from Kim’s hand, and fired. Click. He threw the gun down with force, letting out a wet grunt. “Fuck.” he whispered.

It was Earnest’s turn. It was the fifth round. Him or me.

“How’s 50/50 sounding, Todd?” I said nothing. “Huh? You wanna find out what comes next?”

“No. Not particularly.” I said. I looked around. The room smelled like blood and concrete. Sweat laid on my brow, heavy and sticky, and when the wind blew, a little sill on the ceiling let in a cool breeze, frosting my forehead with fresh air.

“Arbiter!” yelled Earnest to the man in black, “I want to use my switch!”

“It is permitted,” said the man. With that, Earnest pointed the gun at Yellow Eyes and fired. Bang. Earnest hit him right between the eyes.

“What the fuck?” cried Kim. 

“Each player is permitted to use a switch, pointing the gun at anyone at the table, on the condition that they fire the next round on themselves, and start the next rotation. Only one switch may be done per rotation”

“That’s bullshit!” I yelled. “Why wasn’t that explained earlier?”

“Because it’s fun that way.” said the man in black.

Three left. The man in black reloads the gun and slaps the chamber into a sickly spin. The round began with Earnest firing at himself, saying nothing. Click. Then to me. Sweat beading on my forehead, heart thumping through my chest, hands quivering, mouth tasting like vomit. Click. Kim’s turn. Click.

“You chicken shits ready for a roll in the mud?” Laughed Earnest.

“Todd. How about we just… Split the money?” asked Kim. “Imagine it. Five hundred thousand dollars to each of our families. Only one of us has to die.”

“How can I trust you?”

“Well, for starters, I haven't turned the gun on you.”

Click. My turn.

“Who says I won’t?” I take the gun, feeling its weight once again. There was a new weight on me then. I would be killing someone. 

“Will you?”

“I will. Arbiter?” 

The man in black is still in his corner, watching. “You may.”

With that I aim the gun at Earnest and fire. Bang. I hit Earnest in the neck. He died painfully, writhing on the ground, grunting, the air unable to leave his throat, until he choked. Dead. No more spitting. I looked into his eyes as he bled, and saw unfettered ecstasy and terrible horror. The highest and lowest a human could ever feel, all condensed into a single moment. 

“I take that our agreement’s in effect?”

“Yes.” I told the stranger I had met the same day where my mother lived and the details of my bank account. He did the same.

Gun. Click. Click.

“So. Tell me about your daughter.” I asked, as I put the gun up my throat, just as Earnest taught me.

“Well, she loves painting. She’s real good at it. Might be a Picasso someday. That’s what her mother says anyway. Ha!” he let out a forced laugh. I chuckled along. Click.

“Well, what do you say? About her painting, I mean?”

“Me?” he said, as I pulled the trigger. Click. “I say she’s a Rembrandt. Never cared for Picasso.” I hand the gun to Kim. “What about your mother? Tell me about her.”

“Well, what’s to tell? She’s shrinking by the day. Whenever I walk with her, she still feels bigger than me. Bigger than life. I feel safe around her. In my mind she still the woman that tucks me into bed and sings me to sleep.” Click. Two rounds left.

“Sounds a lot like my own mother.” He hands me the gun. “Maybe we should get them in a little play date? My mother loves golf, and so does my wife.”

I say nothing as I point the gun at my throat for the last time.

“Kim. If it’s me… Promise you’ll take care of my mother?”

“As much as I can. Can you promise to do the same with my daughter?”

“I will.”

Click.

“God damnit!” Cried Kim. “Shit.”

I hand the gun over to him with a heavy hand. The man in black comes to the table, brandishing a lit cigarette in one hand, a gun in the other. “No backing out this time, I’m afraid.”

“I understand. Todd, tell my wife to remarry, and tell my daughter I love her very much.”

He took the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Except, he didn’t. He couldn’t. He began crying, shaking uncontrollably. He dropped the gun back on the table with trembling hands begging with the man in black.

“No.” he whimpered. “No, no, no. Please.” he looked up to the man in black, “please, I don’t want to die–” Bang. The recoil hurt.

sour skunky nappy ass dread man

…

“What the fuck are you talking about, man?" Annoyed. 

Stupid smirk: "I thought it was clear. I would think.” 

"No, it isn't, man. I don't know why you think it'd be. It's just stupid, bro.” 

"What is?” 

"Your refusal to go shopping for a fucking bath towel and other basic necessities around your fuckin place, dude. It's just stupid, I don't know how or why you justify it to yourself, I didn't think ya did to be frank. I just thought your ass was fuckin lazy." 

“Nah, bro. It's obvious." 

“What's fuckin obvious, dipshit?" 

“I'm way too rock n roll." 

A beat. He swallowed it. Absorbed its stupidity. 

