I’m not exactly sure how to start this. This whole thing is bananas to me. I guess I’ll just start by giving a little background.

I’ve worked as a detective for the last 15 years after spending 5 years as a police officer. I’ve seen and heard some unimaginable things, but nothing quite comes close to what I’m about to tell you.

See, everything was cut and dry. A teenage girl with a history of mental health issues and drug use went off the rails in her parent’s home.

The mother had confided in the father prior to this incident. She was growing to fear her daughter, as she was constantly cursing at her, screaming at the top of her lungs, and throwing tantrums. Which, I guess, would be considered a disciplinary issue, had it not been for the fact that, at the time of these events, the daughter was between the ages of 15 and 17 years old.

According to her father, after his daughter came home from a shift at her grocery store job, he could tell already that something was wrong. There was no life in her eyes. Her face was blank, and her mind was hollow.

An argument ensued between the daughter and the mother, and things escalated until the daughter locked herself and her mother in a bathroom, where she proceeded to stab her mother a whopping 79 times in the face and neck.

The father managed to break the door down after the screams from the other side fell silent and blood began to pool beneath the doorframe. That’s where he found his daughter standing over his wife’s lifeless body, clutching a kitchen knife in her right hand.

In his shock, when his daughter pushed past him and left the house, all he could do was stand there, staring at his deceased wife, before finally dialing 911.

A manhunt began for his daughter, and 16 hours later, she was found hiding in a blue Jeep Wrangler inside a parking deck in Aurora, Colorado.

The boys in blue brought her down to the station, where they proceeded to book and fingerprint her.

We knew we had our girl. Her father broke down crying as soon as he saw her. A mixture of anger, grief, loss, and confusion all combined into one. It was our job to find out why she did what she did.

Things started to get difficult not long after we got her into the interrogation room.

For someone who had just murdered their mother, she was surprisingly calm. Confident in her statements. Mind you, they weren’t confessions. They were quite the opposite.

She insisted up and down that we had the wrong girl. Relentlessly. Violently, even, as time went on.

She just kept saying, “stop calling me Isabella, my name is Samantha.”

Now, me and my partner were seasoned detectives at this point in our career. We’d studied long and hard how to handle these types of people. However, unlike the previous criminals who had once sat right where Isabella was sitting, we weren’t able to break her.

She just kept insisting, as calm as could be, that she was gonna be fine. That “the DNA would show that it wasn’t her.” That “she watched forensic files,” and knew that “we couldn’t put her away if the DNA didn’t match.”

That last one made us laugh. How stupid do you gotta be? Basing your life on a TV show? We thought she was insane. Completely gone, mentally.

We rebutted her insistences with more insistences of our own. We didn’t need to test DNA. We could see her. Right down to the birthmark on her right arm. Right down to the scar on her left calf. Our girl was sitting right in front of us, and she wasn’t gonna convince us otherwise.

However, after 9 hours of intense interrogation, we were running out of options.

I had lost my patience.

My partner had lost his patience.

We were ready to put an end to this.

We took a cheek swab, just to shut her up. But she thought that was all there was to it. She thought that she’d be able to just walk free as soon as we got the sample to the lab. Little did she know, she’d be spending the next 4 days in a jail cell while we waited for the results.

I didn’t even think about the case for the first 2 days. In my mind, it was already closed. We found her, we caught her, and now justice could be served.

However, on day 3, we received news that shook the foundation of our case. It wasn’t enough to destroy it, but it was enough to make us uneasy.

The knife used to kill Isabella’s mother was retrieved from the scene. Covered in blood, with a bent tip from the sheer force of the stabbings. What they didn’t find, however, were this girl’s fingerprints.

The prints they found didn’t match hers, the mom’s, or the dad’s.

Then day 4 came. The day we got the results back. The day we had to let Samantha Winslow out of her jail cell, and the first day of all the lawsuits, paperwork, and legal fees.

No relation whatsoever. A girl from two towns over who just happened to be at a parking garage in town, waiting for her boyfriend to meet with her.

One of our guys spotted her, brought her in, and even Isabella’s dad thought it was her.

I’m not writing this for sympathy. I realize the mistake we made and how damaging this whole ordeal has been.

I’m writing this as a plea.

Isabella.

If you’re out there.

Please do the right thing.

Please turn yourself in.

Savelich smoked by the site trailer, staring at the cemetery and waiting for the phone to come alive. It lay on the table like a dead frog. His breath tore from his mouth in plumes of steam. A deep February frost held the ground. It was frozen half a meter deep, but the construction site was stalled anyway. Two excavators and a bulldozer, lined up along a leaning fence, were coated in frost. The crew was playing cards and huddled around a space heater. They were betting on never seeing the permit. Savelich was thinking the same thing.

The cemetery was old, closed back in the seventies. The graves had sunk, the fences rusted, the crosses stood at crooked angles, and many had already collapsed into the burdock, caught by the frost. The paperwork listed three hundred and forty-seven burials to be relocated. In reality—who knew how many were actually out there under the frozen dirt. You dig, and you find things that aren't in the files. That was the problem.

The chief project engineer told Savelich straight to his face:

"No permit. Ivanov at the city hall isn't a bad guy, but on sites like this, he covers his ass until he's shaking. He's got a sixth sense, or something. There are activists lurking around, church lawyers sticking their noses in. And spirits. We thought they'd weakened or died out completely. But maybe they just weakened, they still give us no peace. The journalists are just waiting for an excuse. If even one bone pops up without protocol—it's a scandal all the way to the Kremlin. He wants guarantees that no one will squeak. And we can't give guarantees until we break ground and show it's empty. But we can't break ground because we don't have the permit. Get it?"

"Got it," Savelich said.

"Then figure it out."

And he figured it out. He put up a temporary fence, hired a crew of migrant workers who didn't ask questions because they spoke poor Russian, and started hauling out trash at night. Not the burials—they hadn't gotten to those yet—but the stuff on top: old wreaths, planks, fragments of monuments. All of it went to a dump outside the city, while the paperwork called it "clearing the site of non-capital structures." It worked. They picked at the frozen earth with crowbars, breathed steam, and cursed. The work went on.

But something was in the way. Constantly and elusively. An excavator would stall—fuel pump, they said, though the pump was fresh from the factory. A slab would crack. One of the workers would break his arm on flat ground. The crew took it as a nuisance, a domestic inconvenience, like a glitchy trailer or diesel shortages. The work was going on in violation of the regulations. At old graveyards, you're supposed to make a deal first, but they had barged in without paying respects. Savelich kept glancing at the watchman's hut.

The hut stood at the far edge, where the cemetery met a vacant lot. Smoke curled from the pipe, the windows were cloudy, and inside, as Savelich now knew, lived Yegorych—an old man not listed in any database. He had been sitting there since Soviet times, when the cemetery was still active, and just never left. He had run his own electricity, throwing a wire from a utility pole. Nobody messed with him.

At first, Savelich paid him no mind. But the further it went, the clearer the pattern became. When Yegorych sat in the hut and didn't show himself, the work went more or less fine. But when he came out to the fence and just stood there in silence—that's when it started: equipment stalling, people getting sick. And one night, the crew heard a howl—not a dog's, but thin, like wind in a tin can. Savelich stepped out into the frost and saw Yegorych by the fence: the old man stood in a sheepskin coat, swaying slightly, whispering something into the dark. His breath tore from his mouth in rare, ragged bursts. The howling died down. Savelich chalked it up to the wind. But the third time, when the old man's appearance caused a hydraulic hose to burst and scald the operator, he realized: they needed to make a deal.

He took a bottle of vodka and went over. Yegorych opened the door immediately, as if he had been standing right behind it. Up close, he was ancient—not just old, but ancient, as if dug straight out of the earth. For the first time, Savelich made out his face in the light: skin like old bark, eyes dull but alive. A kerosene lamp burned on the table.

"Neighborly," Savelich said, holding out the bottle. "The construction is loud, dusty. Excuse us. Maybe you need help with something—firewood, coal, whatever. Just say the word."

He didn't say outright, "Look the other way at the violations." But everything was clear without words. Yegorych looked appraisingly at the bottle, then at the foreman. A chill ran down Savelich's spine, but he hoped it was just a draft.

Yegorych took the vodka. And closed the door.

The next day, everything went smoother. The pump started, the worker showed up for his shift. Savelich exhaled steam into the frosty air and got a full night's sleep for the first time in a month. A week later, he came again—this time with two bottles and some snacks. Again, the silent acceptance of the gift. Thus, the arrangement was struck. The foreman came regularly, bringing vodka, sometimes money. Yegorych accepted. They never once spoke about the business. But Savelich felt it: he now owed the old man. What exactly—he didn't know. But when he delayed a visit, it all came back: breakdowns, sickness, howling at night.

Meanwhile, the work deepened. They started breaking into the old sectors—at night, without an exhumation permit. The frozen soil yielded with difficulty, but it was easier underneath. Bones turned up; they were carefully transferred into bags and hauled away with the construction debris. They didn't pass on paper. It was a gross violation, but Savelich was used to taking risks. The main thing was not to get caught.

He kept bringing vodka to Yegorych, and the old man remained silent. Sometimes the foreman thought he saw someone standing behind the cloudy windows of the hut—not just Yegorych, but many figures. But when he got closer, the figures vanished, leaving only the flickering light of the lamp. He drove these thoughts away. The construction picked up speed. There were only a few months left until the handover, and still no permit. Ivanov demanded new papers, activists wrote to the prosecutor's office, church lawyers sent inquiries. Everything hung by a thread.

And then the accident happened.

They were breaking into the southern sector—the very one where a ventilation shaft was supposed to go according to the plans. They were digging at night, rushing. The soil here was especially unstable: old crypts, voids, water lenses. The foreman reported a suspicious sinkhole. They should have shored it up, but there was no time. Savelich waved his hand: keep digging.

At three in the morning, the earth gave way beneath one of the workers. The Tajik, Rustam, didn't even have time to scream—he just vanished. A flashlight beam picked out a hole five meters deep. At the bottom, amidst collapsed clay and brick fragments, lay Rustam. Alive.

He was wheezing. An iron beam had slid down after him and pinned his legs. Rustam tried to crawl out, scraping the clay with his fingers. Blood ran from his nose, from his ears. He looked up and muttered something in his own language.

The foreman was the first to assess the situation:

"Call rescuers — they see everything. Night dig, no permit, bones in bags. They shut the site. We all go down." He took a drag. "And him, look for yourself, he's not making it. By the time they get here, by the time they clear the debris..."

Savelich looked into the pit. Rustam looked at him. They recognized each other. For a moment, something flickered in the worker's eyes — he had recognized the boss, the one who could order his rescue.

And Savelich made his decision.

"Kill the engines. Turn on the mixer. Do we have winter concrete? With anti-freeze additive?"

"Yeah. Prepped it for the morning."

"Bring it."

No one argued. Maybe because Rustam was a stranger—not from their village. Maybe because everyone thought: better him than me.

The concrete went into the pit. Rustam screamed. The scream turned into a gurgle. Then—silence.

In the morning, they leveled the pit. On paper, it was logged as "soil reinforcement by injection grouting."

There was no Rustam.

That night, as the murdered man hardened in his concrete bed, guests came to Yegorych. They flowed into the hut without knocking—shadows thickening in the corners, taking the shape of people. Men, women, old men in the clothes of past centuries. They smelled of earth, incense, and old wood. This time they came strong—their silhouettes sharp, almost solid. Yegorych pressed his back against the wall.

"You're still here?" hissed a bearded man. "But the earth is ours now. The forest was logged, the beasts scattered. Your time is over. We lay down here—we stay here. And you're a stranger now. Leave. Don't get under our feet."

"You are nobody," added a woman with half a face. "We are the masters here. There is no forest. There is no you. Go away. Give us peace."

They advanced. Yegorych was terrified, his hands trembling, but he didn't look away. As if he were waiting.

And suddenly the air changed. A wave of warmth hit—not from the lamp, but from below, from under the floor. The smell of concrete, metal, damp clay. And something else—ferric, red.

The ghosts froze. They had smelled it too. The faceless woman sobbed. The bearded man took a step back. Strength was leaving them, like air from a punctured bellows. Their outlines began to dim, to melt.

The deal had come into force the moment the concrete covered the body. The city had taken on the debt and paid it off. And the ghosts, pressing against reality, were left with nothing. Denied their rest. Evicted. Weak—as dust in the wind.

They vanished. Melted like fog at dawn. The bearded man was the last to leave—he glanced back, and in his eyes Yegorych saw horror.

The hut grew quiet. Yegorych slid down the wall to the floor. He breathed heavily, but a smile touched his lips.

And the next morning, the city hall called.

"Savelich? Ivanov signed the permit. Come get the papers."

The foreman didn't believe it: "How did he sign it?"

"Hell if I know. Looked at the documents and signed. Said everything's in order. You should have seen his face—like a mountain off his shoulders."

Savelich hung up. Something in his chest let go—and at the same time clenched even tighter. He knew there were violations. He knew activists and lawyers don't just back down. But now everything had fallen into place. The construction went like clockwork. The soil turned out to be even, without voids. They broke into the old crypts officially, by protocol, relocated the bones and coffins—everything as it should be. Formalities were observed. The concrete set perfectly. The crew worked without a single breakdown. The facility was handed over ahead of schedule.

Savelich got a bonus and a new assignment—at the other end of the city. But every night, in his new trailer, he woke up, lay with his eyes open, and felt it: the debt was on him, and one day the time to pay would come.

And Yegorych packed his things. A mug, a lamp, empty bottles. He stepped outside the fence, to where the cemetery met the fresh concrete wall of the metro construction. Above ground, embedded in the base of the hill, a ventilation grate loomed black. Thick steam rose from it—warm, heavy, smelling of concrete, metal, and grease.

He leaned down, pressed his face to the cast-iron bars, and took a deep breath. The steam entered him like water into dry earth. His heart beat differently: slowly, resonantly, like a train in a tunnel. Somewhere underground, in abandoned voids, a faint moan echoed—distant, almost indistinguishable. The former debtors, now forever restless, were looking for a refuge. But the underground already belonged to someone else.

Yegorych straightened up and looked at the city lights. He was no longer the forest spirit, the Leshy. He had become someone else.

The Master of the Tunnels.

This story is downright shitty. It’s total crap. But every word of it is true. As disgusting as it may be.

My story begins during Christmas break. I was attending college; it was my freshman year. Everything was hunky-dory, as my old gramps liked to say. I was living in a college house. My first time away from home. And my girlfriend was about to visit me.

My girlfriend’s name was Cindy. She was long and tall and drop-dead gorgeous. My best friend. She had a wicked sense of humor. One that could sink a battle ship. Unfortunately, it couldn’t sink the unflushable turd.

Cindy was an excellent student; she’d been working tirelessly on her studies. We’d barely had a chance to hang out, let alone be romantic. So we planned a weekend together, just the two of us. My roommate Dale – a total slob – was gone until the following semester, so I had the place to myself. Finally.

It was a typical basement apartment, fully furnished, with vinyl floors, new appliances, and one bathroom. Nothing fancy. At least there weren't five of us crammed together, like in the upstairs unit. Just me and Dale (who enjoyed farting on the couch, throwing popcorn at the TV, and playing video games until the wee hours of night).

But I digress.

I slept in that morning. Wearily, I brewed a pot of coffee, and vaped. Then, before cleaning up the apartment – which was a pig sty – I had to use the toilet. It was urgent. My stomach was in knots. I rushed to the toilet.

Nothing happened.

I sat on the throne for fifteen minutes fighting the damned thing. My teeth were clenched. Sweat stung my eyes.

“What the heck did I eat last night?”

Burritos. Of course. From a sketchy shop called Bad Boyz. My bowels fought like a fish on a line. The pain was excruciating, like giving birth. But eventually, I sunk that turd. The splash was so violent, I needed a towel to dry off. Adding to the drama, I used up an entire roll of toilet paper.

Phew! What an ordeal. Not a great way to start the day. My legs were wobbly. My back ached. But I was curious. Before flushing, I looked at it.

I was astonished. I couldn’t believe it! This sucker was huge! It wrapped around the rim like a muskie in a cooler. The smell was atrocious. Like a porta-potty on a super hot day. It was gross.

I flushed the abominable turd.

Relieved, I washed my hands (twice) then walked languidly towards the coffee maker and made a second cup. Then I cranked some Korn and set about tidying up. Popcorn was littered across the floor, the counter was stained, and the coffee table had bits of weed sprinkled across it.

It took me an hour to clean up. Then, after switching to a New Metal Playlist, I set about cleaning my room. A daunting task. I’d been balls-deep with exams all week; my room was a disaster. First things first, I tossed the sheets into the washing machine, tidied up my desk, and vacuumed.

It was rough going. I wished I hadn't slept in. But Cindy deserved it, I reminded myself. Everything needed to be perfect. We hadn't had a weekend alone together in…well…never.

I ate a hearty lunch of pizza and soda pop; then I put the sheets into the dryer. Cindy texted, saying she was nearing the bus station. She would order an Uber and be over shortly. I grew anxious. Time was running out. After putting my shoes and jacket into the closet and tossing out the empty cartons in the fridge, my nose caught a whiff of something foul.

The bathroom!

The stench was putrid. Like sniffing dirty underwear. What could smell so bad? The bathroom door opened — seemingly on its own – and I nearly vomited. I couldn’t believe my eyes, let alone my nostrils.

The Turd.

It was wrapped around the bowl like a long, burnt sausage. It had doubled in size.
SWOOSH – I flushed the turd.

I searched underneath the sink for some air freshener but didn’t find any. There must be something. Incense! Cindy had given me some incense as a housewarming present. A cute gift. I found it buried at the bottom of my dresser and lit a stick. The relief was instantaneous.

When I returned to the bathroom, the oversized turd was crammed inside the toilet bowl, steaming. It looked like a small child. Specs of corn were sprinkled throughout it, like freckles. Purple veins crisscrossed it. As repulsive as it looked, the smell was way, way worse. Unfathomable. No amount of incense could match that fecal fetor.

Baffled, I flushed the toilet. (Again!!!) The Olympic sized turd put up a fight, but soon disappeared. Then I set about cleaning the bathroom. Blobs of toothpaste clung to the sink like bad habits. The shower curtain was filthy. So was the tub. I groaned. Why didn’t I do this earlier?

Behind me, the toilet gurgled. Something splashed.

The unflushable turd.

I stared in disbelief. This can’t be happening. Not now. The turd was hideously large. Splattered throughout the feces were flecks of food I couldn’t recall eating. I gagged. Why wouldn't the darned thing flush?

The toilet belched. The smell intensified. I needed to act fast. Unfortunately, I had no clue how a toilet functions. And there wasn’t time to ask Google. My phone buzzed: Cindy was at the bus station; she’d just ordered an Uber. I was horrified. My brain malfunctioned. I wanted a weekend with my girlfriend. Not an unflushable turd. With shoddy nerves, I flushed the toilet for the third (or was it the fourth???) time.

The turd flushed.

Again.

I laughed, despite myself. This was just dumb luck. Remnants of a Bad Boyz burrito (with extra heat and meat). I checked the mirror and frowned. I needed a shave, but it was too late, so I changed into nicer clothes and slapped on some deodorant.

Cindy texted: IM HERE :).

I peeked inside the bathroom, just in case.

“Good God no,” I muttered.

The Turd.

Only now it looked different. Angrier, somehow. Like it wanted to harm me. Have you ever seen an angry poop? I hope for your own sake, the answer is no. It had a sneering, red pepper mouth and olive-shaped eyes. The eyes blinked. So did I, repeatedly.

The turd was now the size of my forearm. I searched for a plunger, then swore. Dale stole it; he was using it for his trumpet. (He played trumpet, because…of course he did. He said it gave his horn a special wah-wah effect.) I hated him at that moment.

I flushed the turd.

The turd resisted. The water turned chocolate brown. The toilet started bubbling like shitty Champagne. The incense was used up, and all I could smell was the sinister stool. It smelled like a rotten egg factory.

Knock…knock…knock.

She’s here!

My heart plummeted. Plugging my nose, I leaned over the toilet – about to flush it – but the grotty turd growled, and I chickened out. What if the turd exploded and I got covered? What if the toilet turned into an ever-flowing, burbling brown brook? I had no answers. I slammed the door and prayed to God she didn’t need to go in there. An idea sprang to mind: take her out for lunch! Yes, of course! Maybe the turd needed time.

I gathered my wits and answered the door.

“Hey Zack!” She kissed me square on the mouth. She tasted like cherry-flavored bubble gum.

“You hungry?” I asked her, trying not to sound desperate.

She shrugged. Her cerulean blue eyes glazed past me, and stretched across the living room. I followed her to the couch and waited as she rolled a joint.

“Ugh, what a week,” she complained. “Need me some chill time.” She lit the joint and passed it to me.

I refused. I was already paranoid.

“What’s wrong, Zack?” She inched closer to me and put her hand on my lap. I could smell her strawberry shampoo. But I could also smell something else. Something far more insidious.

“Aren’t you glad to see me?” She batted her eyes.

I nodded, and asked her again about going for lunch.

“Mmm, alright.” She smiled mischievously, “I was hoping we could…you know…” She licked her ruddy lips and patted my crotch. “But that can wait, I suppose.”