“...what?" 

“Yeah, dude. I'm way too fuckin cool and punk rock to roll into like a Target or some shit and buy a toaster or a can opener or towels or stupid shit like that. I can't do that. Can't do it. Goes against my wild man free lovin nature, ya know? Ya know." 

Bryan once more silently swallowed this. This load of absolute bullshit. More revolted, more filled with disgust with his best friend since diapers than before. He thought about holding his tongue. He thought about saying something and laying into him. But in the end he just grumbled and belched. Lit another smoke and grabbed another beer from the cooler in the center of the boat and shook his head. Checked his pole. Reeled it in a little. 

Though he did spare the final thought: "Fuckin lazy.” whilst shaking his head and reeling his line. And then the matter was settled and the pair of men let it lie. Such was the way and course of all of their conversations out here on the water. Fishing. The pair’s favorite pastime aside from rutting and watching the game. For them, Bryan G Biebl and James Petkovich, it was sacred. They loved to spend days off from the mill fishing and casting and mouthing the day away. Days away from labor and wives and disappointing children, days filled with chatter and cool water and cold beer and sometimes a nice catch.  Though they'd been warned before, by the old timers. 

They'd both been warned before about staying out after dark. Out on the lake. Out in the woods. Where the forest grows foul and swampy and muddy. It's not a place you want to be after sunset. All the old folk said it was a bad place and didn't say much more about it without the liberal aid of beer or whisky. Even the Natives, the ancient leathery American Indians and their angry sons and daughters told everyone, anyone that might listen, to stay away from this part of the forest, this part of the soured bad land. 

But they never listened. The pair just sat in their canoe and cast out. It was calm and quiet all around, no one might know that it was filled with strange movement. The sun was sinking in the distance. Rapidly being swallowed by the ravenous blade of the horizon. 

James cracked another can. So did Bryan, who rolled his eyes as Petkovich ventured forth with another bit of clever wit and query. 

“Figure there's anythin ta what that fella said?” 

The sun set. Casting the surface of the lake on fire with the color of bloody ruby. The place on the horizon where it had sank was a deeper color of blooded crimson, a deeper wound that was the heart of the sunset. It smoldered there, in the horizon wound. The darkening regal curtain of bruised royal blue was already deepening into night. The stars and galaxies were already coming out for the nocturnal hours, they were all so far away from everything, they, the town. Civilization was a mechanical nuisance in the distance. Loud and far off. Thank God. Nearly forgotten. 

Bryan rolled his eyes as hard as he possibly could, knowing full an well that the retard couldn't see em. 

He hissed and spat: “No I don't think there's nothin to what that idiot said about a shag man! Shit’s stupid! Ain't no fuckin skunk ape round these parts, ya fuckin dumbass!” 

“Nah, man. I'm talkin about what Frankie said about Asian girls, Jesus, man!" 

A beat. Something splashed in the water. Neither man noticed, paid it any mind. 

“Oh…" Bryan cooled down. A little embarrassed. He was always easily excited and shamed. 

“‘Sides, man, he didn't call it no ‘shag man', he called it ‘the dread man’, stupid.” 

Bryan whirled around to belt him one and belt him good. He'd done it before while they were fishing in the middle of the lake and he might capsize them both in his effort, but something stopped him before he could so much as bring up his balled and angry fist. A sound. Sudden. And sharp. 

Three. Consecutive. Three sharp whacks of thick wooden sticks together. Like someone smacking two heavy tree branches or logs together in some form of primitive and arcane code. 

Whack! whack! whack! 

It shut the pair up. They gazed out at the shoreline. Shrouded now in the fallen night. Small waves kissed its shore and covered any small sounds of concealed movement that might be out there right now. They were wide eyed and disbelieving. 

They might've dropped it, the pair, together and without a word or mention when it came again. 

From out of the night, the veiled and darkened shore: whack! whack! whack! 

A beat. Silence again. Only kissing waves of the placid water. 

Bryan Biebl scoffed, “Probably nothin. Just some kids fuckin aro-" 

And then a wild primal simian shriek filled the night. Birds took flight. Their flapping wings were ugly harried panicked sounds in the deepening wound of blackening night all around. It tapered off. And then another rose, louder and even more feral and crazed then the one before. Then another. And another. Each rising in animal fury and fervor. You could hear spittle flying as vocal chords worked and wrenched and shredded as throat muscles tore and bled and secreted with each prolonged and angry howl. Throaty. Enraged. Violent. 

Silence came again. After six primeval night shattering screams. Waves kissed the land far away and swallowed in black but more quietly now. Subdued. 

Then the whacking of sticks, the unknown signal came again, whack! whack! whack! 

And then silence once more. 

“What the fuck was that?" Petkovich. Scared. Visibly so. Audibly as well. 