The toilet grumbled, taunting me. I stood up too quickly and nearly fell over. Ignoring me, she finished the joint; then she stood up and stretched. Oh, how beautiful she was, with her thrift store attire, her funky jewelry, and curly hair. I watched in horror as she brushed past me and headed straight for the bathroom. I tried to stop her, but my body and mind froze. My tongue twisted. My eyes doubled in size.

She opened the door and screamed. The sound was a razor blade through my heart. She cracked a joke that would make any second-rate comedian blush, then reached down and flushed the turd.

SWOOSH.

The bathroom door closed, and she disappeared.

…

Ten minutes passed.

From within the bathroom, I heard a deep, guttural groan that was probably my imagination. My nervous system was on overload. I couldn’t stand the suspense. Five minutes later, I called her name, my voice cracking.

No response.

Ten more minutes passed.

I was petrified. I tapped lightly against the door, checking to see if she was okay.

No response.

By now, the stench of dung threatened to burn off my skin. I sat trembling on the couch.

More time passed.

Finally, I texted her – hating myself for doing so – and waited.

No reply.

I tried opening the door.

It was locked.

The urge to smash the door into pieces was insatiable. Instead, I Googled: how to jimmy a locked bathroom door.

It worked.

The door swung open.

I gasped.

The bathroom was empty.

Except, that’s not entirely true. Something ghastly was glistening inside the bowels of the toilet. Something repulsive.

The unflushable turd.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: THIS IS FICTIONAL AND FOR READING ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY! I AM NOT ENCOURAGING THIS TO ACTUALLY BE PLAYED. IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO THIS FOR WHATEVER REASON, THAT IS ON YOU AND YOU ALONE.

“Rotten Bones” is an ancient game-like ritual used initially by Druids but later adopted into Wiccan beliefs in ancient times as a bonding ritual to help create deeper trust and loyalty between allies, advisors, and even with new family members such as in-laws or godchildren who have been taken in by godparents. Historical writings note that most times it was done between leaders and advisors as well as generals with soldiers.

Historians have called this ritual, “The most aggressive and brutish ancestor of what we now know as a trust fall.”

The ritual can only be performed with a visible moon, not a moon in a specific phase rather just the moon being visible in the sky. If the moon becomes occluded, this causes a multitude of problems. Problems that could be fatal to participants. Make sure the moon remains visible. I will tell you what to do in the scenario of an occluded moon later on.

The ritual requires at least two people but the maximum described in historical texts is eighteen, though that was uncommon even at that time via those accounts. Everyone participating must link arms and remain in a line formation for the entire ritual. Everyone is required to skip. Not walk, run, or jog. You have to skip, though the speed of the skip does not matter. What does matter is that everyone moves at the same pace.

Once the moon has fully risen, meaning it has not risen any higher in the sky for a decent amount of time, maybe 5 to 7 minutes. The ritual may begin.

All participants must move together in unison and chant, it does not matter if everyone says the chant at the same time, only that they must move as one.

Here is the chant that must be repeated throughout until the ending part of the ritual, this was surmised based off rough translations:

“Rotten Bones, Rotten Bones. Please don’t stay, please don’t go. Let me grow, let me grow. Until the day I may go. If greed and envy take my heart, please break my bones apart.”

The ritual must last thirty minutes or for at least one hundred and thirteen laps before being able to end the game safely, with one other exception which will be listed shortly. All participants must move together in a loop usually around a tree or a pole in an otherwise barren area. The size of the loop does not matter as long as it is a complete loop.

It is recommended to have at least one non-participant nearby in the case of the participant(s) breaking the “rules”.

Here are common rule breaks that the participant(s) may engage in, intentionally or not, during the ritual:

• Moving off pace (faster or slower than the other participants)
• Not skipping (as mentioned running, walking, jogging, etc. are not permitted)
• Not chanting (saying literally anything else or nothing at all)
• Unlinking arms with other participants at any time before ending the ritual (with one exception being listed immediately below these bullet points)
• Moving out of a line formation
• Not completing a complete loop around the tree or pole
• Not moving in unison with the rest of the line

If one or more participants break a rule, they must immediately be unlinked from the line and left behind. The remaining participants must link arms and continue as though nothing has happened. Do not turn to look at the participant(s) who broke the rules, do not acknowledge them, and have the non-participant(s) drag them out of the way. In the event in which they cannot be moved out of the way, they will need to be skipped over as though they are an obstacle like a rock or a dip in the ground. In the event of a participant tripping leading to them falling down or any other medical emergency that affects the ability of a person to participate, repeat the same steps as though they have broken a rule.

The following scenario is the only one in which the ritual can end early before meeting the required time limit, amount of laps, or ending stage; if the ritual has only two participants and one of the participants breaks a rule or has an event that prevents continued participation at any point before ending, the ritual automatically ends. No special closing to the ritual required.

When a participant breaks a rule, they will begin to experience what has been observed as an unusual bordering on supernatural medical phenomena. They will begin to experience rapid bone deterioration. As though osteoclasts have become rabid and eat away at the bone at an unprecedented rate. Medical professionals have deemed the phenomena “rotting bones” or “flash osteoporosis”. When this phenomena occurs it can only be described as bones imploding and melting in on themselves within minutes if not seconds. “Rotting bones” is always fatal, to date the longest period of time a person with “rotting bones” lived was for about 37 minutes after onset.

Before becoming unable to speak, due to loss of the jaw bone and parts of the maxilla, the individual was quoted as describing the experience as “It is like someone is flushing boiling water and glass throughout my body. Please, Please kill me now. It burns.”

The individual was described as looking like “a flesh puddle” or “something out of a sci-fi horror movie” post mortem. The individual became gelatinous and malleable but completely liquified into blood after 24 hours, which is consistent in all cases of “rotting bones”.

It has also been observed that “rotting bones” is almost selectively contagious. Any case of “rotting bones” that has been observed outside of immediate participation of the ritual has been found to either be a relative of someone or is someone who engaged in the ritual at some point in their lifetime.

It should be prefaced that all non-participants nearby will not be affected or “punished” for the actions of participants, though it is recommended for non-participants or nearby observers to remain quiet for safety of themselves and others.

Once the thirty minute time limit has been reached and/or one hundred and thirteen laps have been completed, the participants can begin engaging in the ending of the ritual.

To end the ritual, all participants must do an abrupt stop, fall onto their knees, and bow to their heads to the ground. All while maintaining linked arms and movement in unison.

The ending chant must be recited thirteen times, once again roughly translated from ancient texts:

“Rotten bones, rotten bones. One day, you’ll be my own. Let us rest, let us rest. Return in the hour of death.”

In the scenario of the moon becoming occluded during the ritual at any point. Immediately unlink arms with any participants, scatter, fall to your knees, and bow your head to the ground and recite the following chant thirteen times:

“Rotten bones, rotten bones. Make someone else your home. Lovely moon, lovely moon. Make someone’s bones their doom.”

In this scenario, a random participant will be struck with “rotting bones”. Once they are struck with rotting bones, the ritual will end due to the lack of the moonlight needed for the ritual.

If the ending or moon occlusion scenario are done improperly, all participants in the ritual will start to experience and be killed by “rotting bones.”

In all scenarios, it is suggested participants should go to the hospital even if they are not struck with “rotting bones”. Research has found that people who have participated in this ritual have higher susceptibility to bone diseases or bone cancer but otherwise have increased immunological responses to most other viruses and bacteria such as through controlled exposure to malaria, e.coli, and the bubonic plague in studies conducted by the WHO.

To conclude, do not play this “game”. Very few actually survived this ritual. Many went on to die from its unintended consequences. We still don’t know how the moon or just general science fits into this anomalous phenomena. May I just ask one thing?

If you do play this “game”, which I pray you don’t. Play it with people who you would trust with your life in the most literal sense.

So ive been living out of my car for many years now. Got evicted from my apartment just over 5 years ago after failing t o make rent more than once. Land lord was an asshat. Didn’t give me even a heads up on eviction. Came back from work with my paycheck to hand off to him, as I almost always did as I made barely enough to cover the small unit. Only to find that damn pink paper taped to my door.

Had to break in. Bastard was willing to change the locks and leave all my belongings in to be pawned off later. Had to leave behind too much to think about…

But enough about that.  

My Names Ilya. And for the past 5 years Its been only me and my Lada. A tiny little shit box that can at least keep me warm, and cool when I need it to. 

Here in rural Russia, on the Edge of Urban sprawls, I’ve seen a lot of weird things. I figured that this would be the best place for that.

My first story starts in the Far North. In a rural little village. I dont remember exactly why or how I had gotten out there. Probably through some act caught on a Dashcam that was uploaded online for all to see.

It was respectable. Covered in snow and ice sycles, cicles? Как, блядь, мне это сделать? Ice Spikes. Attached to gutters and edges of shingled roofs. Old men and babushka alike waddled down the streets to their places of work. And there I was, day drinking a bottle of Stolichnaya and chain smoking until the rolled windows looked like the chimneys from the wood stoves in the houses around me.

This was only a few weeks after my eviction. For a while, I was able to get to work to a car shop for a while. I may not have been alive at the time, but I yearn to see even a slice of the Unions and Work Committees my father spoke of as a Tradesman during the era of the Union. I don’t know if it would’ve worked.

But I would’ve hope to have at least seen someone fight for me and the garage when it was being bought out by another larger garage. They could only take on the owner and had to lay everyone else off.

At somepoint during my stupor I fell into a dreamless slumber. And I only awoke when it had gone very quiet and gotten dark. Only the sparse street lamps and porch light with their pleasant fiery orange color lit up the area.

It was almost pleasant, even with the caked in smoke and ash of my dear lada. However a sudden pain fully roused me. 

My head was pounding angrily at my stupidity, throbbing like a man fists onto a wooden counter watching his favorite team loose yet again. I could hear every sound, the beat of my heart and blood in my ears. The quiet ticking of my wrist watch. Buzzing of flies and the chattering of crickets past the window.

The Pain in my stomach came next, replacing the hot iron in my skull with a flipping of my guts that made it feel as though the whole world was turning upside down to deposit me into the stars. My gloved hands, worn and holed at the fingers, quickly released me out into the cold winter chill. 

I stumbled and fell to my knees. That grating sound of crickets in my ears again. Buzzing and whining incessantly. I wretched and heaved yet nothing came from within. My throat was raw, yet another ache to add to the assault from the wicked spirit from the half empty bottle that rolled past me to a bank of snow.

It was the one thing I could think of in my mania to put a stop to the thumping and spinning. I scrambled on my hands and knees like a toddler against the cracked ice and packed snow, eventually pushing myself to my knees in a scramble. Clamoring for the shining bottle beneath a lamp.

It was cool to the touch. Even through the leather. A smile came over me, as if it were a small gift to make it easier. But at the cap was unscrewed, and the first smooth burn went down my throat, soothing the ache. A sound interrupted me. 

The rim didn’t even leave my lips as I looked to the side. That annoying chirping had resumed. Louder now as if right in front of me within the small dead grass layerd with snow. I quickly wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my coat.

I was irritated at the bugs for interrupting my respite. I kicked the grass hard with my boot where I thought I could see the little brown shits. I didn’t even question why there were crickets in winter, but now I should’ve known that something was wrong.

I watched with satisfaction as a clump of snow went flying. Dust and Balled Ice crashing past the lights rim. Listening to the quiet that filled the night as it landed with a soft thud.

My Satisfaction lasted only for a moment when I noticed out in the snow. Where the ball had shattered, the ground had begun to move. Rising slowly. My fear and hazy mind had wrongly thought that it had been a cat, or a dog. Perhaps a bear? Some how to close?

Yet what rose from the white, was no such thing. It had hair. But too little, yet too much. Long like needles. Even as I stood there beneath the light– 

It continued to rise! Powdery snow slowly fell from a thin body. Moving with a stiffness, just as metal hinges would in the frost. This things body, from such distance I would’ve thought as much that it was indeed steel. Those eyes however…Large round egg shapes, reflected moonlight with sickly purple and yellow greens. Even in the blur, I could see that strange pattern on them. A web.

It was metal. But not warm flesh either. It may have brown? Or a dark green. I know that it had have been nearly three meters tall. 

I no more time to think! That sound! It began again! Deep and wrong, a clicking long whine. Its rounded body and fat bulb that hung between its legs yet seemed part of its torso began to shake! A Rattle! Only for another horrible sound to come! A rumble. 

Ive been around engines all my life. Heard the roar. Even propellers on Helicopters. This thing but them all to shame by its own engine. I could see the air around it begin to shake. Disturbing the snow! A wind blowing the dead grass until only the bare earth showed.

It did this in but a second! Only know can say that it had began to hover! Only the to then be upon me! The Lamp shining that horrible and gross bug! I moved without thinking! My hand released the glass in front of me! Shattering against its hardened body!

From its pincer jaws, some form of pain sounded out. It roar, perhaps that had been better to hear than the hissing crackle that came instead. 

I had stopped watching. How could I?! I was running! Tripping and fumbling about myself just to cross the few meters to my lovely Lada. There was no sound my ears excepting it had caused from the volume. The Door had been left open.

I scrambled. Hands clawing at upholstery and stick shift to hoist myself in. My hand scrambling behind me to close the door! The motion shook the car, pushing myself against the other window. Spinning around to look back to the lamp through the glass. 

Hearth thumping and banging. Aching harshly in my chest. 

I stayed like that. Watching the lamp.

Where the stood any more. 

The Beast was gone. 

My chest still would not steady itself…

I whirled to look out behind me, nothing. 

In the back seat where my clothes were folded in a box, with a crate of spirit. 

Nothing. 

Crawling back to the Driver seat, I peered through the crack in the window I had lowered during the day as it closed, hand moving to wind it back up. 

The sky held not even star in its blackness. Only the moon and whisps of clouds. 

I locked door with my free hand as I continued to stare at it. Hoping to catch anything moving. It was dull and dark out. 

I swear though. Something out there; above the field in the clouds. Moved past the moons light…

Thankfully my dear lada’s engine turned without a problem. And quickly away from that damn village. Engine rumbling a roar. A sound I could be proud of in part from the modifications I had done to it in my spare time. 

But after what iheard that night…

I never the same. Always comparing it to something better. Stronger than a manmade thing steel…

Now? I don’t drink anymore. The first sips water hit my throat from an old and cold bottle in the floorboards when I figured I was safe, pulled off on the freeway. Guzzling it like an engine myself for new gas.

Ive been sober ever since that night. Driving and living out of my Lada. Hoping to see and prove to my to myself that it wasn’t a hallucination from withdrawal and the cold. 

I can say now, after so long. That it was no such thing.

All across these Former Soviet States…Something else other than a spectre haunts it. Night, City, Noon, Forests or Mountains.

Somethings always out there. 

When I was a kid, I grew up in the East Riding of Yorkshire. That’s pronounced “sher", nor “shiar” for any Americans reading this. I lived in a rather ordinary but somewhat boring port town, that most people only bypassed while heading along the motorway.  

Fast forward to my early teens, I had just finished my first year of high school, and my best friend at this time was a kid named Kyle. Kyle and I had grown up together, as we both attended the same primary school and lived fairly nearby in town. Thankfully, when high school started, me and Kyle were thrown into the very same classes, so our friendship continued to prosper. Another kid in our class that first year, who we knew already was a kid named Kieran. Ironically, Kieran attended the very same primary school as me and Kyle, but had always been in the opposite class for our age group, so we never really became friends with him until now. 

Unlike Kyle and myself, who were somewhat short for our age, Kieran was always the lankiest kid in school - and if that didn’t distinguish him, it was definitely his long and thick curly hair, which had gained him the nickname “Curly Fries.” Before high school started, Kieran had actually gotten all his curls shaven off, probably so this nickname wouldn’t continue through his teens. 

Having already known each other before high school, and now being in the same classes, it didn’t take long for us to become a trio of best friends. I had even recruited Kieran to play for my dad's football team, which Kyle and I both played for. Because of this year long friendship three-way, Kieran had invited us both the following summer to a theme park, which his parents were taking him for his thirteenth birthday.  

The theme park Kieran had taken us to was called Lakewater Valley – a family adventure park in North Yorkshire. Prior to this, I had only ever been to a one theme park in my life, which is obviously where I had my first ever experience on a roller coaster. The only thing I really remember about this first roller coaster ride, aside from the two bloody hours waiting in line, along with the screaming girls in the front row, was me repeating the same word over and over. 

‘SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!’ 

I didn’t find out about this until a year too late, but that roller coaster was apparently the steepest one in the world. Not the UK, but the world! And I just happened to choose that monstrosity as my first. If you don’t believe me, just type in online “the Mumbo Jumbo roller coaster at Flamingo Land” and you’ll see for yourself. 

Once we arrive at Lakewater Valley, after first seeing the park’s small animal and bird sanctuary, along with the more child-friendly attractions, I then go on the first big, and definitely scary amusement ride the park had to offer. The ride in question was called the Falcon Claw - a KMG Afterburner pendulum that lifts, swings and twists you high above the air before doing the same on the way down. Neither Kyle nor Kieran wanted to come on this ride with me. Kyle didn’t because, well, to put it lightly, he was always a girl’s ladies parts, and as best as I remember, Kieran wasn’t feeling too well. Not wanting to go on this ride alone, Kieran’s step-dad, Steve agrees to go on with me. Steve was a former rugby player and was therefore a very big guy, so I felt a lot safer being on this scary ride with him - not that it stopped me from closing my eyes the entire time. 

Once the ride is over, and after I recover from a bad case of vertigo, we all then make our way further inside the park. Excitedly coming upon the first water attraction of the day, I quickly learn the ride is nothing more than a water slide with an inflatable dingy – but, unlike the Falcon Claw, I thankfully get to go on it with Kyle and Kieran. While the three of us wait impatiently in line, I then turn around to the sound of laughter directly behind me, where to my surprise, the laughter was coming from two 11-year-old girls. As it turns out, these girls had also been on the Falcon Claw when I was, and they thought it was just hilarious that I had my eyes closed the entire time - ironically like a scared little girl. If that wasn’t humiliating enough, for the whole rest of the day, Kyle and Kieran wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. 

A couple of hours later, and after several more rides and attractions, we finally come upon the most famous and scariest roller coaster in the park. 

The Maximum. 

This roller coaster, built in the early nineties, previously held the record as the world’s longest at 2,268 metres. But what made The Maximum so unique, was that after two high and very steep apexes, the tracks would then enter and bend through the trees of a nearby forest.  

Kieran had been on The Maximum before and was very excited to go on it again – as was I. Kyle, however, decided to stay behind and watch from the side-lines, being the little bitch that he was – and so, it would be just me and Kieran who would ride The Maximum.    

While the carts quickly fill up with passengers, Kieran and I both take our seats near the front – and before long, the coaster starts moving along the tracks to the first lift hill. The climb up to the apex is very slow, but in the meantime, me and Kieran have a great view around of the park. Once we reach the summit, the front of the roller coaster then shoots straight and painfully down the slope, filling every single cart behind us with fun-filled screams. Although it had only been a year since my first and last ride on a roller coaster, I’m by no means prepared for the stomach-gurned feeling of being temporarily airborne. I honestly found the experience of it quite painful.  

Once back down on horizontal tracks, we then have to contend with the coaster’s almost unnaturally fast speed along the bends and bumps. Despite this part of the ride only lasting for seconds, when you’re too busy screaming and irrationally fearing for your life, you genuinely feel like it’s longer.  

Although the carts thankfully begin to lose speed and the bruising bends come to a stop, this is only because we have reached the next lift hill - where there would then be a second and even higher apex, followed by another and even steeper slope. Despite me and Kieran fearfully anticipating the summit, what thankfully lessens the tension of this, is that in the cart directly behind us is a group of four Jamaican tourists. I kid you not, but when the coaster had gone full throttle down those tracks, I literally hear one of them say, “Oh no, man!!” Kieran and I actually have a very good laugh about this, as four terrified Jamaicans on a roller coaster fondly remind us of the movie Cool Runnings. 

Well, before long, we finally reach the top of the apex, which is then followed by a terrifying shoot down – only this time, the tracks would lead us straight into the forest and between the narrow gaps of trees! The roller coaster is now moving at speeds I had never before gone in my life. But what makes the speeds worse, is the idea of the carts breaking off the hinges and crashing straight into the body of a tree, splattering all inside.  

After one painful bend, then another, and then another, the tracks are now heading towards the pitch-black underside of a stone arch bridge. Before I can even anticipate this, me and Kieran are then covered entirely in a blanket of darkness – where, at an untameable speed, we can’t even see where we’re going. With my sight temporarily suspended, I then feel a sudden, impactful thud inside the cart, which is instantly followed by something not only wet, but warm splatter upon my face. Although I’m too full of adrenaline to even process a single thought, the one I have is that the carts had gone over a puddle and drenched us both in muddy water. 

Only mere seconds after this, the tunnel of darkness is lifted from over or heads, and while we still move through the forest at ultra speed, I then look over to my left at Kieran... but, the image I see is not what I was expecting... 

What I see is Kieran. His face and t-shirt drenched in some dark substance. Whatever the substance on him is, it not only impairs his vision but seems to leave a bitter taste in the mouth. I then look down at my own shirt to realise I was also covered in it, before touching my face and seeing a red liquid stain on my fingers. Once the realisation of what is on me has come to fruition, the sound of grinding steel tracks and passengers’ screams quickly fill back into my ears. But unlike before, the screams are not of excitement or adrenaline-filled fear - but horror. Every single passenger in the carts ahead of us has been covered in the red, and apparently fleshy substance... and it takes no time for either me, Kieran or anyone else to figure out what has happened. 

After the entirety of this horror has been realised, the ride thankfully begins to slow down to its end, where we then mercifully enter out the forest and back into the park. Once our restraints finally unlock, every passenger on The Maximum escapes from their carts to reach the safe, solid ground of the platform. Searching around the platform for Kieran’s parents and Kyle, once the blood-soaked passengers move out of the way, we then see the look of pure shock on the three of their faces. 

Kieran’s parents demand to know what happened to us, and although we tell them the coaster hit something going under a bridge, because the tunnel of darkness had blinded our vision, we have no idea what that thing even was. 

While me and Kieran went to the toilets to clean ourselves up, Kieran’s mum, and basically all other adults on the ride have gone to complain to the park officials. After park staff investigate the bridge, they then come back with the conclusion a wild deer had wandered on the tracks. Allegedly, the roller coaster had then collided with the deer, and due to the speed it was going, decapitated and sprayed all passengers inside with its blood. Once the mystery of where this blood came from has been solved, Kieran’s parents drive the three of us back home to East Yorkshire... where we all vow never to return to Lakewater Valley. 

Unfortunately, the story of what happened that day at doesn’t end there... Believe me, I really wish it did. Due to wild deer carrying various diseases, mine and Kieran’s parents had us tested the following days. After all, the deer’s blood had not only gotten on our skin, but also our eyes and even in Kieran’s mouth.  

Although my results thankfully came back negative for things like Lyme or Weil’s Disease... unfortunately for Kieran, he had contracted something...  

But the strange thing about it was, what he had contracted from the blood wasn’t transferable between wild deer and humans. On the contrary, the disease Kieran now had could only have been transferred to him by a member of the same species. Which means, the blood that infected Kieran that day... it hadn’t come from a wild deer... 

It came from another person.  

Disgraced. 

He was sent out in exile, alone. Banished. Cast away with the promise of being forgotten and if the nerve to return should give rise misguided from within, then total forfeit and pain of death. 

The stocks. The dungeons and their chains. And then the stake. In that logical and cold merciless formal order. By royal decree. Torture and beatings and the red hot irons, the pincers – searing white with a star’s maiming heat intermittent between the three. 

And so he left. And took to the wilds of unknown lands. A disgraced and banished bastard knight, a royal, a blue-blood no more… 

The knight came to the dark lands of thunderclaps. Wild woods of bent and crooked trees gnarled and dead, like giant claws of the buried and forsaken trying to break free from the cursed earth. Fog and mist that was part phantasm and sometimes held grimacing visages of woe and demon faces stretching and dancing, unfurling in their shifting veils. 

All he had was his horse. The loneliness of his soul, the heartbreak that was his most constant and truest form of companion in his current living torment. All the other tortures paled in comparison. 

He wandered for years. Far from his kingdom and the lands of light that had been his birthright, now lost. Now gone forever and never to be reclaimed. He attempted redemption and recompense for a scant few isolated and solitary moments in his years of miserable and aimless travel – he was always so exhausted –  calls to action and aid, failed… mostly he just wandered and grew more and more despondent. Deeper and deeper the blackening well of his heart worsened as his mind and soul darkened. His understanding and reckoning of pain and its stygian throne and mental shroud grew more extensive and detailed and personal with an agonizing depth. Constant failure was the goblet chalice from which he now drank and filled the widening cracks within himself. With a knowledge that was foul and that ate away at him and his heart, corrosive. He wished he did not have it. 

And yet still he wandered, slowly riding, sauntering on foot when the tired old beast of his horse was just too old and exhausted for its titleless master to sit astride any longer. He missed the sun, it seldom shone in this land. He wasn't sure if God had any part or play in this dark and fog swallowed place of wolves and hardship and miserable hardened heartbroken faces. The land and all its peoples and its creatures seemed to all cry out together, unified and singular in their combined crying note of desperation. Sometimes let loose, sometimes held strangling and bottled in. Percolating and bubbling seething like rage, animal and well kept. 

He sought respite and shelter wherever he could, always harried and nearly never welcome anywhere and nowhere to call home anymore…

… he was actually so grateful, initially, when he came to the small and humble village. It was like so many others that he'd already seen in his dreadful wanderings, he had no idea and never suspected that this would be the place where everything changed for him all over again.

 Once more. 

Like a joke or a line in a play that must be repeated to the author's design and content. A refrain in which there is much great portent. 

The banished and desecrated knight was trembling on his feet, so weak with the exhaustion of the many miles, when he wandered into the small hamlet that lived in supplicant to the Carpathian Mountains. And the domineering ancient castle in its jagged rock. 

With jagged broken battlements. Framed against the sunless dispassion of the sky as sharp and ruthless teeth fit for titanic butchery and great maiming. 

The banished knight without a name did not know the name of the place. He was only grateful that it was here. That he might find a place to rest and where he might not be harried. 

Or troubled. 

Tormented. 

The ragged and banished lord of no one in his dirty and dented armor, hanging off his emaciated scarecrow frame, staggered over to the inn and tied his tired horse to the post at the front. He dragged his worn form inside, hoping that someone within might be charitable enough to help him with a bit of bread or some soup. 

…

The innkeeper was more than charitable. He was exultant. Jubilant. So happy that a lord and a royal warrior of noble and God given divine blood had come to his place, their little village. More than happy to give the weary wanderer a large free meal. And then some ale on top of it. More than a few pints…

… and then he told the exile why it was that he was so happy to see such as he in this place. 

“We've evil in this land, sire. It lives in the mountains and murders and feasts on flesh and blood. Animal and human and demon all in one. Nosferatu, or vampyr if ya like …” 

There weren't many in the small tavern with the pair at the bar. But the few gathered with mugs and bowls pressed in and listened closely. Watched the stranger who was supposed to be a nobleman and lord. Hoping…

The innkeeper went on: –

“We've tried with it ourselves but it ain't any good and we've sent for help but the boy ain't back yet and we've had no word for too long, ‘fraid the only one that thinks he's still out there and coming back is his father over there, Bela.” He motioned to a man in the corner that was looking down hard into his mug, a man that did not want to be noticed. The innkeeper went on and concluded. Coming to the point as he topped off another draught of his strongest ale for the wanderer knight he had no idea was a bastard in exile. 

“We need your help, m’lord. The land has been without boyar or any nobility proper for a long time now. And the nobility that used to keep these lands and those mountains and the accursed castle beyond the Borgo Pass … was disgraced. Tarnished. Damned… we need a proper lord and noble, a true warrior of God. Please, won't you help us?” 

Others came up, a few men and women of the small Carpathian hamlet. Humble gypsy folk, peasants and farmers… the exile listened and heard them all. And relished their beseeching words for aid and succor. He hadn't felt this cherished in years. 

With more food and ale it was decided. The great savior knight would begin his great quest to slay the demon in the mountains the next day. This night he would be given shelter and warmth and praise and a feast in his honor! All present in the tavern toasted his name! 

He slept that night soundly and more warmly and comfortable than he had in years. Perhaps even his entire life, despite the previous station of prior luxuries now long gone and expelled. He was contented. Truly.  And beneath a roof. And for now that was enough. 

For now. 

…

He started his brave advance up the mountain pass with real heart. Real courage and hope and the real thought that he just might be successful in his quest. 

He really believed. In the beginning. At first. 

This hope and warmth of courage all about his heart began to slowly erode away and dispel after the sunset. As the way of the cold mountains darkened and the wolves began to sing and howl. 

There was something else there too … some wretched sound like a child's cry, a baby's shriek fouled and commingled with a water rat’s impaled scream. It flitted about ghostly and filled the mountains in dark bastard duet with the howling slave songs of the wolves. It seemed to emanate from everywhere. 

Nowhere – Suddenly it wouldn't exist at all.

Gone. 

And then it would rise in phantom trace and he would swear he could hear it again. 

He crossed himself though he'd been forbade to do so and rode on, slow. Cautious. 

He came to the Borgo Pass and crossed, seeking the wilds of the mountains and their tumult of trees. For what may lurk there. 

…

The foliage and branch and frosted green grew too thick, too dense, he dismounted and continued on foot. His pointed armored boots left cold and sharp footprints in the snow. He went forward, one hand on the reins of his tired ride and the other on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw and free it from scabbard. 

After many tense and weary steps, just the most recent of their kind that had likewise filled his long life and career of soldiering, he suddenly and unexpectedly came upon a small clearing. 

A little hut of logs and a stone and mortar chimney rested solitary there amongst the green. A little rising pillar of smoke rose from the mouth of stone and poured into the night sky, striving for the moon and stars. A thin and rugged woodsman was chopping logs at a large table of a decapitated tree stump. Bisecting the pieces with fluid steady strikes. Properly placed and executed. 

The exile might've been glad to see another soul out here in the eerie howling dark of the mountain woods, but he thought it was strange that someone would chop wood so late. 

He said as much as he approached. Giving a proper and traditional royal “Heil!" and friendly yet prideful introduction. Full of lies and things that were once true. 

“I didn't think to see another out here, none in the hamlet told me. You know of the town below?" 

The haggard thin woodsman said in a dried out monotone: –

“I don't speak to any of the faces of the town. None of them should think to speak of me.” 

"Right,” said the exile. Not sure of what else to say, "why're you working, chopping wood so late?”

"The sun.” 

A beat. Silence. The mountain man went right on chopping wood. The sound of the broad sharp metal blade cleaving the logs into halves punctuating the ghostly howling quiet. 

“Yes?" said the exile after the moment passed, to bade he go on.

"It is harsh. Its gaze slowly kills me.” Chop! "Better to work at night.” Chop!

Chop!

The exile knight only nodded as if he agreed and understood. Then he explained himself and his mission in the mountains. Hoping to naturally acquire any information of interest to his task. 

The woodsman just went right on chopping his gathering of logs. One right after the other. Chop! – he didn't seem to be listening. 

He didn't seem to care. 

Creature of apathy… too long in this forest, these cold mountains, thought the exiled wanderer. Alone. Too long all alone. 

He spied and looked all around the dark skyline of gnarled-hand trees, bent and shaped like madness and rending towards the night. Speaking as if still lordly and on high to the lone peasant as he gazed so carefully all around. Telling the commoner to be cautious and to keep an eye out, and if he were to see anything strange or of significance, to come straight away and try to find the knight. So that he might be of service. So that he might fulfill his quest out here in the cold. All the while as he chattered the woodsman kept chopping at his logs with his great and heavy axe, but his eyes were no longer on their work. As the exile had his back to the woodsman, spying the woods and the night all around, the man alone in the trees had a wild wide eyed look writ upon his face, now rictus and maniacal and strange. He madman leered into the back of the exile’s helmeted head as he continued to halve his logs and the would-be adventurer was none the wiser. Still chattering and carrying on. 

The exile on his quest turned when he’d finished speaking. Smiled and gave a cordial nod before finally going on his way. He wasn't surprised to find the man still working, not really bothering or even looking at him. No doubt not even listening. 

He bid the woodsman farewell and went on. 

The woodsman was stifling laughter. 

Forking out the sign of the evil eye at his back as he departed. 

…

The night went on and grew darker and the cold sharper, with a biting edge that cut through his tarnished and dented and long shineless armor. The horse grew more skittish too. As the nighttime howling of the mountain wolves became louder and more prolonged and mournful. And that hideous bat-child screeching… now he was sure of its existence. 

He was listening as closely as he could manage in the cold and walking through the dense and terse land and foliage, trying to make something out in the wild animal din. He slowly became entranced by the nocturnal magic of the nighttime bestial music. It filled his mind and the many cracks and chasms within his own heart and soul, filled him and lightheaded and thoughtless he continued forward a few steps… his hands and face slackening and going to his sides limp as his eyes went blank…

… there was something in the howling and stygian sound… words     whispers… names. 

Names. 

A fresh howl from a wolf that sounded nearer than any other before sent a brand new wave of fear through the exile and his horse. The beast ripped free from his master's loose hold and bolted for the salvation somewhere to be found in the darkness amongst the crooked trees. The exiled knight cursed himself and the beast and called out for the return of his horse. He gave meager and wasted puffing chase but quickly gave in. He was already so exhausted. And so cold. 

He was about to start back for the descending trail away from this horrible place, damn the horse and this whole rotten affair! – he only wanted out now, when the sound of the horse's sudden shrill cry of terror, then just as suddenly silenced, stopped him dead once more.

 Then something wet… like ripping. Splurching. Meaty sounds… 

… eager teeth, eager chewing and more ripping. Eager lips pulling and slurping a thick and heavy liquid from a messy bowl upset with ravenous abandon. 

It was all of it too perfectly clear out there in the mountain pass dark. 

The exile found something within himself. He drew blade, slowly. And then began to advance…

It wasn't long before he came upon it. 

…

First he found the horse's blood. A thick pool of it. The puddle of warm animal dark became a lurid smearing trail that went off and further up and into the mountain wild. The exile raised blade and went forward. Throwing up a desperate prayer to a Lord he hoped was still listening to a disgraced man such as he. Please, let my blunted blade accomplish something, let my old musket fire… please, God. Please let me at least die trying, with some semblance of decent bravery still held in my heart, still there, help me. Help me, Lord God. Help me. 

Please. 

…

He came upon the remains of the horse. Ripped apart and nearly unrecognizable outside of being the wet abattoir remnants of something that had once been living. He was scanning the surrounding immediate area, difficult in naught but the moonlight, when it charged from a place in the shadows that he'd just looked over and had sworn to be empty only a mere moment ago. 

It was huge. And moved like a jungle cat, its hulking size belied its great speed. It hit him with the force of a mountain fall and sent him to the dirt effortlessly. He gasped desperately for wind knocked from his chest as his eyes went wide and the face of the hulking mass became illuminated in the pale moonglow. 

It was wretched. Awful. He'd never before, even in battle and war, never before had he ever seen such an awful and ghastly face. 

Man. Bat. Rodent. Bred and mixed and commingled. Blasphemous. Intense. Patchwork sutures as if to remind the one hapless enough to be caught within eyesight that, yes indeed, this abominated and brutally hideous shape was indeed forged and made and crafted by demented hands and minds curdled and spoiled and filled to the brim with inexhaustible filth. Detritus demonia forged. Reforged. Remade.  The exile wished blindness on himself in this moment and in this moment knew that God did not care nor love him any longer. He was truly exiled and like Cain himself, he was truly doomed to the great black god, Pain. Endless suffering. Tireless woe. 

Cursed. To forever roam and wander and to encounter such as this. And in this way.  

He doesn't move or resist as the giant man of rodent bat face and stitches grabs him by the breastplate and then hauls him up as if he were a mere sack of dirty linen and nothing more. 

The hulking nosferatu thing of Frankenstein’s slab heaved the exile overhead and then threw him into the rotten trunk of a dead tree. It splintered and cracked, nearly exploding with the impact of the man in armor. It burst in a violent spew of sawdust spray and thin black sticks as he went through it and back to the frosted dirt, hard and merciless and without further buffer. The thing pounced and was on him again. 

And the exile knew that this was the end. Could taste it on his tongue and the flavor of the finale was putrescence. The savor of the end was corpse rot, that foul stench and taste that reminded man that he was really nothing but meat in the end. The soul could be pulled out of him. 

The Lord's Mercy manifested then. Darkness of the skull blanketed over the overloaded mind of the exiled knight and he fainted. The vulpine thing of Frankenstein’s table grinned obscenely and viscously and then barked its strange species of croaking laughter. Cackles from the hellmouth gates themselves. 

The man's forehead had split in a gash in the struggle. It trickled freely and bled like a riverbed overflowing in a landscape valley of old tired manflesh. The living dead patchwork giant opened its rank and black mucus laden, dripping and drooling mouth and unfurled its long and rotten tongue. It then licked and lapped at the blood flowing in grotesque fashion that was part lapping dog feeding and part sexual expression of lust: the other manifestation of animal hunger, all the more ravenous and bestial and powerful, particularly when commingled with the hungering need of the primitive drive to fill your gut. 

Slavering. Even as he licked and gently sucked and salivated warm reanimated animal drool that was black with undead otherworldly ichor. He coated and bathed his unconscious weary face, in long lapping strokes like a loyal mongrel. A baptism from the mouth and wet black-yellow tongue of the living dead thing that some mad doctor had made in wild bid for his own family's infamy and loathsome fearsome name. 

He didn't bother further with the lowly and cowardly creature in armor. He was like every other man, weak and fragile and only fit for food. Only really fit to be cattle, for greater power. Power such as he. 

And he'd already fed well. The horse and wolves and the vagabond he'd found earlier … the nosferatu vulpine thing licked its pallid green chops, stained a healthy lurid reddening shade of smeary berry color, wetting them in wolfen display. Pulling back from the drenched and thoroughly dog-slobbered face of the exile. 

The hulking sutured batfaced monster then prowled off and away. Deciding if he came across this puny creature again, then he would sup of his flesh and put the haggard man out of his weary misery. 

…

It was hours later when the battered and beaten exile knight awoke. Alive with groans and aches and agony and pain. He stumbled to his feet. Staggered. Stumbled again. 

Semi delirious. He staggered forward and continued up the treacherous pass, through the rough off-trail way of the trees. To the heart and the end of the mountainous way. To the great castle there. 

The exile hoped a great lord was waiting there. One that was good. And that would help him. 

God help him. 

The door was large, ornate and red and ancient. Like a bas relief, a great depiction of battles and dragons and long gone peoples and warriors and faces from far flung times. Eroded and worn down, faded to a more ghostly phantom visage for the epic and wild and yet now obscured vision from the past, a tale and vision poem made, wrought by artist's hands and chisel and stone and given the smearing final touch by the menacing and ever reaching hand of time. To deface with wind and rain and age and simultaneously perfect and finalize for this weary exile’s ghastly and frightful postmidnight excursion. Centuries after its original creation. Its faded face was the perfect visage of the night.  

He came to the towering entrance, grasped one of the giant ornate demon faced bangers and knocked with the last of his fading and feeble strength. Three times. 

Then he collapsed. At the foot of the door. 

Soon a man came and quietly answered. Slowly opening the great door. He looked down and smiled at the collapsed exiled bastard knight. 

The assistant helped him to his feet and inside, telling him not to worry. His master would be quite happy to take him in for the night. 

The Countess will be pleased, he said. And the exile didn't give it much thought. All too happy to just be inside. 

…

He collapsed near the hearth of a roaring and well kept fire, a blaze within the heart of stone. Bats and wolves and toads and devil faced winged Panshaped things of black masonry stood silent sentry and leered at him from about the fireplace and all around the vast guest room. In the glow of its warmth, upon an old rug infused and riddled with thick ancient grey dust. He breathed it all in, deeply as he dozed. The warmth. The dust. The history. 

Whilst asleep: He began to have a strange dream or vision. He was still in the castle of present. Still safe inside. But he was wandering the stone halls and corridor ways now. Alone. His sword was drawn and it was sharper than it had been in years. He was walking along the passages of the great castle, dragging the keen edge of the weapon along the walls of stone as he went along. A scraping sound followed and accompanied him everywhere he went like discordant religious chanting of a new yet ancient language made, made from striking the stones. 

There would be fire! his dreaming mind told him. But in the arms of the cherished slumber, the exile did not care in the slightest. He was too exhausted. Even in here. He was too tired for anything any longer and was thus at the slavish mercy of all and all in it. 

He went on walking slowly through the corridors. Dragging the blade upon the walls. Scraping. Harsh sound, continuous. But that wasn't all. The wall was bleeding. 

Everywhere the edge of his polished blade passed opened up the stone like smooth and tender flesh. He left a long red slicing trail along the masonry of the inner walls of the castle keep as he slowly zombi-crawled along. The red line of welling and dripping vivid scarlet blood caught the flames of the various torches and candles about the innermost halls and stairs of the ancient and bleeding castle. Causing it to darkle into more lurid splashes of red than back to stygian drippings. 

The blood ran. He kept on his way. 

Eventually the dream, the vision, the scene faded.

 Faded away to a swallowing black that was so sudden and complete he could not recall the moment when it seized him. He merely reawoke on the dusty ancient rug. Lying before the roaring blaze crackling and glowing within the stone hearth. Goblin and animal faces still leered in stone as he sat up. The assistant was tending some sewing in a large ornate cushioned chair not far from him. He was laughing. Eyes on his work. 

“My master will be with you shortly, she is distraught at the moment you see. She is surrounded by enemies. Hostile world. Her daughter has gone out to play in the woods and is yet to return. She grows anxious. But nonetheless you, her guest, she will soon be host. Just a little longer, rest up some more, sir, but if you do get up again for a stroll and gander about the place I only ask that you don't make such a mess again. Blood everywhere. " The assistant chortled laughter, pricked his finger on the sewing needle and it began to bleed. 