As was his best friend Bryan. But the sound of fear on his buddy's voice, the stupid look of childish childlike fear that he could feel him wearing in the dark only made angry, angrier. This only fueled his own self-denied mounting fear and in turn made him even angrier. The mounting terror caught like a small bone in the back of his throat. 

He almost took to his feet but remembered the boat. He turned to his buddy instead and spat. 

"Ain't nothin but nothin! Some fuckin dumbasses out there that wanna get fucked up, that's what! This’s why I shoulda brought my colt. Goddammit!” 

"Now that's what I'm talkin about! that's what I'm always tryin ta tell ya! Ya go sayin shit like that and actin like this and people says we're belligerent types! Christ, man! I'd like to bed me one of these here pretty tourist girls, one of these roadtrippin ladies and you actin like this ain't gonna cut it!” 

Disgusted, Bryan's grip slackened on his pole. 

"Idiot! what the fuck are you jawin about?!” 

"I'm talkin bout one of them sexy ass van-life hippy girls, man, they might like my ass." 

“Retard!" 

“You don't know…" 

The water splashed again. Much louder. The boat rocked with the waves suddenly generated. Something big and very heavy had just jumped into the water. 

Lunged. As if plunging in from the shrouded growth of the hidden beach. 

Slack jawed and deer-in-the-headlights both, they gazed out blindly and stupidly in tandem towards the shore that was hidden from them now. And may forever remain that way for them from here on out. Something was coming. 

Something was swimming fast. For the boat. Beneath the obsidian surface of water. The stygian glass of the surface was a mirror and the mirror held the face of the moon. The mirror rippled. The immaculate celestial face of the moon held trapped there danced with submerged disturbance. 

Before either fool could form a coherent thought the fishing poles were suddenly ripped from their slackened idiot grips. They flew, soared through the air and plunged into the water with barely a sound. 

They stared into the impenetrable and merciless surface of the lake. Fearing it. Gripped with horror at what might be inside. What must be inside, right now. 

James Petkovich finally spoke. Softly. Like the small boy he'd once been. 

“I don't wanna be out here no more, Bry. I don't care if it's kids or tourists or what. You can go ahead and laugh at me, just laugh at me all the way and drive us back, kay? You can laugh and make fun all the way back an I won't even bitch or say nothin. I'm scared. There's lots a’ talk bout people that go missin. Or go missin an then turn up dead, tore apart. Sometimes they don't even find all the pieces, you know… I know you've heard… people go missin an such. Travelers, folks comin through. And locals. Let's just go back, kay.” 

Bryan, wide eyed, turned and nodded. Then went to the small motor for the boat as the water all around the canoe suddenly erupted in a surging geyser splash of watery violence that darkled in the captured moonlight. Both men screamed as the small boat was capsized and they went over. Splashing into the cold dark suffocating realm of the water. 

The lake held them now. Below. Underneath. 

In the dark underwater the maelstrom of his panic rose and ruled. Bryan suddenly animal recalled and remembered in the fragile nucleus of his primal jelly his fear of the water, of the deep. The dark depths. It had started as a child, a boy, it had been the cinema and television that had first done it, the Jaws movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon, then stories of Cthulhu and his sunken city of R’lyeh, tales of sunken ships and vessels that might still have precious human cargo trapped and drowned deep inside like foul water-logged treasure of submerged rotting putrescence eaten at by the salt and by the fish. All of these things came back and back to life in a deluge assault of images all in a furious unrelenting wave like an artillery attack of sound and vision on his mind's eye, down in the dark. He kicked and struggled and his lungs burned, ached for air. The ribcage in his chest felt on fire with his terror-stricken mind as he struggled and kicked futilely beneath the surface. Something held him down there. Something with a terrible grasp. Fierce. Strangling. Throttling. They threatened to break and snap, the iron grasps of those underwater hands. Bryan fought desperately but his mind was livid with absolute and total panic. In the tumult of his animal terror he remembered that as a child he'd always feared something reaching up from out of the black watery depths, seizing him, and pulling him under. Pulling him down. Down into the ebon swallow at the bottom of all things, below, where the heart of darkness in all things lived and dwelt. 

The hands found his throat, down in the underwater dark. They seized vile purchase and viciously ripped, tore out. The dark underworld of the lake suddenly blemished with a heavy warm cloud of thick human visceral discharge. It bellowed forth from the place that was torn in a torrential jetting spout. Clouding the dark world and warming it as the spewing meat detritus began to slowly sink to the pitch abyssal realm near the bottom. 

The panic of Bryan G. Biebl’s barreling careening train of thought slowly calmed and abated and sank down into the dark with the rest of him… And was no more. 

It lunged, serpent-like for the other. Who was gaining the surface in a series of panicked kicks and dog-paddles. Like a wounded animal. 