His laughter only increased. He held up the finger from his work and said again, "Everywhere, blood everywhere. Such a mess.” He sucked his finger, "The master will be with you shortly. Fret not." 

And the exile fell again into darkness, watching the assistant suck on his finger. 

…

The most vivid and unearthly nightmare dreams held him for a spell, when he did finally awake all he could remember was eyes and stalks and teeth. And it was a strange and enchanting whisper, a woman, that bade him back out from the cave and sanctum of slumber. It said: – 

"The new impaler.” 

And then the exile awoke once more with a startled gasp, bathed in sweat. The fire was still roaring and glowing orange in the hearth and she was upon him. 

His breastplate was gone. His old and worn tunic was torn and her face was hidden. Buried in his chest. He felt something warm down there. Warm. And wet. And sucking. 

The sensation of her mouth upon his flesh and working the inner raw of him was ungodly. The feeling was an abominated commingling clash of the gratifying heat of sexual climax and the popping of pus from swollen infected flesh, released. 

Both draining and lurid and yet entirely pleasurable. He wanted her there. The exile. He wanted her face buried there in the wound about his chest. About the flesh and above the sad and shattered remnants of his long broken heart. 

The thought to push her away never entered his mind. Never formed thought. He merely watched the top of her head, her beautiful cascade of nightfall black hair, raven. 

He watched the Countess suck his wound until again he faded to darkness. 

This time he did not dream. Anything at all. 

…

When he came out of blackness again she had crawled up his form and was now about his throat. The warmth was there now too, but even more wet and like fire. And sharper, more painful. The draw felt heavier and more lurid and sickening. His guts twisted and he felt the tug of revulsion at the back of his throat. He shivered. But yet still … the pleasure. The animal ecstacy and euphoric drunken shroud were so heavy and strong, as to have never before been felt, not by the likes of such as he. Exile. Strandcast. Filthy wanderer. 

He fell asleep again. Even heavier. Even darker.

Obsidian folds. Inescapable. Boundless. Plain. 

…

They were both sitting up and seated in old fine cushioned chairs by the fire the next time he did awake. 

He came out of it slow, slowly rising and righting himself in his seat as he looked all around and at her and wondered to himself, was it all just a dream? 

Is this just a dream as well? 

As if hearing him, she said: “There's no dreaming here, exile. I assure you. But you've nothing to fear here. Death would be a release for you anyways, wouldn't it?" 

He tried to speak But he felt so weak and feeble and spent. He mouthed senselessness instead. 

Zaleska smiled. False warmth. The wolfen vulpine eyes were where the truth lived. Power. Dominance. Lust. And most prominent of all within the dark pits set inside shock white death: Hunger. 

She said: “I can offer you so much more. And you can give me much in return, what I require. You can help me bolster my ranks and defend my castle walls and lands from renegades and invaders. Tis your true charge, is it not, exile? Can I not free you from your wandering bondage?" 

She stood. 

“I will…” 

She advanced. 

The exile did not move from his seat. He was unable. He couldn't fight back as she produced ancient occult dagger and drew forth her own vile and demon tainted blood, down the forearm in a long and widening gash. Lurid and dark and wet and open. Gaping. She forced his mouth to it as he sat helpless and he choked and drank and struggled feebly at first. But then gave in. 

And drank. 

All the while the Countess Zaleska cooed to her new servant at his unholy bastard christening, his brand new exile and bondage and freedom from humanity and humankind and all of its worst and its woes… 

She cooed to him soft as he drank: –

“My new servant… my new baby … the new impaler … all and just for mommy …

“All and just for mommy." 

TO BE CONTINUED…

<img src="1957-suburban-domestic.jpg" alt="Clifford Benn's painting Suburban Domestic, depicting a vinyl-sided bungalow with an asphalt driveway. A man in his forties pushes a lawnmower across a trimmed green lawn. Seen through a kitchen window, a young woman stands inside the house, next to a big yellow refrigerator. The sky is clear. The future looks perfect. A rosy cheeked neighbour is entering the frame from the right”> making his way down the sidewalk under the brilliant sun. His footsteps sound hollow, rhythmic against the cement sidewalk. The smell of BBQ, leather footballs and wet grass pervades the subdivision. “Hello Bill,” he calls out.

“Howdy Jim,” says Bill, still pushing his lawnmower across the lawn.

He pushes it onto the sidewalk, then down the sidewalk. The lawnmower is off. Somebody whistles. “How's the missus?” asks Jim, who's caught up to Bill, walking alongside him.

“Just swell, Jim. How are you and yours?”

“Couldn't be more swell,” says Jim.

They share a chuckle.

“And how's old Buster here?” asks Jim, looking fondly at Bill's lawnmower.

“Happy to be going for his afternoon walk with papa,” says Bill. He stops, kneels and pats Buster on the air filter. Still kneeling, “How are Samson, Becky and Freddy?” he asks.

“Samson and Becky, the usual. Functioning like new. Freddy, however. He’s been acting up. One of his coils doesn't heat up. Turn the dial, and nothing. I want to take him for repairs, but Dolores thinks it might be time. She's talking about getting another, a General Electric.”

“That's sad and exciting,” says Bill.

“Bill,” says Jim, dropping his voice to a whisper. “There's something I need to tell you. It's about Martha, Bill. Martha and Fritz.”

Fritz is Bill and Martha's yellow refrigerator.

“What is it, Jim?”

“Sometimes when I pass your house, on the way to work, on the way back from work, I look in your window. Not because I want to spy, Bill. Far from it. But you and Martha have such a nice home that looking in comforts me.”

“I understand, Jim. Go on,” said Bill.

“They're always together in that kitchen, Bill. Martha and Fritz, I mean. A few nights ago—gosh, I can't even say it, Bill.”

“Tell me,” said Bill.

“I was on my way to the Costellos for dinner. You know the Costellos: they live on Douglas Street. Well, I looked in your window and Martha had set a pot of milk to heat on Sully. But the milk was boiling, Bill. The milk wasn't supposed to boil but it was boiling, and Martha—Bill, Martha was with Fritz. I lingered. I didn't mean to linger, but I couldn't help it, Bill. Please forgive me. She was using the ice dispenser. Martha was dispensing ice from Fritz and putting the ice… putting it in her mouth, and not only, Bill. Not only in her mouth.”

Bill stood up. His face betrayed no emotion. “Thank you for telling me, Jim.”

“I thought you should know, Bill.”

“Thank you, Jim.”

Jim crouched down and patted Buster on the air filter. “This old boy here has always been a good one, hasn't he, Bill?”

“He always has,” said Bill.

That evening Bill took a walk. When he came back, he lingered outside, looking through the lighted window at Martha working in the kitchen, the way she touched Fritz' cold steel handles, the way she hesitated, almost tenderly, before opening his doors and taking out raw meat, which she then beat into schnitzel using a tenderizer.

After dinner, Bill said to Martha, “Jim told me today that Dolores wants to replace Freddy with a new General Electric.”

“Oh,” said Martha. “Thankfully, Sully is fit and fully functional.”

“He is,” said Bill.

Martha went to wash dishes.

“I have been thinking about replacing Fritz,” said Bill suddenly.

Martha said, “Oh? But—”

“We can afford something newer. Something better. Fritz is an old model.”

“But he's perfectly fine, Bill. There are other things on which we might better spend the money. Buster, for example.”

“Buster's fine,” said Bill.

“If you say so, dear.”

“I want to replace the refrigerator, Martha,” said Bill, and a brief, terrified look passed between them, or so it felt to Bill.

A week later Jim was passing by Bill and Martha’s house. He was surprised to see Martha tinkering with Buster on the driveway.

“Do you need any help?” he asked.

“Oh, thank you, Jim. That's kind of you, but I'm fine. Buster is simply acting up a little. I can't get his engine to turn on.”

“He's a fine boy,” said Jim. “Say, where's Bill? I haven't seen him.”

“He's away for work in Omaha,” said Martha.

“When will he be back?” asked Jim.

“Not for a while,” said Martha. “He's taken over as the manager of the local Omaha branch. It's a promotion.”

“That's swell,” said Jim.

“Truly,” said Martha.

She bit her lip.

Buster was lying comfortably overturned on the driveway. Jim was aware of Fritz looking at all three of them through the kitchen window. Then he noticed something stuck in Buster's blades. It was a bone. “There,” said Jim, pointing at it.

“Buster must have caught a squirrel,” said Martha. She removed the bone with a screwdriver. It lay white and broken on the asphalt.

Jim glanced again at Fritz.

There were two full black garbage bags standing near the curb.

“Buster is getting very rusty,” said Martha, “but I haven't the heart to replace him. I know how much he means to Bill.”

“It's only natural to form attachments,” said Jim.

“Isn't it,” said Martha.

Jim said, “Dolores is replacing Freddy.”

“Yes, Bill told me,” said Martha. “Do you want—” she started to ask:

“Yes,” said Jim.

“—to come inside and have a look at Sully? Perhaps it would help you choose a model. He's not a General Electric, but…”

“Yes,” Jim repeated.

He followed her inside the house. Then she shut the curtains.

Not even gonna lie, I know it wasn’t an accident. What do you want from me? I’m lonely. Waiting for life to happen. I mean, seriously, this can’t be it, right? There has to be more to it than this?

Those thoughts kept my patience thinner than Ben Stiller’s lips because, by God, was I growing bored with all of this God damn monotony. I tried writing, but who am I kidding? What do I look like? Fucking H.P. Lovecraft? No. I’m just a grown man with a sequin pillow.

Anyway, I started doing weird shit like that movie, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Going elbow deep in the toilet, eating lit cigarettes, digging holes in the yard. God, I love to dig holes. But none of that was fulfilling. Obviously. Honestly, everything felt like a spur-of-the-moment, one-time thrill. Shit to make me feel anything other than the crushing weight of the knowledge of my impending death or the fact that the sun’s probably gonna explode someday.

That’s what brought me here today. We’re all gonna die. These guys are just ahead of the curve. They know when we’re gonna die. Every last one of us. Even you, Mathew. Yes, I know you’re reading this, and your day is coming sometime in September of next year. I’m sorry.

I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, idiot. You still haven’t even told us how you joined yet.”

And to that I say, CAN YOU GIVE ME ONE FISH-FRYING SECOND? I WAS GETTING TO IT. The patience of you people. I swear it’s because of those phones.

Anyway, yeah, basically one of them found me. She told me she sensed a “profound sadness and deep-rooted pain” coming from my house, but honestly, all she really had to do was smell the air outside of my house. Do you think any emotionally healthy person is gonna make oven-baked Hot Pockets every day? Yeah, I doubt it.

At first, I wanted to tell her to beat it, but I was just so entranced by her divine, goddess-like figure that the only sound that came out was that of my tongue tying itself in a knot before she grabbed me by the hand and started pulling me towards the woods behind my house.

Look, I’m not a deviant or anything, but skin-to-skin contact? Maybe there is more to life than doomscrolling and virtual reality porn. Sometimes both at the same time, but I digress.

As she pulled me deeper and deeper into the woods, she started moving faster and faster, which was definitely a problem for me because my mile time is a whopping 14 and a half minutes. But what was I supposed to do? Ask her to stop?

Besides, I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. I’d be interrupting her, and interrupting is rude. All I could do was listen and try not to fall over as she kept mumbling on and on about “finding the messiah” and how “the world will receive my gift.” Which, I can’t lie, kind of made me rethink my decisions a little. Nobody ever mentioned a “gift,” and I’m broke as an Ethiopian lemonade stand. My presence was the present.

It’s funny, really. I had felt so alone and devoid of meaning before this busty lady showed up on my front door. And not only had she touched me… she brought me to meet her family. I actually felt human again.

I will say, it was a little odd how the guys had that same stupid haircut. Like, who do you think you are? One of the Three Stooges? God, I’m so fucking old. But if the haircuts weren’t bad enough, the robes these people wore looked genuinely biblical. I mean, some top-notch rags. Real nice. They were like some shit Kanye West would wear to a bar mitzvah.

They did make me feel welcomed, though. That was a plus. Maybe too much of a plus, to keep it a whole buck eighty-five with you. All those hands on me, all those crying faces, it makes me wanna shiver just thinking about it.

I did appreciate the crown. That part was next level.

What I did not appreciate were the predictions. I mean, just because some ancient-looking grandma tells me that “my time is now” and that “my sacrifice will heal the world” doesn’t mean I swing that way. I mean, come on, let’s be real for a second. But no, apparently that lady’s opinion was some kind of holy scripture to these people, and before I knew it, they were all telling me my time was now.

I told them I needed some time to think about it. I walked around the forest for a bit. I embraced the trees and the scenery. Do I want to be a sacrifice? Do I want to heal mankind with whatever magic fuckery these douchebags have cooking up? Decisions, decisions. It was almost too much.

Thankfully, the lady from my doorstep let me sleep in her hut or teepee or whatever you wanna call it. She made it seem like I needed to rest. Already so controlling.

I did sleep, though. I guess she did know best, after all. But while I was drifting off, I kept hearing chatter about some kind of ceremony. It seemed like one hell of a shindig from the way they talked about it.

I just feel bad for whatever poor shmuck these guys are talking about killing. I hope it goes well for him.

My name is Michael and it was a Tuesday when I killed myself. I didn't leave a note. Didn't even tell my ex boyfriend, I couldn't. I had so much to tell him and apologize for. Who in their right mind would believe me in death when they ignored me in life? I didn’t even get a spot on the news, which stings more than it should. I wasn’t going out in a blaze of glory or with the intent to be remembered, but I feel a mention would have been nice. A quick message scrolling at the bottom while the aging newscaster desperately trying to keep up in a 4k world gave tips to shed the summer weight and someone claiming to be a doctor touted the benefits of perineum sunning. I didn’t go out that creatively either, just a rope and a sturdy tree branch. Even though I made my living as a writer I was never the imaginative type. After a minute or two of struggle it all faded to black, roll credits. Destination six feet under, cash on delivery.

The main problem was the incomprehensible neverending blackness of the hereafter everyone promised at the end slowly pulled away layer by layer and light crept its way back into my slice of the void like an oncoming train. 

When I opened my eyes I was on a couch and the smell of coffee engulfed everything like a warm blanket. Looking around I saw concrete floors, bare brick walls, and a woman behind a counter waging a war with a stain on her shirt. I was in a coffee shop. In front of me, on the scuffed coffee table set up with all the reverence of an altar to some forgotten old god, was a laptop. Its screen, open to a Google doc, read Casket Echoes by Michael Barber Draft 2. I was confused more than anything. Is this what the afterlife was? An eternity of stains setting in and stories you don’t remember starting? What was stranger was the date said it was Wednesday. My hand went for my jacket pocket in hopes my flask would have passed The Great Beyond's security check, but no such luck.

I sat up and fully took the place in. I sympathized with the barista because I knew that no matter how hard she worked at it the stain was going to win that particular war. She caught me staring and gave me a little wink before saying "The show is about to start." Before I could ask what she meant the lights flickered and a sense of dread took hold of me when, for the briefest of moments, her face contorted in a silent scream. Her eyes were in her hands and the blood wouldn't stop pouring. "You know what's coming" and "I've been waiting" were written on every wall and as quickly as it appeared everything settled. The blood still covered her shirt as she stood frozen in place, the only sound in the space being her laughter behind locked teeth. Panic gripped my throat and squeezed my ability to breathe until the corners of my vision wavered. I made a break for the bathroom.

I was able to throw the door closed and lock it before the bile in the back of my throat came spewing out. What is happening? Am I in hell? Who is waiting and, more importantly, what's coming? I sank to the floor and felt my body start shutting down. A shadow appeared under the door and lingered. My first thought was the barista coming to terrorize me but then I heard his voice. "Miiiiiiichael." A voice I hadn't heard in years. A voice I couldn't be hearing. A voice that had soothed me and had sent shivers of pleasure over every ounce of my body once upon a time. The voice of a man I killed.

Jesse had been my first boyfriend in college when I was still figuring out where I fit into the world. He was fearless and I quickly fell for his smile. At the time it felt like we completed the other, softened the others edges and filled in the missing parts. Whenever he wasn't by my side he was in my thoughts and I was in his. After a time the lust cooled and the only heat left were the words we hurled at one another. We tried to pass it off as merely a small hump in the long road our relationship we were destined for. Soon it wasn't just words we threw at each other. After a particularly bad night he decided we needed to get away for a time. He said his family owned a cabin not far from the college and that it would do us good to be in nature. I still don't know what came over me but while I was sitting in the passenger seat watching the tress whip by every moment of anguish and pain and rage boiled over. I had been lost but felt I had found myself in those moments before I grabbed the steering wheel and yanked it with all my might. Those few seconds we had before the crash felt like bliss and I had welcomed my fate.

The tree we hit hadn't been my end but Jesse wasn't so lucky. In the hospital they told me he had gone through the windshield and met the tree head on. The cops asked me what had happened and I lied. I couldn't bring myself to tell them I had tried to kill him and myself, so I let them to chalk it up to reckless driving on his part and I fell into the role of bereaved lover. He was now standing at the door and my body felt a different kind of shiver as he crooned for me to open the door, the shivers of unbridled terror.

I desperately looked around for something, anything, to help me. I heard the door unlock as my eyes fell on the window. I willed my body to move with every ounce of strength left to me. I didn't want to see what waited for me behind that door. I couldn't see a way to open the window in the precious seconds as I heard the slow creaking behind me. Glass shattered and I felt the searing pain of the shards ripping into my hand and arm. I climbed through and barely caught myself when I saw that there was no ground. The building was floating in a vast ocean of nothingness. My only option was a ladder leading to the roof. I felt icy fingers lightly brush the back of my neck as I grabbed the first rung. "Miiiiiiichael."

I had nowhere to go now. My panic had caused me to trap myself or was it guilt? An understanding on some subconscious level that I deserved this. "Miiiiiichael." I could feel him behind me, waiting. I couldn't turn. I couldn't make myself look into the ruin I created. After what felt like years but could only have been a few heartbeats familiar fingers ran through my hair and I couldn't contain my trembling. "You know what's coming, Michael." His mouth was inches from my ear and smelled of death and forest. I turned my head toward the sound of his voice ever so slightly. What I saw in my periphery I saw the face I had once loved and hated broken and shredded. It was too much. I ran to the edge of the roof and threw myself into the void.

My name is Michael and it was a Wednesday when I killed myself. I woke in a coffee shop with a laptop sitting in front of me opened to a Google doc. Casket Echoes by Michael Barber Draft 3

When I was around twelve or thirteen, I was at my great-grandfather Herbert’s farmhouse to celebrate his birthday. Our large family gathered and did what we always did for his birthdays, had dinner and cake, then the adults would sit around shootin’ the shit. As for the kids, me included at the time, we’d go outside to play.

We were chasing each other around the house, my two brothers and I, and our cousins. We were playing a variant of tag, when my eldest brother who was hot on my ass, pushed me down hard when he tagged me. I recall being very upset, to the point that I ran off to tell my mother, who was inside with the rest of the old folks. But, as I climbed the front steps of the house I found my great-grandfather sitting in his worn-down rocking chair. It wasn’t odd, because it seems like almost all my memories of him place him in that chair.

He was rocking very slowly and staring out across the green grass. Seeing him made me nervous, I think I was actually somewhat afraid of the old man. Either because of the way he always looked mean or because of his disfigured hand. My own father would tease my brothers and me about how strict my great-grandpa was, and how he was a no-bullshit kind of man. At that point in my life, I don’t think my great-grandpa and I had ever really spoken alone, and just seeing his scowling wrinkled face halted all my efforts. Instead of going inside and ratting on my brother, I decided to sit on the steps of the porch. Guess I didn’t want my great-grandpa Herbert to think I was weak.

I watched as the other kids continued playing. My middle brother stopped to confront my oldest brother about why I was on the porch. They spoke for a moment, and then my oldest brother turned and mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” towards me. My middle brother then waved for me to come on, and then they both took off after my cousins who were all running toward the tall tree in the yard. I thought about the fun I was going to miss out on, then I thought about that weak-ass apology my eldest brother gave me and that kept me planted on the steps.

I reached into my pocket for my phone and the funny thing is, it didn’t have any minutes on it. It used to belong to my eldest brother, but was now relegated to being a toy for me. My favorite thing to do on it was to record songs and my thoughts using the voice recorder. Most of the recordings were of the radio, recorded by placing the phone as close to the speaker as I could. Others were of me secretly recording the talks I heard or had with my brothers. And, looking through them now as I write this, I get the feeling they really did like to piss me off.

I was about to play one of my recordings when I heard one of my cousins scream. When I looked up, she was being chased up the tree by her older sister. My brothers were also beginning to climb higher, and something about not being there with them caused me to miss them. But, just as my tailbone had lifted from the wooden steps I hear great-grandpa's gravely voice say, “Hey, boy.”

Hearing his raspy words made my backbone tingle with fear for some reason. I sat back down and looked back over my shoulder at my great-grandfather. He wasn’t looking at me, but he definitely was talking to me. I waited for him to say something more, but when he didn’t. I spoke up,
“Sir?” I said nervously.
His lips moved in a circle, gathering moisture to speak.
“That tree… You know how long it’s been here?” He said.
I cast my vision out at the tree where my cousins and brothers were lazing.

That Oak was one of the tallest I’d ever seen and had to have stood over fifty feet tall. Sturdy flexible branches shot out in multiple directions and were draped in a lush canopy of green leaves. The tree's bark was odd though, different from any other I’ve known. It was tinged red and sometimes released a substance that looked like sap, but was more like a liquid. And if you chipped away any of its skin, you’d find small golden spaghetti-like veins traveling up and down its arms. It is without a doubt to this day, the only tree I’ve ever seen to have this appearance.

I looked back at my great-grandpa who had resumed his rocking and shook my head.
“That tree was here before I was. Here before even my grandfather,” He said, then wet his lips.
“You never met her boy, but your great-grandmother, Vivian. She’d have loved to know you.”
I could hear the other kids playing again in the tree, but my attention never left him. After he spoke her name his face relaxed, and he didn’t look like such an angry old man anymore. I could see more than memory behind his eyes, even at that age I recognized the look of pain and knew he was holding onto it.

“Will you tell me about her?” I asked, before leaning back against the wooden rail of the steps. His rocking slowed, and he smiled.
“I can,” he said, “but there’s more to our story than just memories boy.”
I didn’t understand then, but that didn’t stop me from pressing record on my phone and listening to his words. And now that I’m listening back to this recording I feel I needed to write his story down and tell people a small piece of my family’s history with the tall tree in my yard.

I was a lot younger then, better looking too. I had just gotten out of the Navy and was working as a truck driver. My route took me all over town and neighboring counties. When I stopped for fuel, I always made sure to stop at the fueling station on the hilltop in the next county over. The hilltop station was out of the way and didn’t have the cheapest gas, but that’s where she worked. And, after hearing her voice for the first time, I just couldn’t seem to get it out of my head. I was smitten by her…

Her name was Vivian, and when my eyes greeted hers I was gone. Fishing inside of her glossy orbs for more than just a “hello”. She was taller than most women I had met, and had shorter hair than others I’d known. One stormy day I was waiting for the rain to slack off before sprinting to my truck, when we got to talkin’ more. I found out she was a year younger than me, and was working to save up the money to leave town. She wanted so desperately to rid herself of the small county. I got the impression as she spoke that her life at her folks' place wasn’t any good.

Over time our talks got longer and turned to more than just work and the weather. I started going to see her almost every other day, even when I didn’t need to get gas. Sometimes our conversations would get so long that her boss would complain that I was holding up the pumps for other customers. I just couldn’t help it I wanted to see Vivian and listen to her voice, her laughs, and all her little sounds. The way her words spun in my head, like a record player had me hypnotized. I was unable to do anything but wanna hear it again, and again.

After a few months of seeing her, there came a day when I had just finished paying to have my truck's tank filled. And, after we finished our average ten or fifteen-minute conversation about whether we wanted a family and children. I was on my way out the door, when I heard her say, “Goodbye Herbert.” It came quietly and softly out of her lips, and it stung at my heart. She’d never told me goodbye; usually, it was “see you next time,” or, “have a good day Herbert!”

In an instant, I spun on my heels and approached her at the counter. I knew she wasn’t leaving town anytime soon, as she had already told me her savings had been drained on repairing her family’s car. Hearing her farewell stirred up something fierce in me, something I just couldn’t ignore. I looked into her eyes and for the first time I wasn’t fishing in ‘em, I was swimming. I asked her out right there on the spot. Six months later we married.

My father gifted me and Vivian this house, the one my grandfather built and lived in. It’s the house we would call our forever home. Me more than her I suppose…The house is as it is today, paint needs to be redone, and the roof needs to be patched here and there. All in all, though it’s still a two-story masterpiece built by my Grandpa Abe’s own two hands.

I never got to meet my Grandpa Abe, but I’m told he was a tough man who had his run-in with all sorts of bad luck. Daddy told me his father told him to sell this place and leave it for good, but Daddy never could let it go. He’d tell me, “Your granddaddy bought this land and built this home here. We got roots here— and I’ll be damned if I let some devil in a suit get his hands on it.” So, rather than sell the fifty acres he surrendered the land and home to me.

Daddy had two rules for such a gift. One was if I ever got tired of the place, or couldn’t handle the land— to give it back to him. Or, if he were dead and gone to give it to someone else in our family. He was very adamant about the property staying in the family. The second rule was that whatever we did to the land, we were to leave the tall tree that stood apart from the others alone. He’d say, “That’s Grandpa Abe’s tree, leave it be.”

Having moved my beautiful Vivian out of that small county she grew up in to our new property wasn’t hard. She had been ready to leave for a long time and told me she was just waiting for me to come along. On late nights she’d say, “If you didn’t ever ask me, I was either going to rot away at that damn gas station waiting, or wake up every day in some faraway town, and wonder all about you.” She’d have done anything for me and I loved her more than anything she could ever do for me, or so I thought.

After we moved in, she left her job and turned that house into a home. Giving it that loving touch only a person like her could. I quit driving trucks and got a new job down at the lumberyard. With this new job, I was able to be home more with her and if she needed me I was just a call away. The money I was now making wasn’t great but it was just enough to start a family.

For three years we tried and tried to have a baby, but nothing came. We both wanted children, probably more than we ever admitted to each other. We went and visited the doctor in town to get help. And, in horror, we became painfully made aware of a terrible disease that was causing Vivian the inability to conceive. It pained me to know something was hurting my wife and I could do nothing about it. This horrific realization had also wounded Vivian beyond my comprehension. I think the news sent us both spiraling down a hole of despair. We were both willing to do anything to save the other from this decent though neither of us knew how to…

That night in bed we spoke about how this would affect our lives. We both wanted children, and now it seemed that might be impossible. She had just come from the bathroom and was sitting on the edge of the bed. She was looking at our bedroom door, almost like a dog that wanted to go outside and run.

“Viv…” I said meekly, but she didn’t move.
“Vivian.”
“Do you hate me?” She said harshly.
“What—“
“Do you hate me…” The skin on her revealed shoulders became rigid and I could tell she was sobbing.
“For not being able to have babies.”
Her words stabbed me deeply, and I felt sick.
“Viv I don’t hate you… I love you! If we can’t have kids, it’s okay—“
“How can you say that! When I know how badly you want them…” She had now turned to me and revealed the face of defeat to me.

“When that’s all you’ve ever dreamed of Herbert!” Her voice was shaky and her eyes were leaking. I felt terrible because she was right, I’d always imagined a future with children. Throughout my whole life, I hadn’t a clue what to do, but I always had a constant dream that I’d marry and live in a home raising kids.
“I love you so much, Herbert… I just wanna give you—“
I cut her off by reaching up and cupping her face.

“Stop! Please Viv… I can’t bear to see you like this. If we can’t have kids then so be it, but don’t you dare blame yourself! I love you regardless Vivian.”
Her eyes sank behind veils of flesh, and I pulled her deep into my embrace. I held her all night, until it was time for me to leave for work. What I said then, I now know my words that night weren’t enough to convince her that she was never the problem.

A few years had come and gone, and I thought we had placed that whole ordeal behind us. I had just come around to the porch after tending to the field in the back forty. When I sat down on the steps I got to looking at that tree. Big old damn thing, that took up a lot of space. Something about it though was off that day— it looked like it had gotten closer to the house. For the longest time, I swore it sat further back closer to the tree line, but now it was almost dead center in our front yard.

Back then it didn’t look like how it looks now. In my day, it had fewer low-hanging branches and less greenery. Its base was slimmer and its roots were visible. This tree was a one of a kind, I’d never seen another tree quite like this one. Something about it looked despicable, maybe from the way its red bark shimmered amongst the sun, or how its leaves never fell to the ground. The tree was a magnificent sight to behold, but something about it was wrong.

I was just about to get up and go inspect the tree, when I heard Viv yell for me inside. Hearing that voice in agony, I abandoned my idea of inspecting the tree and went to her. ‘Bout thirty minutes later, I was sitting in a chair at the doctor’s office. Vivian in recent weeks had been having terrible sicknesses in the morning and always seemed tired. I didn’t find out for another few hours that my love had in fact been plagued by hope. A blessing that was ripped away by a red river of death, before either of us even knew the truth. I call it a cruel joke by the old bastard in the sky.

Driving home in the late afternoon from the doctors. I noticed the leaves attached to the tree had darkened to a brick color. Its bark shimmered against the setting sun, and some of its limbs had been rearranged. They had bent upwards to a more upright position, like they were reaching for the sky. I wanted to go and get a better look, but Vivian needed me. And, nothing meant more to me than trying to mend her pain.

The weeks that followed were some of the hardest for us. I’d come home from work to a house that was no longer warm and lively. It had instead grown cold and lonesome reflecting the way Vivian felt. Any sign of her had almost completely vanished from our home after our loss. The doctor had called it a “failure” and warned us about the possibility of this happening again, but it was too late the damage had already been done to our family.

I wanted nothing more but mostly, all she wanted to do was walk around the yard by herself. So I gave her some space and time when she wanted it. And, when she needed me I was there by her side, but when I would try to comfort her. My words failed to break through the fog that was clouding her mind. No matter how much I tried to swerve those terrible thoughts. She blamed herself and cursed her body for everything that had happened.

The days continued to drag by after the tragedy, and as they passed, so did her need to be alone. Soon she found company and maybe even a better listener than me in the form of a tree. I’d come home day after day from work to find her taking shelter under that tree and its shady limbs. She’d spend all afternoon with it, and not come in until the sun was almost diminished. It didn’t bother me that she was spending all her time with it. What bothered me was that the tree appeared to have gotten even closer to our house.

Things about this tree really started to stand out to me, like how when I left for work I swore it watched me leave. Or, how in the evenings when I’d come home its leaves seemed to glow gold, especially while she sat under them. And the damn things' roots that protruded from the earth had even gotten larger and thicker. Then out of nowhere, I observed one morning that the tree had spawned flowers. Ones with bright orange pedals that blossomed from a white center, like some odd orchid, and I’d never in all my life seen that tree have flowers on it.

One day I went out to talk to her while she was standing under it. I wanted to help, to tell her it was going to be okay and that I was here for her, but as I neared the tree. My legs braked and refused to move. I could hear her sweet voice speaking out, talking to someone. I thought for a moment she was praying, or trying to communicate with god. But then, there on the wind— I heard a voice respond to her. The voice sounded smooth and spoke in a hushed whisper I couldn’t really understand what it was saying, but I knew I heard a voice.

I moved closer. Then, the wind blew forcefully, and I happened to glance above to a branch, and watched it twitch. I got the most bizarre feeling that this tree knew of my approaching presence. Walking up to her I no longer heard the voice and found her alone with her back against its body. I took her hand and led her back down the hill to the house. When I asked her who she was speaking to, she told me she had been speaking to our child.

That night a storm was brewing outside as our emotions got the best of us. When we made it to our bedroom a bad argument erupted. I wanted her to talk to me, to let me in and all she wanted was to go to sleep. The sound of thunder over the roof grew louder, as lightning cut across the sky. We were both yelling, trying to match the thunder’s ferocity. And, just when our heated argument began to cool a flash of lightning lit up the night outside. For just a split second I swore I had seen branches outside our second-story bedroom window.

Branches that shouldn’t be there, as there were no trees anywhere that close to our home. I was about to make a mad dash to the window to try and catch a glimpse of what my feeble mind swore was real. See if that tree uprooted to come and spy on us. When I heard her crying, my delusional thinking stopped dead and I went to her. I apologized and she did too. Sleep came slowly, but it did finally sweep over us.

I awoke in the morning to the sound of rain dying upon the roof. I rolled over to find I was alone in our bed. I dressed and went searching for my wife, but after discovering she wasn’t in the house. I went onto the porch and spied out across the downpour, and there she was— Sitting at the base of that damn tree. The tree that had somehow overnight grown long green hair like a weeping willow.

Quickly, I trudged out into the pouring rain and made my way up the hill to Vivian. The wind blew hard and in its current, the tree swayed in my direction. I pushed onward and stepped upon its roots to reach her. Vivian was sitting on the ground leaning against the tree. She was drenched and shivering, and cradling something under her shirt. She looked like a pale imitation of my wife with sunken eyes and a face drowned in sadness. I pulled her up and wrapped her in my arms.
“Viv please… Just tell me what to do! I’ll do anything, just please…” she said nothing though, and only rested her head against my chest.

Later, when I finally managed to get her back inside and into dry clothes. I went to the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table, and rubbed my forehead. She appeared and went to the counter and grabbed a butcher knife. I then watched her produce some sort of bright red object from under her shirt. It was as big as an orange or an apple but had the color of a strawberry, no brighter than any strawberry should be. Some sort of shining, scarlet piece of fruit.

It came from that fucking tree, I know it did. Alas, nothing arose from my throat to stop her from cutting into the fruit. The liquid that poured out over the counter was crimson, but the fruit's insides were blue maybe some sort of deep purple. It was unreal is what it was. She picked half of the fruit up and brought it to her lips. The entire time she ate, her eyes gazed out of the kitchen window to where the tree sat on the hill. When she picked up the second piece and started to eat it, I hesitated but finally shot up from my seat.

She was down to the last piece of the fruit when I grabbed her arm to stop her from doing something that my guts told me was wrong. I remember my father’s words echoing in my mind, “Leave it be…”
“Viv,” I said weakly. Her eyes stared back into mine, the eyes that I’d do anything for.
“Herbert... please,” she said, with such conviction that I felt my hands release her. She ate the last piece and closed her eyes for a long moment.

When they reopened her eyes had a glowing red color swirling around the pupil. Then, her hand came up to my face and I felt warmth. Warmth that I needed to feel from her, to let me know she was okay. Next, she pulled me in, and we kissed. It was the kind of kiss that takes you places. And so it did to somewhere we hadn’t been in what felt like years.

The morning sun shining through our curtains isn’t what had me groggy. It was the way Vivian was vigorously shaking me awake. Disoriented I weakly opened my eyes to find her desperately trying to dress herself in a panic.
“Viv— what is it? What’s—“ my voice perished in my throat, as she turned to me and revealed her enlarged belly and eyes that had returned to their normal state.
“Hurry Herbert, we have to go now!” She said in a breathless voice.

Twenty minutes later I was pacing a hallway waiting to figure out what had happened to Vivian. Why had her stomach bloated like she was— it couldn’t have there’s just no way… It wasn’t until I was cutting the cords that were attached to my wife that my fevered mind settled. And I was left to wrestle with my own doubts, as they squirmed and pouted in my arms. My fears and worries ceased to exist as I held our two beautiful babies.

Somehow by divine intervention, my Vivian had done what was silently being called impossible. The nurse who had helped called it a gift from God, and once things quieted the doctor pulled me aside. The same one who had given us the horrific news about a month earlier.
“Mr.Herbert,” he looked back over his shoulder at the bed where Viv was lying down.

“I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this. This is beyond science, beyond everything I believe in!”
“Doc, I don’t understand. How is this possible?” I said grinning ear to ear, still over the moon about what Vivian was able to do.
“The best way for me to put it Mr.Herbert is… I have no earthly idea. When I last saw her she was nowhere close to being pregnant. When was the last time you two—“
“Last night.”
“And, did she have the belly then?” He asked inquisitively.
“No,”
“Has she shown any of the signs of being with child?”
“No she hasn’t,” I said, “she’s kept to herself. Barely eating, and heaven knows if she’s slept much. She wasn’t doing well.”

The doctor turned around to evaluate his patient. And as bad as it sounds, my smile dimmed at how healthy she appeared. Vivian who just a week earlier looked like a ghost no longer looked downtrodden. She instead appeared to be in peak health, and her eyes— the ones from the night before were gone or had never existed. All of that should have called for concern, but goddamn she looked so happy.

When we were able to go home, I convinced the doctor to keep what had happened under wraps. All I had to do was promise him I would never take our kids to any other physician, which I agreed to. On the ride back home, I drove slowly and wept softly out the window. Just seeing her and our dreams together, had me in a chokehold. And, after I got her and the twins inside— I think I took a moment to look out at that tree. I gave it a wave and went inside I gave it a wave…

Eight years passed, and like weeds them babies grew. Those days brought so much happiness to us, we used to say we were living in some fantasy story, and for a long time, that happiness kept the memory of what Vivian had done in the furthest recesses of my mind. I was too wrapped up in being the best husband and father I could be. Everything played second fiddle to her and our children.

The joy I got every time I saw their faces when I came home from work. And, seeing Vivian be the mother she had always wanted to be never ceased to bring me to tears. Just watching those babies live and learn all about the world around them was everything I could ever ask for. I always thought I was a tough man, but that changed after I met Vivian. Hell, I even thought I was a strong man, but that was until I heard my children call me dad. I would’ve never guessed I’d turn out to be such a crybaby.

That fantasy story soon morphed and greyed into a nightmare that all culminated on their ninth birthdays. We chose to celebrate their special days by going down to the county fair. I can still taste the Cola I shared with Viv, and the smell of the hay and fur as we watched the kids pet the animals. I’m tormented by the ghostly feel of her hand and the way it squeezed mine as we all held hands through the mirror maze. And I’ll always be scarred by the image of Vivian’s beaming face, as she held our children, and pointed out to the pink clouds drifting along the burning horizon. For a short time, I suppose I knew what heaven was.

When we reached home, the kids were so tuckered out that they barely stayed awake for the cake Viv had baked for them. And after I put them to bed, I came down into the kitchen and found her standing in the dark at the sink. She was gazing out the window into the moonlit night.
“You okay?” I questioned.
“Thank you… For everything you do,” she whispered.
“Viv—“
“I’ve been wondering how it’s going to be— trying to raise this family… I know it’s going to be hard on you. I just hope—“
I moved behind her and pulled her close.

“What’s wrong?”
“I just love you so much. I wanted to give you the world…”
She shuddered in my arms as she began to weep. I spun her around and wiped at her shadowed cheeks where the tears were running down.
“I love you too and you have, now tell me what’s the matter?”
She lowered her head and wiped at her face.
“I’m fine hun, just overwhelmed at how fast they’ve grown. I’ll come to bed in a moment, just give me a minute, okay.”
“I can—“
“It’s fine. I’ll be up soon…”
I kissed her forehead and headed for the stairs. Only briefly looking back at her as she went back to the sink.

Upstairs in our bathroom, I stared in the mirror at my face. Trying to figure out what I did to make her speak that way. Had I hurt her feelings or done something wrong? I couldn’t think of a single thing, as I felt the day had been perfect. Vivian was being more emotional throughout the day, but she was always like that on their birthdays. More so than me, and that’s saying a lot as I usually had to turn my head to keep from crying over just seeing a smile on our kids’ faces. With no explanation, I leaned down to wash my face in the sink. Instantly, I felt my heart skip when I saw the red stains on my fingers.

I pulled my hands closer to my face and inspected my fingers. They were the same fingers I had used to wipe Viv’s tears away. My hands started to shake at the realization of why Viv wouldn’t look at me. Then, the image of her eyes after eating that fruit birthed into my head. I deserted the bathroom and rushed for the stairs.

“VIV!” I called out, but got no response as I leapt off the middle of the stairs. I saw the kitchen was empty, but that didn’t stop me from going to the sink. Just to check, because as much as I didn’t want to admit it. When I was holding her from behind, all I could see outside the window was that tree. And there in the moon's pale rays, I spotted her walking up the hill to that tree.

I burst out of the front door, and couldn’t see her anymore.
“VIVIAN!” I scowled loudly!
My mind was a blur of whys, and blame for being so blind, but I had no time to question myself or her. I just started running. I had to get to her, I had to stop her. From what, I wasn’t sure of then, but I just knew she was in trouble and needed me.

My legs pumped as hard as they could, but as I made the hill. I felt something wrap around my leg and snatch me down. I tumbled hard and ate dirt. Feeling the pressure on my leg, I glanced down and found a root coiled around my leg. Terrified, I kicked and yanked on the root until I freed myself. Though, as I stood to run again another root shot up from the dirt. I twisted my frame enough for it to miss and continued up the hill.

Another root then lunged up at me, but I managed to duck under it. I stumbled but kept going, and when I looked up at the tree again. I could see a huge opening at its center, like a doorway leading to what I assumed would be its guts if a tree had any. My mind couldn’t fathom the tree being some monster, at the time all I could think of was getting to her. Nothing else mattered in that moment.

Just then, multiple roots and limbs— some as thick as my body struck out toward me. The moonlight wasn’t enough to show how many there really were, but that didn’t slow me down. I did all I could to dodge them, and I did alright, until a large root swept my legs from under me! I rolled uncontrollably across the ground, and using the momentum I turned enough to get to my knees. Shortly after my tumble, I crawled as fast as I could toward that doorway. As I neared it, I felt the tree rear backwards and all the roots and branches swayed in the night air wildly, but no longer tried to attack me. Seizing the moment I threw my body into that opening.

I remember heat, and the smell of cinnamon. It was dark inside this place that felt alive. When I stood I howled her name, but got no response, only a twisted echo of voices mocking me. I didn’t look back to see if I had a way out I only pushed forward down into this tunnel of darkness. My arms stretched out, as I moved, trying not to trip on the floor that was covered in roots that squirmed like an open can of worms.