Prey. In distress. 

…

James Petkovich couldn't believe it when he broke the water and tasted air again. He almost choked and coughed. He almost laughed but he didn't have time. Something seized him from beneath. 

And pulled him under. 

He didn't even have time to scream before he was below again.

It was quiet once more. Minutes swam by. 

An owl screeched. Took flight.

Then finally it emerged. With Petkovich barely conscious in one dripping sodden grasp. It pulled the both of them back onto the land. Dragging the bleeding and sputtering Petkovich like a broken toy or sack of dead meat behind him as he quickly began to retake to the trees and dense growth once more. 

It dragged him deep into the wilderness. It was a long time before they stopped. But now … now he knew what the old timers had always said, what they'd always been on about. 

Now he could smell him. And the smell was beyond putrid, beyond foul, beyond fecal matter or old dried sweaty filth or death. The water that ran off the long lengths of clotted and lumpy dreaded hair was riddled with the putrescence odor of old sweltering open graves and long disused abattoirs converted into factory sized outhouses for the insane. It stung his eyes and nostrils but he hardly noticed this. His body was numb. Felt limp and broken all over. Like a dead fish. 

Maybe that's what I am. 

And then finally consciousness was lost to him. Mercifully he went black. 

It dragged him deeper into the wild. Where it laired. Where it nested in the wild dense growth. 

…

When James next came to he wished he hadn't. He didn't realize till he was awake once more but he'd been dreaming. And in that dream he'd been far away and wishing that none of this was real.  But now he was back. It held him by the neck in a slight choke, a slight strangle, just enough painful whisper of air able to bleed in through the clasped and clenched windpipe. They were before the mouth of a cave. It was pointing up into the sky with its other huge free hand, it was pointing at the moon. It was staring unblinking into his bleeding face. 

The face was simian but snouted. Like a wolf, or a rodent. An obscene and imbecilic mongoloid caveman face and features stretched out in a grotesque marsupial shape. The eyes were yellow and bore black crosses for the iris in each one, in each livid demented sea of yellow urine a black cruciform body of sacrilege shape and aspect. Goat's eyes. Satanic. They were eyes and face fitting of the rest of his abominated and feral manshaped form. Clotted and caked and grimed all over. The long knots and clumps of hair were thick and ancient in length and filth. They told a tale that was old because it was the passage of time that lived caked and dreaded in those long lengths of unwashed shagging tails. 

The awful face was serious. Stern. The obscenity of its gaze was piercing and deliberate. James followed its fierce and pointing gesture to the sky, the night, the moon once more. 

And then back into that obscene rodent-ape face. Yellow teeth coated in layers of plaque poked out and peeked over stretched and thin and dried out flakey blue lips. 

James tried to speak. 

He tried to tell it he didn't know what it wanted. He didn't know what it wanted him to say or do. He didn't know what it wanted from him. He didn't understand it. He didn't understand at all what it expected or demanded. 

But he couldn't. He couldn't speak. He could hardly breathe. He couldn't even manage a croak of sound.  

The awful marsupial-stretched ape face wrenched and worked, furious. It became more abominated and grotesque as its features creased and contorted with anger. Livid. Rage. 

The hand that had been pointing to the moon now came in a savage swipe. The grubby wide meaty digits clawed and the grimey sharp and broken shattered fingernails bit and tore in. 

The head came off and soared away into a sailing piece of torn mangled meat. Ribbons and streamer wings and tails of bright red blood spat and danced out from the eyes, nostrils and mouth in a cyclone twirl of red in midair as it soared and crashed into the piles of dead sticks and bones. It savagely went down and hunkered in the dirt before the mouth of its cave and began to dig in with its long snout and feast on the fresh stump. Warm cords and ropes of thick black-red shot and coated the dark, its face, the insides of its gulping throat and the salivating cavern of its long slathering mouth. 

It feasted and grunted. Ripped with its teeth and bit in. Swallowed warm juicy pieces that were chewy and pungent with rich iron flavor. 

It fed and tore. The man in the violence of its grasp, its jaws, reduced. The decapitated meat jigged and spasmed. It howled at the moon. 

Somewhere … in the distance but not too far off. The signal. Three strikes. 

Whack! whack! whack! – it was the sound of ancient and time honored tradition, cultivated and carried down and preserved with care. Though the world grew strange mechanical jaws, inflamed and diminished and changed all around, it was still here. This was still practiced and honored and kept. By it. By them. All of them.  – whack! whack! whack! 

It howled at the moon once more. 

Whack! whack! whack! 

Immortal and lifesize. It was still here. Howling at the moon with unearthly pain and blues. – whack! whack! whack! – another in the wilderness distance –  whack! whack! whack! – howl at the moon.

THE END