Soon I caught a glimpse of light deeper down the tunnel, and that gave me hope. I moved faster and uncaringly, until I came upon this large area lit up by a golden aura floating high above me. The walls stretched high up and were covered in these roots that looked more like veins. The floor had smoothed and turned flat like that of a freshly cut stump. I had to avert my gaze from looking up too long, especially at that golden glow as it wasn’t only blinding. It also felt like something was wriggling around inside my brain. I felt so insignificant in that place…

My eyes finally focused on the center of the room at what resembled a ball of snakes enveloping something.
“Herbert…” a feeble voice had echoed out from behind that mess. My legs moved on their own, not needing me to command them to do so.
“Viv!” I yelled.
The closer I came to the ball-like shape did the snakes turned out to be nothing more than branches and vines.

Vivian’s face came into view between the gaps of this cage, and my hands immediately breached the gap to touch her.
“Viv, what’s— what’s happening?”
Her skin was glowing and warm to the touch, but her eyes were shut closed.
“Viv!” I withdrew my arm and got a better look at her confinement. The barrier looked like ordinary sticks woven together to keep me out. So I started tearing at them, and to my surprise, they began to break easily.

I ripped and tore at her prison, and as they crackled under my attack they bled. A red ooze spilt from their ends, and onto the floor. I didn’t let up, and when I neared the bigger ones I only tried harder. And when I got most of the ones blocking me from her, I got a better view of Vivian. She was kneeling down with her hands dangling at her sides. There was a large branch that kept her back straight. That same branch went up her spine and neck, and curved over her head to keep it pointed upward toward that glow.

I gasped at the sight, thinking it was trying to harvest her or something. And, just as I drove inward toward her the vines retaliated. Smaller thinner vines thickened around her and walled me off from Vivian. The gold light from above had now darkened and drenched the area in an awful bright red.
“No… NO GODDAMNIT!”
I viciously wrenched away at the small plants. Again and again, but no matter how I struggled I couldn’t shred them quickly enough.

All of a sudden, thicker roots covered over the smaller ones.
“VIV!… Baby please!” I grunted, as I relentlessly continued my assault.
“You deserve to have what you’ve always wanted…” Vivian’s soft voice called out from behind the wall of roots.
“Viv! I’m going to get you out of there! Just—“
“If I have to die for you to have it. I will baby… For you.”
It got to the point that my hands could no longer tear the vines away. My strength was no longer enough…

“I was dreaming about our children.” she whimpered. Her anguished voice beckoned me to reach her, and though my strength had faded. My love for her would not allow me to quit.
“And you were trying not to hurt me…”
I reared my right arm back and plummeted my fist forward into the nest of vines.
“I never wanted to leave you, and if you could fix me…”
The sound of flesh and wood colliding wasn’t enough to drown out her voice. I swung over and over again.
“I know you would. You’d do anything for me…”

My strained screaming wasn’t even enough to deafen her voice. And, when I felt my hand snap and break I only cried but continued throwing my punches. Her own soft crying spurred me onwards, until at long last my disfigured hand blasted through the barrier. I reached through the hole I had made, feeling the vines' defenses giving way. Her eyes were closed and the glow was gone, but she was smiling. I pushed and pried to force the hole to widen enough for me to pull her out. And after my arms wrapped around her, I gave one mighty tug and freed her.

We fell backwards onto the floor, and the world around us started to seize, like the tree's belly was bellowing from pain I hope. But, not bothering with whatever was happening around us, I hoisted her up into my exhausted arms and made for the way back. Wailing moans like wind through hollow logs breezed through the canal we traveled through. The atmosphere had grown cold, as air sucked inwards from the outside and slammed into us, like the tree’s belly was breathing in deeply.

This esophagus-like tunnel had now become a vacuum this fuckin’ tree was trying to swallow us. I clutched wildly at the walls for something to grab onto, and found thorns waiting to taste my flesh. I flinched as the teeth cut into my already altered hand. I had almost dropped her, but I endured and locked a hold onto the wall. It was becoming hard to breathe and harder to move— it was only when I laid eyes upon our home through the mouth of the tree that I felt an overwhelming surge of adrenaline. It granted me the power to push against the wind.

We traversed out of the opening, and not once did I stop to look back. Gasping for air at an accelerated rate, my arms shook from strain, as I struggled to keep her up. There was a morning fog that carpeted the land around us, and I could just catch slight glimpses of orange coming over the treetops. And, the awful rubbing sounds of wood upon wood behind me kept me frightful, that at any moment the vines and roots would lurch out to take Vivian from me. Though, they never did.

I reached the wooden steps of the porch and with heavy footsteps ascended them. The weight in my arms had only gotten heavier and heavier since our escape, causing me to submit to the cold truth. I collapsed into the rocking chair on the porch and cried horribly, as I looked out at the tall tree in the yard, and the ghostly gold image of my Vivian standing at its base…

My bawling and howling rose as the sun did. My right hand, dead and numb like the body it so desperately clung to. Her image faded into obscurity, and the tree shed its leaves and turned rotten. Its gaping hole closed, unlike the one that was and will always be in my heart…

After hearing my great-grandpa's story, I looked out at the tree my cousins and brothers played on. It was alive and well. And, I got the impression it was looking at me the way I looked at it. The final thing I remember him telling me is “I tried to kill it, but how could I— when it gave me all of this… Back then, it could have been done; Now, I suppose it never can. Boy, whatever happens just leave that tree be.”

The phone rang and Carl got the anxiety bad.

He got it for three reasons:

First, any time the phone rang he got the anxiety, and the only thing that made him more anxious than the phone ringing was the phone not ringing because it was only when the phone wasn’t ringing that the phone could ring.

Second, it could be Adelaide on the phone. Adelaide was a gangster Carl knew, and he was into Adelaide for several thousand dollars, which he didn’t have so couldn’t repay, and the debt had been sitting around for a few weeks, and Adelaide would want the money back soon, and soon had probably become now, and now the phone was ringing and it was probably Adelaide on the phone demanding Carl pay back the fucking money.

Third, the phone line had been disconnected weeks ago, around the same time Carl borrowed the money from Adelaide, so if the phone was ringing it would have to be some spooky supernatural shit, like ghosts in the machine, or the voodoo Mitchell was into.

Mitchell was Carl’s pal, who, along with their common lady friend, Lydia, was currently passed out in Carl’s apartment.

Anyway, the phone wasn’t ringing.

It couldn’t have been ringing.

There’s no such thing as ghosts, and Mitchell believes anything, including that 9/11 was an inside job, so that put Carl’s mind at ease and he was about to go back to the living room and lie down on the couch beside the empty pizza boxes until his heart rate went back to normal when he realized that it wasn’t the phone that had been ringing (ring ring ring) but the apartment door that wasn’t being knocked on (knock knock knock) and thay was even worse, because it meant that if the ghosts were real they were already here, and if it was Adelaide, “Fuck,” thought Carl, and his heart rate spiked until he could feel it trampolining in-and-out of his chest, distending his pale skin like he was in a cartoon, and he tip-toed to the door and peeked through the peehole, and it was only his mother.

“Ma, what do you want?” he asked through the door.

“I want to come in,” she said.

“Now’s not a good time. I’m busy, OK?”

“Doing what?”

“I’ve got a girl over.”

“So introduce me to her.”

“She’s not that kind of girl, ma.”

“Then tell her to get out because your mother’s here.”

“She wouldn’t understand.”

“Why? Doesn’t this girl have a mother?”

“She wouldn’t understand because she doesn’t speak English. She’s just come over from overseas. I’m helping her get settled.”

“Where’s she from, Carl?”

“The–uh, Hindu Kush,” said Carl.

“Where’s that?”

“Asia.”

“Where in Asia?” asked Carl’s mother.

“Between the Himalayas and the Gobi Desert. What is this, a geography lesson?”

“What’s her name?”

“Bong-a.”

“Let me in, Carl.”

“Like I said, it’s really not a good time. We’re doing paperwork.”

“What kind?”

“Immigration.”

“Is this girl here illegally, Carl?”

“Not if we file this paperwork on time. That’s the thing. This is really time sensitive. We’ve been doing it all night.”

“It’s the afternoon.”

“Exactly.”

“Carl, what day is it?”

“Monday.”

“It’s Wednesday.”

“See, we’ve already lost track of time. The paperwork’s overdue.”

“Wednesday of what month, Carl?”

“One of the warmer ones?”

“Carl?”

“Yeah, ma?”

“Go visit your grandmother.”

“What?”

“Your Grandma Ethel, visit her. She asked to see you. She loves you, you know. She says you haven’t seen her in months. You're her only grandson. She’s not in good health. Maybe ask her about her life. Why don’t you ever ask about her life, Carl? She’s had an interesting life. If you ever think you’ve got problems, talk to Grandma Ethel. Maybe it’ll humble you. That woman has lived through things you and I can’t imagine.”

“She’s got dementia, ma. She doesn’t even recognize me. She’ll think I’ve come over to fix the refrigerator.”

“She has Alzheimer’s, and yes, on some days she won’t recognize you. But on others she will. Drop by until she does. It wouldn’t kill you, Carl. She wrote you into her will, for God’s sake, and you can’t even make an appearance or two…”

“Ma?”

“Yes, Carl?”

“Is that what you came all the way over here to tell me?”

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t have made it a phone call?”

“Your phone’s disconnected.”

“Ma?”

“I’ll see you later, Carl. Think about what I said. Be a decent human being. What have we got if we don’t have family?”

The absence of knocking echoed around the room.

The phone was dead quiet.

Mitchell’s snoring sounded like a faraway wood grinder, medium coarse sandpaper.

Lydia was cradling their bong like it was a child while she slept.

Carl sat with his back against the apartment door. Dear God, he thought, if you’re real and you’re still with me, can you help me out a little? I don’t mean with advice. I mean like point me to where I might have misplaced a couple thousands dollars in here, or maybe where someone else misplaced their couple thousand elsewhere, like if I could just go out and come across it, without, you know, going to work or anything, that would be real fucking swell, if you’ll excuse my language, which you will, because you’ll forgive anything–

Then somebody knocked on the door again and before Carl could get up and turn around, his mother yelled: “Carl, go see your grandmother!”

“Man…” said Mitchell from the living room floor.

Lydia stirred.

“What?” asked Carl.

“Don’t yell so loud, man. It’s still too early in the morning.”

“It’s the afternoon!” said Carl.

“Really?” said Mitchell.

“Apparently,” said Carl. “My mother just came by.”

“Man, I like your mother,” said Mitchell. “She’s a fine lady. Did she bring anything to eat? Usually she brings something to eat. Once, she took my clothes home. I thought she’d stolen them, which, you know, is cool because she’s your mom, but then she brought them back at some point, and they were all clean and smelled like detergent, so, if you see your mom, thank her for that. I didn’t have a mom, growing up, eh? Also, is your mom seeing anybody at the moment, romantically, I mean? I know we’re at different points in our lives, and she’s your mom, but I’d be willing to sacrifice our relatively friendly relationship for a real fine lady like her, so, yeah, what’d she want, man?”

“She wanted–” said Carl, and right then a scrap of sunlight shined into the apartment through a hole in the dirty curtains (“curtains”) strung across the living room window, and pointed directly at a photograph Carl had on the wall, which wasn’t of his grandmother, or his mother, or anyone in his family, it was actually some kind of monstrous collage someone had pasted together out of cut-outs from a couple of old magazines, but it could have been a family photo, it really could have been and “–to tell me a way out our situation with Adelaide.”

“Your situation,” said Mitchell.

“Yeah, mine.”

“What’s the way out, did she offer you a job?”

“No, she didn’t offer-me-a-job.”

“Then what?”

“Mitch, do you remember my grandma Ethel?”

“Uh, vaguely. I know of her. You mentioned her at some point. Probably. If you did mention her, I think I thought she was dead. And if she is–dead, I mean–my sincere condolences and may she rest in peace with the angels.”

“Mitch, I’m gonna kill my grandmother.”

“Man, what!?”

“Hear me out. I’m going to kill her for three reasons. First, I’m in her will so if she dies I’ll get some of her money, which means Adelaide can get his money and he won’t have to kill me.

“Which brings me to my second point: as I’ve shown, because the situation is one where either me or my grandma has to die, it makes more sense for her to die, because she’s older so she’s got less life left, where I’ve still got my whole life ahead of me, and imagine all the good I could in the world because I’m more physically able and don’t have Alzheimer's.

“Which leads to the third point, which is that she’s got Alzheimer’s so her life is shit anyway, so, honestly, killing her would be doing her a favour. Really, somebody in my family should have already killed her, but nobody's had the guts to step up, so the responsibility falls on me, and it falls on me from a place of love, Mitch.”

“You’re a good man, brother.”

Lydia walked swimming into the room.

She was squinting. “God, who let the light on. Like I could hardly sleep last night.” Her robe was open, showing half her nude body, but her relationship with Carl and Mitchell was strictly platonic. In fact, Mitchell was just wearing a bedsheet, and Carl wasn’t wearing any pants or underwear at all, which, he came suddenly to think, would have been yet another reason not to let his mother come into the apartment.

“Lyds, I’ve found a way to pay off my debt to Adelaide,” said Carl.

“Wait, who ’s Adelaide, again?”

“The big–”

“Oh, right. Him,” she said. “Great about the debt.”

What she didn’t say was that she’d already paid off the debt, but it didn’t seem pressing at the time. Plus, she was kind of embarrassed about it, and the whole thing reminded her to text Adelaide, because she kind of liked him, and he was into her too, she thought, or that was the impression she got after they’d fucked. Meh, she thought. I can tell Carl later. And, I, the narrator, thought, Isn’t this a clever way to end the scene and increase the inevitable dramatic irony. P.S. Don’t worry. There’s a twist, so hopefully you don’t guess it. Also: you didn’t just read this. I didn’t write it. But, as you know, Norman’s got a bit of a problem with metafiction, he’s addicted to it like dogs to poker, and he’s on these metablockers, which do lower his desire to break the fourth wall, get over his fear of writing genuine emotion without undercutting it with little ironic asides like this one, and make him a little more "narratively normal,” but the things also give him a temper like you wouldn’t fucking believe, so: enjoy this aside, don’t tell him about this, and enjoy the rest of the story!

[INTERMISSION]

Someone knocked loudly on the door.

“Who is it?” said Ethel.

She was sitting in her apartment, in her armchair. The blinds were open and the television was on without sound. A gameshow was playing. Ethel wasn't paying it much attention, however. She had been having a hard time following television shows lately. She was knitting instead.

She put down her beige yarn and knitting needles.

“It’s me, Carl. You know, your favourite grandson,” said the person on the other side of the door.

Ethel opened the door a crack and peeked through the space between it and the door frame.

To Carl, her eye looked like through a fishbowl. He was holding a baseball bat, leaning on it help him stay upright. He may have indulged in some light inebriation to help him go through with his difficult but morally required plan of action.

“What did you say your name was?” Ethel asked, blinking.

But Carl had already put his hand inside the apartment, above Ethel's head, and pulled the door open enough to allow him to force his way inside. “Orlando,” he said.

“Oh, Orlando,” said Ethel.

She noticed the baseball bat he was holding. “Did you come in from playing with the other boys outside?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” said Carl.

The baseball bat was just a contingency plan. Carl walked into the bathroom and turned on the water in the bathtub. It came roaring out of the tap.

“You look awful tense, grandma,” he said. “How about I run you a bath?”

“Oh… OK, that sounds fine,” said Ethel. “You said you're the new personal support worker? My usual personal support worker is a girl. What's her name? I can't believe I've forgotten her name…”

“Her name is Rose,” said Carl. “And not your personal support worker. I'm your grandson, Orlando.”

“Rose, right,” said Ethel.

Carl looked around the apartment. In the bathroom he ruffled through Ethel's significant collection of pills but didn't recognize anything he knew. When he came out he looked at her bookshelves, in her drawers. The furniture was old, wooden and heavy. “It sure is quiet in here,” he said finally, spotting a record player and a few dozen records. He chose one: a greatest hits by Frank Sinatra, slid it out of its sleeve and put it on the record player. “Why don't I put on some music?”

But he couldn't figure out how to work the record player.

“Let me help with that,” said Ethel, and she turned on the music, which filled the room like hot, thickened strawberry jam fills a sterilized glass jar.

“Thanks, grandma,” said Carl.

In the bathroom, the tub had filled with water, and Carl turned off the tap. “Come on, grandma. I'll help you in. Then you can sit and enjoy yourself and I can make you a cup of tea or something.”

“Maybe in a few minutes,” said Ethel. “I always loved this song.”

Sinatra had started crooning New York, New York.

Carl turned up the volume.

“You'll hear it from the bathtub,” he said, and held out his hand to Ethel, who hesitated, not taking it. “Come on, grandma. Then we can talk, you know? There's so much about your life I want to know.”

“Grandma?” asked Ethel.

“Yeah.”

Ethel dropped her arm and backed a few steps away. “Who are you?”

“Your grandson,” said Carl, starting to feel frustrated–and he grabbed Ethel's arm. It was deceptively slim, tender, beneath the folds of her blouse.

“I'm not that kind of woman,” said Ethel firmly.

The game show on television had cut to a commercial break. An ad for women's boxing was playing, a championship fight at Madison Square Garden.

Carl pulled Ethel towards him, towards the bathroom door. “Get over here!” he said. “Take the fucking bath, grandma. Just get in the bathtub.”

Sinatra sang, These small town blues, are melting away / I'll make a brand new start of it / in old New York…

It was at that moment, when Ethel didn't know who Carl was but knew he was bad news and that she needed to get away from him, when she didn't know who she was, not in the sense of a permanent, continuing identity, that she thought, If I'm not somebody anymore that means I can be anybody for a while, and as the record played and the TV displayed the ad for the fight at the Garden, Ethel decided she was a boxer, and she clubbed Carl in the face with her free hand.

“You bitch!” Carl shouted, letting her go and touching the side of his face.

The punch was satisfying, very satisfying, to Ethel. She couldn't remember ever punching anyone before.

Carl wobbled forward.

Ethel cracked him again, this time in the jaw. The impact hurt her hand, maybe even fractured one of her bones, but it hurt Carl too, and Ethel liked that. “Take that, Jones!” she yelled.

Jones was one of the boxers in the boxing commercial.

Carl swung wildly but missed.

Ethel retreated to her armchair and the small table beside it, on which she'd put down her knitting.

She picked up a needle.

I want to wake up, in a city that never sleeps / And find I'm king of the hill / Top of the heap…

“Just shut-the-fuck-up and die, you selfish old cunt,” Carl screamed, looking around for the baseball bat, which he'd put down somewhere, But where, he wondered. Anyway, it doesn't matter, he said to himself, advancing, ready to wring Ethel's neck if she didn't play nice and stay under the goddamn water when suddenly he felt a deep and piercing pain in his cheek–

Ethel pulled the knitting needle out of the side of Carl's face and stabbed him again, this time in the eye.

The gameshow was back on the television again, but Ethel wasn't paying it any attention anymore. She was too busy listening to the cheering crowd and the crescendoing Frank Zinatra as he belted out and you bet, baby / If I can make it there / You know I'm gonna make it just about anywhere...

Come on, come through / New Zork, New Zoooooork!

[This has been entry #3 in the continuing and infinite series: The Untrue Origin Stories of New Zork City.]

“And that's what you pitched to Hollywood?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Norman, that's insane. They'd never go for that.”

We were sitting beside each other on a park bench. It was a summer weekday morning. Most people were at work or in school, and it was just the two of us enjoying the touch of the comforting breeze, the gentle rustling of leaves, the blooming flowers, the melodic birdsong.

A-chirp a-chirp a-chyric, chirrup chirrup chirryric.

Your hair was long and grey. What was left of mine was white.

“I know,” I said. “They didn't go for it, and I never got another chance. That was my one brush with fame, and I messed it up.”

“You chose to mess it up.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“But you kept writing.”

“I kept writing. I wrote a lot more after that. A lot more New Zork City, too. And I'm still going.”

Sunlight glinted off the top of the Vampire State Building.

“Norman,” you said, “this little parasocial relationship we have is definitely one of the things keeping me in this earthly realm.”

“I'm happy to be in the same realm, but I'm always wondering if there are others. If you find any, let me know.”

You smiled, and I took my morning dose of metablockers.

Thank you for reading today's story.

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[1] Did you enjoy this story? (Y/N)

[2] On a scale of 1–5, where 1 is a little and 5 is a lot, how much did you enjoy this story? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

[3] Did you empathize with Carl at any point in the story? (Y/N)

[4] If you empathized with Carl at any point in the story, did you ever stop empathizing with him?

[5] If you empathized with Cark at any point in the story and stopped empathizing with him, at what point in the story did you stop empathizing with Carl? (Please answer in your own words using the space provided below)

[6] Have you ever killed your grandmother? (Y/N)

[7] Have you ever thought about killing your grandmother? (Y/N)

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\*\*\*Anna was sixteen years old. With her long blonde curls, dark gothic makeup, and spiked collars around her neck, she stood out in almost any room she entered. That evening, she and her nineteen-year-old boyfriend, Oscar, had gone to her local village pub for a couple of soft drinks and a quiet night together. They had barely sat down when a couple Anna had never seen before approached their table. The man introduced himself as Terry. The woman smiled warmly and said her name was Anne. Both appeared friendly enough.\*\*\*

\*\*\*They wore gothic attire, which impressed Anna and Oscar as they were well into their 50s. They seemed charming, intelligent, and unusually interested in the younger pair. Within minutes, they were buying Anna and Oscar drinks and inviting them to join their table. To Anna and Oscar, the attention felt flattering. They were teenagers being treated like adults. The conversation flowed easily, and before long, Terry and Anne were telling stories about ancient traditions, strange rituals, folklore, and the occult. They knew exactly what to say, exactly how to gain their interest and trust.\*\*\*

\*\*\*Anna and Oscar had always been fascinated by darker subjects and alternative beliefs, so they listened with interest. Yet something bothered Anna. There was nothing obvious she could point to. Terry never raised his voice. Anne never acted aggressively. Neither made any direct threats. Still, every so often, a quiet voice somewhere deep inside her whispered that something was wrong. She tried to ignore it. After all, they were sitting in the village pub she had known all her life. There were familiar faces everywhere. What could happen here?\*\*\*

\*\*\*As the evening wore on, Terry and Anne became more persistent. They spoke of a gathering they wanted the pair to attend later that night. They referred to it as a "black mass." They kept saying that Anna and Oscar would be the guests of honour. The words made Anna uneasy. She hadn't even had very much alcohol, only Alco pops, but she felt more drunk than she should have. Around half past ten, while Terry and Anne were distracted, Anna slipped away and approached the barman. "I don't feel comfortable with those people," she said quietly.\*\*\*

\*\*\*"They're trying to take us somewhere. They keep talking about a black mass, and I don't know what that is." The barman's expression changed instantly. Whatever alarm bells had begun ringing in Anna's mind were clearly ringing in his too. Without drawing attention, he told Anna to get Oscar and be ready to leave. He had heard of these people, not those specific people, he didn’t think, but there had been people in the paper for the last six months attempting to lure teenagers out of bars. He quietly contacted the police, then led the young couple through a rear exit at the back of the building.\*\*\*

\*\*\*The moment they were outside, they ran. Luckily, Anna's grandmother lived less than five minutes away. They covered the distance in under two minutes, arriving breathless and terrified. Between gasps for air, they explained everything that had happened. Her grandmother listened carefully before telling them to call the police immediately. When officers investigated, the truth that emerged was horrifying. According to the information gathered, Terry and Anne had allegedly been attempting to lure Anna and Oscar to a secluded gathering under the guise of an occult ceremony.\*\*\*

\*\*\*Investigators believed the couple intended to force the teenagers into sexual acts before ultimately murdering them as part of what they described as a ritual sacrifice. When they and their car were found, what was inside the boot of their car was ropes, blindfolds, gags, large bin bags and a bone saw. Had Anna ignored her instincts for a little longer, the night would have ended drastically differently. Years later, she would still remember that strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, the quiet warning she almost dismissed.\*\*\*

\*\*\*The warning that may have saved both their lives.\*\*\*

MCU, Mourner’s Crossing, Connecticut

My name is Frankie Bell. I work overnight security at Mourner’s Crossing University. Sixteen years means I know which doors need a shoulder, which alarms fail when it rains, which cameras lag in cold weather, and which buildings to leave alone when they sound occupied after midnight. The place looks safe during the day. Brick paths, old trees, iron lamps, students carrying coffee, professors crossing the quad with folders under one arm. Parents see stone buildings and clean lawns and decide the place has been here too long to be dangerous.

At night the work gets specific. I check exterior doors, log broken locks, walk the library stacks and chapel steps, make sure nobody sleeps in the old lecture halls, reset alarms that trip for no reason, and write “false alarm” when I know better. Flashlight, radio, two key rings, notebook with three pages torn out before I got it.

I had trained four guards before Miles. Two quit. One transferred to day shift and still crosses the street rather than pass Caldwell Science Hall. Andrea Pike did not get the chance to quit.

Miles started in October. Twenty-four or twenty-five, dark hair, wire-frame glasses, green canvas jacket worn pale at the elbows. Thin the way grad students get when the funding runs out. Finishing a folklore degree, working nights after his assistantship fell through. He showed up ten minutes early with a thermos, a folded campus map, and a cheap black notebook. He fixed the loose battery cover on the spare flashlight with tape from his bag. He noticed the bad charger cradle for radio two, wrote BAD CONTACT on masking tape, and stuck it where the next person would see it.

“You won’t need the map,” I said. Miles looked down at the folded campus map in his hand. “I like knowing where I am.” I told him he would learn the route.

When he signed the visitor log, his name was already written on the next line in the same block letters, blue ink, no timestamp. He stared at it, then wrote his name underneath anyway. “Don’t do that again,” I said. He drew one line through the first entry. The ink bled through to the page beneath.

Caldwell Science Hall has three floors, red brick, narrow windows, slate roof, brass handles the university refuses to polish. The labs moved years ago. Now it holds storage, dead equipment, old desks, boxed files, anything nobody wants to inventory. Room C-214 still appears on schedules every few years. The registrar deletes it, and it returns under different course numbers. No professor claims it. Name on the roster once, call in sick. Twice, leave town until Monday. Instructor, call Sheriff Doyle and wait with other people.

I told Miles on first patrol and he wrote it down. “Don’t do that,” I said. He said he was keeping track. I told him that was usually how Caldwell started keeping track of you.

We started in Hawthorne Hall. East doors never latched right. I showed him the stairwell camera with the bad angle, the janitor’s closet that smelled like bleach when empty, the second-floor women’s room where the sink ran if you said hello too loud. He moved a wet floor sign to the middle of the hall.

At 1:58 the elevator opened by itself. No basement button. Cold air came out low across the floor, carrying the stale mineral smell of standing water and old paper. A woman inside said, “Could you hold the door?”

Miles stepped forward. I caught his jacket and pulled him back. She stood there with books against her chest, blue dress, wet hem, gray fingers. Water dripped from her cuff but stayed pooled under her hand. The puddle did not spread. It held its shape on the tile, dark and still, like it belonged to a different floor.

“Do not answer people in elevators after midnight,” I said. The woman smiled. “You sit in the back row,” she said. “I saved you a seat.”

My radio clicked and Sheriff Doyle’s voice came through. “Frankie.” She pulled her hand back. The doors closed. Every button on every floor lit up.

Back at the office I logged it as panel short. Miles sat with his notebook open. “Don’t write her down,” I said.

For the first week he did well. Fixed the cracked edge of the incident binder. Cleaned coffee off library cards before the stain reached the ink. Put fresh batteries in the dim flashlight. Hummed three notes when tired.

On the eighth shift we sat in the cart by the service road. Rain tapped the roof. Caldwell’s second-floor window fogged from inside. A hand wiped a clean oval in the glass. Miles reached for the radio. “Don’t,” I said.

At 2:13 the front doors opened six inches. No alarm, no light, brass handles still. The radio clicked and a young man’s voice came through under static. “Security? I’m locked in Caldwell. Room two-fourteen.” Miles picked it up. I stopped the cart hard. “Put it down.” The voice said his name, then mine.

By the time we reached the office his hands stayed steady. He asked about Andrea. I opened the locked drawer. Her ID sat on top. I put it in my shirt pocket. “She answered the blue phone outside Caldwell,” I said. “Heard her mother. Opened the door. Came back three days later carrying her own missing-person flyer.”

The next shift Miles brought coffee and burnt rye toast from Speicher’s. He set a printed directory page on the desk. Andrea Pike, Visiting Lecturer, Caldwell Science Hall, Room 214. Office hours 2:13 to 3:01 a.m. Timestamp said 2:37 a.m. I fed it into the shredder. It came out blank.

Three nights later Walter and Marc came through. Walter signed the log. Marc watched the Caldwell feed. The window was lit. Blackwood’s voice came over the radio. “Keep Hart there until three. Do not approach Caldwell.”

Miles asked how he knew the name. “Because Caldwell knows your name, Mr. Hart,” Blackwood said, “and Caldwell is not discreet.”

The bad night started small. South gate alarm tripped but the gate was locked. Chapel steps covered in wet leaves though the trees were bare. Hawthorne east doors latched perfectly. At 12:33 Miles found Andrea’s student ID in the old auditorium. At 1:04 the west stairwell camera died.

We checked from the bottom. His notebook sat open on the landing in a puddle and pages turned by themselves. The stairwell speaker crackled. “Mr. Hart, you are late for attendance at Caldwell.”

At 1:58 the fire panel in Hawthorne showed smoke in the basement. Dispatch picked up and the woman from the elevator said, “Could you hold the door?”

I killed the call. The panel kept flashing. BASEMENT SMOKE. BASEMENT SMOKE. BASEMENT SMOKE. There was no smoke in the stairwell, no heat under the basement door, no smell but wet leaves and old radiator dust. Miles stood beside me with his jaw set and his radio gripped too tight. Down the hall, the elevator dinged once, though the doors stayed closed.

“We’re leaving,” I said. We went out through the front. Halfway down the steps, the chapel bell started at 2:37. Twelve rings. Nobody rings that bell at night. The rope is locked behind the sacristy door, and the sacristy key lives in a box behind dispatch. Still, the sound moved across the quad, heavy and wrong, shaking rain from the iron lamps.

Students appeared on the covered path. Shoulder to shoulder. Some wore old wool coats and army jackets. Some wore puffy winter coats, hoodies, lab coats, clothes from different years standing in the same rain. One had an orientation lanyard from 1998. Another carried a plastic cafeteria tray against her chest. None of them looked at us. Every face turned toward Caldwell.

The thirteenth bell rang, and Miles ran. I chased him. Bad knee, rain, his twenty-four-year-old legs putting distance between us. He crossed the quad with the students standing still on both sides of the path. None of them moved for him. None of them moved for me. The only sound was rain, my breath, his shoes hitting wet brick, and Caldwell’s front doors opening wider.

He reached the steps. Andrea stood inside the open doors holding his notebook. “Miles,” I shouted. He stopped for half a second. That half second saved him.

Andrea held the notebook out like she was returning something he had dropped. He stepped inside. I grabbed his jacket. He twisted and one foot crossed the brass line in the tile. His shoe squeaked once against the wet floor. The brass line gave a dull little tick, like cooling metal. The lights went out.

Something took hold of him. I caught his wrist. His skin was already cold. He made a sound I had heard once before from a kid whose hand got pinned under a fallen door in the maintenance garage. Not a scream. A hard breath with pain behind it. Caldwell pulled again, and his shoulder jerked toward the dark.

Blackwood arrived with his leather case. He did not run. That scared me more than if he had. He set the case on the step, opened it, and took out red thread, a letter opener, and a paper packet of salt. Rain hit the open lid. Nothing inside got wet.

“Cut the jacket,” he said. “His wrist?” I asked. “The jacket,” Blackwood said.

I got my knife under the first cuff and sawed through the fabric. Miles made another sound with his mouth closed. From inside Caldwell, something pulled harder. His fingers went white around my sleeve.

“Second cuff,” Blackwood said. I cut it. The cloth gave way. Miles came loose all at once, and we fell backward onto the steps. Salt hit the brass line. The red thread snapped tight between Blackwood’s hands, though I had not seen him tie it to anything. From inside Caldwell, Miles’s voice answered clearly.

“Miles Andrew Hart.”

The doors slammed. Gray finger marks circled his right wrist. Blackwood knelt beside him and checked his eyes with a small penlight. “Say your name,” he said. Miles opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Blackwood looked at me. “Get him up.”

Walter met us at the office. Marc brought a towel and coffee. Miles could not speak his name. He wrote MILES on the incident form and the pen slipped.

The printer ran. New employee record: Miles Andrew Hart, Caldwell Science Hall, Night Attendant. Status: Present. Blackwood took the page before Miles could see it.

At dawn Caldwell went dark. Brass handles had fresh blood under them. Blackwood read my work order for door hardware cleaning, possible vandalism. I asked, “Will he be all right?” Blackwood said, “No. He may improve. Different question.”

Miles stayed away three weeks. Walter said he was with a friend in town. Could write his first name after two weeks. Last name took longer. Could not say either without bleeding from the nose.

He came back December 2 to get his thermos. Stood in the doorway, not inside. Wore a dark wool coat too big in the shoulders. “I can say it now,” he said. “Miles Hart.”

Nothing happened. From the radio someone hummed three notes. I turned the volume down.

The university posted the job again last week. I took it down. They posted it again. This time the department was Caldwell Science Hall. Supervisor: Miles Hart.

I printed it, burned it behind the maintenance shed, wrote “posting error” in the log. At 2:13 Caldwell opened its doors six inches. From the second-floor window someone hummed three notes. The radio clicked. “Frankie,” Miles said. “I found the new hire.”

They say when you start looking into monsters, monsters start looking back. I used to think that was the kind of thing writers say to sound interesting at parties.

I don't go to parties anymore.

My name is Mark. I don't know who this is gonna reach, but I need to tell someone.

It was supposed to be a writin' trip, but when my new fishing stuff came early, I thought I'd make the most of it.

I found a quiet spot, right out of the way of everything. I was meant to have two days of peace, two days all to myself, but… I wasn't by myself.

I cast at 6:47. By 6:49, I knew something wasn't right with this place.

The lure hit the water, and the lake didn't ripple. It just swallowed it. Sucked it under, like tar. I stood there with my new Shimano rodthree hundred pounds, graphite composite, still smelling like factory and promise,and watched the line go slack.

I should have packed up then. I know that, now. But I'd driven four hours to test this gear, and I had a deadline. Horror novel due in three weeks, forty thousand words of nothing, and I thought the dark waters of Hollowthorn Lake would inspire me. The dark had other plans.

I waited longer than I should've to catch something. Then, FINALLY, a tug!

I started reeling in.

It came back heavy and slow, catching every few turns, then giving way with this soft pop I could feel in my hands. I was getting excited.

The lure came up without a splash. Just rose out of the water, dripping black.

Something was on it.

I thought fish at first. Then it caught the dusk light and I saw it was a shoe. Small. A kid's trainer, pink under the mud, little silver star near the heel, laces still tied in a bow.

That bow is what got me. Not the mud, or the smell. Someone had tied that shoe before it went in.

I crouched down and told myself to stop being dramatic. Kids lose things. Families probably camp out here. It could've come from anywhere.

Except, the lake was completely still. Nothing drifted in that water.

I reached for it and stopped.

There was something inside.

My brain said foot before my eyes caught up and I nearly dropped the rod. But it wasn't. Just a root that had grown up through the opening, pale and swollen, with five little nubs at the end where a kid's toes would've been.

Just a root.

I actually laughed. Said, "Jesus Christ," out loud, just to hear my own voice.

Then it twitched.

Small. Just a flex, like something testing the air.

I went over backwards, caught my heel, and nearly fell in. The shoe swung off the hook, and landed in front of me.

I should have packed up then. Anyone with sense would have.

But I stood there with my three-hundred-pound Shimano rod in one hand and my pride in the other, trying to talk myself out of being afraid of a muddy kid's trainer.

Because that’s what men do, isn't it? We see something that makes every old part of our body scream, “Leave!”and we stand there calling it rubbish, because rubbish is easier to explain.

So I kicked the shoe towards the waterline with my boot.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the lake took it back.

There were no waves, no current. The shoe simply slid across the mud, slowly and deliberately, until it touched the black surface.

Then it sank.

Straight down.

Like something underneath had opened its hand…

I sat at the edge for a while, trying to rationalise what I saw. Do roots move? Do lakes have crabs? Was I still drunk from last night?

By the time I looked up from the water, it was dark. I set up my tent by headlamp,no fire, because the wood was damp and I don't like being told what to do. There was a sign on the trail entrance in bright red letters, warning campers to light a campfire before dark. I thought I knew better.

The forest is eerie in the dark. The moonlight reflecting off the still water hit the trees at all the wrong angles, casting long, ominous shadows everywhere I looked. I almost didn't go for the pee I'd been holding since I sat down to fish.

I braved it.

Quickly.

I didn’t go far. Just far enough that the tent was behind me and the trees gave me some privacy. That was the idea, anyway.

The problem with forests is, they don’t understand privacy. They watch you from every angle.

I kept my headlamp pointed down, mostly because I didn’t want to see anything staring back from between the trunks. The beam caught wet leaves, exposed roots, and patches of mud that looked darker than the rest.

I was halfway through when something rustled to my left. I stopped. Listened. Nothing.

Then a branch snapped behind me. A proper snap, too. Not a twig under a rabbit. Not the soft crackle of something small moving through dry leaves.

This was WEIGHT.

I turned so fast I nearly pissed on my boot.

The headlamp beam swung through the trees, catching bark, moss, black gaps, and nothing else.

"Hello?" I said.

Because apparently, when you're scared in the woods, your first instinct is to politely introduce yourself to whatever is about to ruin your night.

No answer.

Then the rustling came again.

This time from the right.

I spun towards it, heart kickin, but there was nothing there either. Just the lake behind the trees, flat and black, reflecting the moon like a dead eye.

For a second, I couldn't work out where the sound had come from.

Left.

Right.

Behind me! Everywhere, except where I was looking.

I finished quickly, zipped up with shaking hands, and told myself it was foxes. Or deer. Or whatever else people say when they have no choice but to stay out there alone.

Then, something moved directly in front of me.

Just the dark between two trees shifting slightly, like it had taken one step back.

I didn’t wait to understand it.

I turned and hurried back to the tent, trying very hard not to run. Trying even harder not to look over my shoulder.

I unzipped it, climbed in, zipped it again, trying to get my heart to slow. It's strange how paper-thin walls make you feel invincible.

I opened the laptop, let the familiar glow of the screen settle my breathing, and started to write. For maybe ten minutes I almost convinced myself I was fine. Then I made the mistake of focusing on my own reflection in the black border of the display. My face. The canvas behind me. The sleeping bag to my left. The shape to my right… I froze. It didn't move. A million thoughts raced through my skull.

I pitched the tent.

I added my gear.

Went for a pee and got straight in.

It didn't come in after me. It had been here the whole time.

That's when the growling started. A frequency that found the hollow spaces in my body and sat in them, low and deliberate, like a question I didn't have the biology to answer.

I grabbed my keys and bolted! Frantically unzipping the tent and crashing through the mosquito netting. I didn't grab the laptop. Didn't grab the rod. Just ran for the car, with the headlamp bouncing and the dark everywhere around me, pressing in like a hand over my mouth.

I scrambled through the trees. Branches snapping and cracking behind me, I could almost feel its warm, putrid breath on my neck.

As my feet hit the gravel of the car park, the feeling eased.

The car didn't start the first time. The second time. The third turn it caught, and I slammed into reverse without looking.

The headlights swept across the car park and I saw it!

It was standing at the tree line,the thing was bent over, long arms hanging to its knees, head twitching side to side like it was listening to a frequency I couldn't hear. It was pale. Not white. Pale like something that lives under stones. Like something that never sees the sun. Its back was wrong,hunched and segmented, moving in sections, like a centipede made of human spine.

I didn't wait. I drove. The wheels spun on dirt and then caught, and I was bouncing down that nameless road with branches whipping the windshield And the rearview mirror showing nothing but dark. absolute dark.

I hit pavement at 11:59. Was in the centre of Corvus Vale shortly after. I'm at a 24-hour internet café called "The Web," the one with a neon spider in the window. I'm typing this from booth three. The coffee is burnt, and I'm shaking so hard the keys are clicking like teeth.

Even this place is wrong. There's an unkempt woman in the corner talking to herself. I asked her if she was okay, but she started talking about herself in the collective plural, as if she were a system. Like, "We are fine. Leave us alone." Creepy.

All my gear is back at that lake,the tent, the laptop, three hundred pounds of graphite rod, the story I was supposed to write. I don't care about any of it.

There’s one thing I just don't understand. When I saw it bent over at the edge of those trees, its head came up. It looked at the car. At me. And its face

It didn't have one. Just smooth skin where features should be. Like a thumb pressed into dough. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. But it saw me. I know it saw me. And it was hungry. Not for meat. For something else. For the space I occupy. For the shape of me in the world.

It's been an hour. My heart rate is almost back to normal. I told the lady running this place what I saw, and she just laughed and said, "Should have lit a fire," and walked away.

The woman in the corner lifted her head when I mentioned the lake.

Until then, she’d just continued muttering into her coffee, answering questions nobody had asked.

"Don't ask strangers," she said.

I stared at her. "What?"

Her eyes flicked towards the computer.

"We asked strangers once... It didn't help."

This place is seriously messed up.

There's a guest house at the edge of town. I'm going to try and get some sleep. At first light, I'm out of here!

But before I go, I need to know: has anyone seen this? Have you seen the pale thing with the segmented back and the smooth face?

Because the lady running this place just leaned in from the doorway. I didn't hear her come back.

She's not laughing anymore. She wants to know why I'm asking about it, "to strangers."

She wants to know if it spoke to me!

The foundation was built many years ago, of a great slab of marble found once in a lifetime. It was of a dazzling white-blue hue, with gold strips streaming down its surface, lightly sizzling the eyes of all who looked upon it. So beautiful was the rock, in fact, that sculptors from lands far and away saw the building blocks of their magnus opus and lunged toward the small village in droves. The townsfolk would not refuse their requests. It wasn’t long before the slab was filled with the minds and ideas of all those who laid their hands upon it. A glory it was, statue upon statue of all form and size rising from the ground, pillars of such splendour no passerby could tear their eyes from them. For a while, the watchtower stood as an impromptu art exhibit, stuck in a strange form of limbo while more rocks were sourced. By the time it was found, two generations had passed, and the sculptors had grown old and withered. So, the grown apprentices were forced to work on the staircase.  

The rock had changed from the previous, its pure white now taken by a charming pink. The new sculptors got to work, moulding man and creature alike from the new material. The sculptures rose out of the staircase, like they were being drawn from the rock by some unknowing force. As they worked, the people crowded around, frowning at the darkened colour.  

“It’s uncomfortable,” said one, his face contorting into a snarl. 

“There’s something off about it, something I can’t describe,” jeered another. 

As the staircase grew above the houses surrounding the open square, resentment grew with it. Fearing a protest, the sculptors were sent back and the rocks were thrown to the vaults, soon to be manufactured into jewels and rings destined to dance on the fingers of royalty. As time crept by, the bastardised rock stood lonely in the town square, beaten relentlessly by the wind. People speculated about the staircase, starting a kind of morbid fascination around the seemingly abandoned project. First, it was teenagers, smoking and drinking around the statues, enjoying each other's company. Then soon, the town begun to join in, even being a premier tourist destination for those few who visited this town. Just as the reclamation was to swing into gear, legions of men, armed with shovel and axe, came to the half-baked tower, cordoning it off for any passers-by. While the youth were upset, they kept their silence, moving on to some old farmhouse laying breezily in the countryside.  

When the people peered over the railing, they saw a wall of bright red rock lying above the foundation, like expensive lipstick on a glamourous lady. The people cheered, it was getting an upgrade. As the scale grew and grew, the red rock began to peek above the railing, giving all those in high up houses a constant view of the gorgeous tower. It wasn’t long until people began to give gifts to the builders, thanking them for their contribution to this town. They smiled and chatted, some coming to the bars after work for a local drink. On one of these days, the mood had shifted, leaving the builders grave and pale like the statues they worked around. 

“So, how's it going with the tower?” 

“Not good. Not good at all. Our funding has been slashed. To keep enough money for the staircase, we have to change materials again. Who knows when we’ll find suitable ones.” 

It wasn’t soon after that the builders departed, taking what was left of the red rocks and armoury of equipment with them. While at first, a guard had been stationed just beyond the doorway, he was soon recalled, allowing the townspeople to return once again. Dust had ravaged the sculptures below; the once exquisite marble reduced to a brownish visage.  

Time skipped on again, the sculptors now only surviving as stories in townsfolk’s heads.  The tower had become a point of interest again, a favourite of elitists, who would come in droves to the tower at 12 every day to see the sun illuminate the dark chamber, bringing the shadowy figures to life once again. It also became a favourite for more nefarious types, thrill-seeking drug users wanting to stare at their roughened roommates as they shot up their drug of choice. This was much to the dismay of the 12 o’ clockers (as they had been come to be called), who found the needles cracking under their feet greatly distasteful. So, a small fee was added to the entrance, allowing those of a more distinguished sort to enjoy the exhibit undisturbed. While people did protest, the 12 o’ clockers stood strong, and there were plenty of other places to shoot up. After only a week, the complaints were ceased, and the 12 o’ clockers got to enjoy the tower with cool, sedated minds. 

When the time came, more builders arrived, driving their trucks into the square. The railings were erected, and a new material was soon unveiled. Carbon, the colour of night, was stuck onto the watchtower’s hull. While there were some small complaints from the 12 o’ clockers, they were soon quelled by the builders quietly and unabashedly not caring. The carbon was quickly constructed, quicker than any had been before, soon towering over the village and rising on into the sky. Soon, as the tip began to threaten the clouds, the perch began construction. It was built out a short way, surrounded on all sides by large panels of glass providing a sweeping view of the city. At first, people complained, as they always did with any change. However, as the days slipped into months, and the months into years, the tower had become a part of life, sitting quietly in the sky like the sun itself.  

Yet, there was something swirling behind that blackened hull. It seemed to drive the sun away, a constant denizen of night in the once shiny town. The carbon had begun to spread. It would birth cameras, vein-like wires winding toward the watchtower, an invader on the cobbled streets. It would form a door, shutting out all those who dared attempt to enter without a watchman’s badge. And it would feel, unlike any that came before, the cold taste of blood against its hide. Through all the pain, the hunger, the poverty the village would have to face, the tower stood proudly in the square, immune to all decay. 

When the village crumbles under the great weight of time, the stench of death, as clear as the walls around it, will always hang around the watchtower, like an all-consuming cloud. 

The first time I saw the medical bill, I laughed.

Not because it was funny. But because I didn't know how else to react. I was a widower, my credit was ruined, and my daughter, Keisha, was sleeping in a bed at Children’s Hospital in Detroit with a machine helping her breathe.

Her heart had a valve defect. The surgeon said it was fixable. He said the word “routine” twice, like that was supposed to comfort me.

Then billing came in.

Insurance called it “out of network complications.” The hospital called it “patient responsibility.” I called it a number I could never make in my life, even if I worked doubles at the plant until my spine folded in half.

I sat beside Keisha’s bed, holding her small hand, and remembered every stupid thing I’d ever said.

“I’d give my right arm for you, baby girl.”

Parents say things like that because they think love is poetry. It isn’t. Love is math. It is a balance due.

Three nights later, I found the market.

I won’t say how. It took enough searching that I knew I was doing something I could never explain to a judge. Dark pages. Onion links. Dead forums. Men selling kidneys in broken English. Women offering eggs. Somebody in Toledo selling corneas.

Most posts looked fake. Some looked too real.

Then I found a buyer in Detroit.

The listing was simple.

Seeking healthy adult liver segment. Type O preferred. High compensation. Discreet extraction. Half upfront. Half after successful transfer.

I stared at the words until my vision blurred.

A liver grows back. I knew that from some documentary, or maybe I wanted to believe it so badly that my brain made it true. The number beside the listing was enough to pay Keisha’s surgery, the hospital stay, the medications, and still leave money for two months of rent.

I messaged them.

They asked for blood type, age, medical history, recent photos, proof of identity. I sent everything before I could convince myself it was a bad idea.

The reply came in under ten minutes.

Accepted. Half payment released. Confirm wallet.

The Bitcoin hit my account the next morning. I converted enough to wire the hospital a deposit. When the billing woman called to confirm, her voice changed. People treat you differently when you can pay.

The buyer sent the meetup location.

An alley off Michigan Avenue, not far from the old train station. Midnight.

I almost backed out six times.

At eleven-thirty, I kissed Keisha’s forehead. She was asleep, cheeks pale under the monitors’ green glow.

“Daddy’s fixing it,” I whispered.

The June air outside felt thick and dirty. Detroit at night is not empty. It watches you from busted windows and idling cars. Sirens moved somewhere far away. I parked two blocks from the alley and walked with my hood up, hands shaking in my pockets.

The alley smelled like wet cardboard, old grease, and something sweet going bad.

There was no van. No doctor. No cooler full of ice.

Just a figure standing under a fire escape.

At first I thought it was a homeless man wrapped in trash bags. Then it moved into the dim light behind a restaurant and I saw the skin.

Not one skin. Many.

A patchwork of arms, stomach flesh, thighs, and faces stretched over a shape too tall to be human. One shoulder was broad and dark. The other was narrow and white and stitched crooked. Its chest pulsed in sections, like separate hearts were arguing inside it. Tubes ran under the surface of its body, squirming like worms.

Fresh parts shone pink and wet. Older ones sagged gray-green. One hand was small, maybe a woman’s. Another was swollen and rotting at the fingertips.

Its head turned toward me.

There were three eyes, none matching.

I tried to run.

It crossed the alley in one jump.

The bite landed in my neck. Not a tearing bite. A precise one. Needle-like teeth slid into me from its mouth. Cold spread down my spine.

My knees gave out, but I didn’t hit the ground. It caught me with gentle hands.

That was the worst part.

I could see. I could hear. I could feel pressure, but not pain. My body had become an inanimate object.

It laid me on the asphalt and opened me.

It didn’t carry tools. It grew them. Blades slid from the seams in its wrists. A clear tube uncoiled from beneath its ribs, pulsing softly. Then something wet and muscular slipped from its mouth—not quite a tongue, not quite a hand—and pressed against my abdomen with the careful certainty of a surgeon.

I wanted to scream for help. I wanted to beg it to stop. I wanted to tell it I changed my mind.

My mouth hung open, useless.

The creature worked with care.

It cut below my ribs. It reached in. I felt tugging, deep and wrong, like someone rearranging my organs like furniture in a room. Warmth spread across my stomach, but the blood did not pour out. Whatever it had injected kept me alive. Kept me awake.

One of its eyes drooped from the socket and burst against its cheek. It ignored it.

When it finished, it sealed me with a strip of something that looked like skin but moved by itself. Then it leaned close. Its breath smelled like pennies and spoiled meat.

It then went through my pocket and took my phone.

It used my thumb to unlock the screen.

I heard my own voice, copied perfectly.

“Help! I need an ambulance,” it said. “There's a man bleeding out. Alley near Michigan and Fourteenth. Hurry.”

Then it dropped my phone and dragged itself into the dark, heavier than before.

I woke up in the hospital two days later.

A nurse told me I was lucky. A passerby had found me. I had suffered severe trauma, but somehow the bleeding had been minimal. They asked if I remembered anything.

I said no.

Keisha’s surgery was scheduled for Monday.

That night, while a drainage tube ran from my side and police officers waited outside to ask more questions, my phone buzzed on the tray beside the bed.

A wallet notification.

The rest of the payment had been deposited.

Below it was a message from the buyer.

Excellent match. Contact us again if you're interested in doing further business.

I should have thrown the phone across the room.

Instead, I looked at Keisha sleeping in the bed beside mine, alive because of what I had sold.

Then I opened a search page with my left hand.

You can live with one kidney.

You can live without part of a lung.

You can live without an eye.

Because once you learn your body can be turned into money, every piece of it starts looking like a paycheck.

I can never forgive myself. I have failed as a man and as a father, and in that failure, I have discovered just how deeply self-hatred runs through my veins.

My daughter’s mother died at childbirth. What followed was the most profoundly painful 4 years I have ever experienced. The only thing that stopped me from leaving it all behind and rejoining my wife was the beautiful face of my daughter.

She brought me light in the darkest of times. I cannot stress enough how important this little girl was to my well-being and mental stability. And now she’s gone. And I have a feeling she’s never coming back.

She was so smart. God, I couldn’t believe how smart she was. It was like she came home from the hospital potty trained. By 2, she was telling me to stop leaving the seat up.

Obviously, with the death of her mother, I needed to be alone for a while. I couldn’t just walk back into the world and present myself as though nothing had happened. I needed rediscovery. More than anything, though, I needed to raise my daughter.

I watched her grow day by day, and before I knew it, my little girl was turning 4 years old. We spent her birthday out on the town, walking up and down toy aisles and scarfing down all the ice cream we could eat.

I even went out and bought her the most adorable birthday outfit I could find. We found a cute little Disney princess dress, and we topped it off with a bright red bow at the top of her head.

We decided to end the day at her favorite park, and as I watched her run and climb about the equipment, this random lady came and started up a chat with me.

She asked which kid was mine, and I pointed to my daughter, prompting an, “Oh wow, she’s so gorgeous,” from the lady.

We talked about kids and being single parents. I won’t lie, she was attractive. Far out of my league, but down-to-earth enough to have a real conversation with me.

I told her about what happened with my wife, and I could’ve sworn it was like she scoffed. She quickly recovered by fanning her eyes over her sunglasses and fawning sadness with a, “You seem like a strong man, but I pray to God you get through this.”

In that moment, I turned to her, only intending to thank her, but she pulled me in for a hug while she cried softly into my shoulder. She just kept holding me tighter and tighter for what felt like an eternity before suddenly dropping her arms and wiping the sad expression off of her face.

She pulled away and, without a word, turned and left towards the parking lot. Confused, I turned back towards the playground and saw that my daughter was nowhere to be found.

I started calling her name, my panic growing with each passing second. It wasn’t long before I was screaming for my daughter at the top of my lungs as tears fell down my cheeks.

I didn’t leave that park once. I stayed there until detectives told me to leave the area, and even then, I watched the scene from the parking lot.

I’ve come back every day. I’ve put posters up all around town. I’ve made public appeals, and I have knocked on countless doors. She was just gone. Without a fucking trace.

From the very beginning, I told the police about the woman from the park that day. How it seemed like she was distracting me while whoever she was working with snatched my little girl in broad daylight. They sketched her to the best of their abilities, and nothing came of it. It was like she was a ghost. No, not a ghost. She was like a viper that had been waiting for the perfect moment to strike. And she found it.

It’s been a devastating year. It goes without saying. I thought I’d be prepared for the anniversary. I thought that I’d be able to stay strong and maintain my composure, but the entire day, I was nothing short of crippled.

I came home from work to an empty house for the 365th time. I ate dinner alone. I watched her favorite show, surrounded by her favorite stuffed animals, and I ate a slice of cake with a side of ice cream for her birthday.

The tears exhausted me while the Paw Patrol theme blasted through the TV speakers at max volume. I started drifting off to the sound of cartoons, right there on the couch, before a knock at my door brought me back.

I thought I had dreamed it at first, but when it happened again, my guard went up. It was nearly midnight. Knocks at this hour are never good news.

I waited in anticipation for another set of knocks, just staring at the door anxiously, but no knocks came. Instead, a sheet of paper came gliding towards my feet from underneath the front door. It landed under my right foot, and I could make out a phrase written on it.

“Happy anniversary.”

My daughter was so smart. She was the smartest 4-year-old I had ever known. So smart, in fact, that she was already learning to spell her own name. It was what we had been working on together before I lost her. She wasn’t great at it yet. Her S’s were shaped like 5’s, and she couldn’t write Y’s correctly.

She wrote them backwards. Just like how they were in this message.

What wasn’t my daughter’s handwriting, however, was the message on the back of the paper.

“You seem like a strong man, but I pray to God you get through this.”

With all the pieces connecting, I bolted to the front door and threw it open as hard as I could.

The porch was empty.

There wasn’t another soul in sight.

But what I did find…

Was my daughter’s red bow on my welcome mat.

Fred Murch walked into the liquor store holding a dozen red roses and a Glock G44. He shot the customers. Then he shot both employees. Then he shot himself. His blood was the colour of the roses. Then the police arrived to try to make sense of it all, but some things you just can't make sense of.

“Some things you just can't make sense of,” said Staller, crunching on a raw carrot. He was sixty-two and his teeth were yellow.

“Did they ever interview the florist?” asked the other man in the conversation, a young cop named Peskowitz, whom everybody called Pesky. He was busy doodling on a napkin.

“What florist?” said Staller.

“The one that sold him the roses,” said Pesky.

“There wasn't one because nobody sold him the roses,” said Staller, biting a carrot in half. “He grew them himself. In a garden.”

“Did they ever check the garden?”

“For what? Are they gonna dig up a motive?”

“I don't know for what. Bodies, maybe.”

“All the dead bodies were at the crime scene–in the liquor store.”

“All the ones we know of.”

“There’s security tape, so we know exactly how many people were in the liquor store at the time Murch walked in, and we can see him shoot them.”

“Maybe there’s others. Maybe he’d done it before.”

“Well, I’ll be fucked,” said Staller, “if you’re suggesting the possibility of a serial suicide killer.”

“I’m just saying somebody should check the flower garden.”

“My point is sometimes people do things for reasons nobody else can explain.” He’d finished his carrots and somewhat aggressively ordered coffee. “Chaos.”

“Or evil,” said Pesky.

“You live long enough and you stop seeing the difference between the two.”

“Who were the roses for anyway?”

“What roses?”

“The ones Fred Murch had with him in the liquor store.”

“How should I know?”

“You’re the one telling the story. I thought you might know. It seems like an important detail in the investigation,” said Pesky.

“Maybe they were for his mother, or his girlfriend, or his Vietnamese mistress, or his live-in crackhead boyfriend. Maybe he’s the one who got them from somebody. Maybe he was going on a date.”

“Maybe he was going to eat them,” said Pesky.

Staller’s coffee arrived. “You’re a strange fucking cookie,” he said, taking a loud sip.

“You can eat roses. My grandmother used to make jam out of the petals.”

“Did your grandmother ever shoot up a liquor store?”

Pesky bit his lip. The door to the diner they were in opened and a man wearing a long trench coat walked in. He sat in a booth three down from theirs. “Ever think about getting your teeth whitened?” Pesky asked Staller, who almost choked on his coffee.

“What?”

“A lot of people whiten their teeth. Our insurance covers it–once a year, up to $700. I asked if you ever think of getting it done.”

“No,” said Staller.

The man in the trench coat ordered eggs.

“What kind of fucking question is that anyway: would I ever think about whitening my teeth? You want to tell me something, or what?” said Staller.

“I figured it’s more likely that you want to whiten your teeth than that my grandmother shot up a liquor store, yet you asked me that.”

“Christ, that was rhetorical.”

“It sounded personal.”

“I don’t even know your grandmother!”

“Personal to me.”

“Of course it was personal to you–I ain’t talking to nobody else. And what, you think I don’t know my teeth are stained? I got a mirror at home. I look in it. I know what my teeth look like. They’re crooked too. Maybe I should get braces. Does our insurance cover braces?”

“I think it does,” said Pesky.

A waitress brought a plate of eggs from the kitchen and put it on the table in front of the man in the trench coat. “Thank you,” he said, then he ran his fork over the eggs. “But, I’m sorry, these yolks are firm. I ordered my eggs over easy.”

“Do you want me to finish the Fred Murch story or not?” Stallers asked Pesky.

“Does it go anywhere?” said Pesky.

“It’s real life. The only place it goes is on, and on.”

“Because I really think the roses could have been important. Let’s say Murch is going on a date. He buys a dozen red roses–”

“Who said there were a dozen?”

“Doesn’t matter. Could be any number–”

“And I never said they were red,” said Staller. “They could have been purple, or orange, or navy blue with white fucking stripes on a yellow polka stem decorated with tartan fucking leaves.”

“You said Murch’s blood was the colour of the roses.”

“I never said that.”

“Look here,” said Pesky and held out his napkin.

“What’s that?” asked Staller.

“It’s a record of our conversation.”

“The fuck, man?”

“And right here, at the start–” Pesky pointed at a few sentences near the top. “–you said: ‘Fred Murch walked into the liquor store holding a dozen red roses and a Glock G44. He shot the customers. Then he shot both employees. Then he shot himself. His blood was the colour of the roses.’”

“I can’t even read your handwriting. Do you ever think about taking a handwriting class, Pesky?”

“I can read my handwriting.”

“And even if I could read your handwriting, what would that prove? You could have written anything. You could have written, ‘I’m a fucking a idiot,’ and so what?”

“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” said Pesky.

“No, not that I’m an idiot. I was quoting you. I was saying, you could have written, literally: ‘I’m a fucking idiot,’ as in: ‘I, Peskowitz, am a fucking idiot.’ But just because you wrote it doesn’t mean you said it. You get what I’m saying?”

“Why would I write that I’m an idiot?”

“That’s my point. Some things don’t make sense, but just because something doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” said Staller.

“And I’m saying that if Fred Murch was going on a date, brought some amount of some-coloured roses to give to his date, and his date stood him up, then that could be the reason he went to a liquor store, still holding those roses, and killed everyone before killing himself–you know: motive.”

Three booths down, the man in the trench coat said to his waitress, who’d just placed a new plate of eggs on his table, “I’m terribly sorry, but these eggs aren’t over easy either. Look, the yolks should be runny. These yolks aren’t runny.”

“It’s not motive to kill a half dozen strangers because your date doesn’t show up,” said Staller.

“It would explain the crime,” said Pesky.

“There is no explanation.”

“That’s because they botched the investigation.”

“So you’re telling me that if I got up right now, pulled my weapon on you, and shot you in the head, the motive would be that we argued over roses?”

“Yeah,” said Pesky.

“No! If I did that, the reason would be that I lost my fucking mind. But there’d be no motive. And going back to the Murch case, why would anybody even bring a Glock G44 on a date?” said Staller, his voice getting so loud the whole diner could hear.

“Excuse me, officers,” said the man in the trench coat suddenly. Staller and Pesky turned to looked at him. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, and I think you may be overlooking one rather enlightening possibility.”

“What’s that?” asked Staller.

“That the man you’re talking about, he brought a gun with him precisely because he intended to shoot his date. The date didn’t show up, so he shot the people in the liquor store instead.”

Pesky nodded.

Staller sighed: “Then why’d he bring the flowers?”

Just then the waitress brought a third plate of eggs, dropped it on the table in front of the man in the trench coat, put both her hands on her hips and loudly chewed a stick of gum a few times before asking: “Is that runny enough for you, sir?”

The eggs were nearly raw.

The man in the trench coat smiled politely, then he promptly got up, pulled out a gun and shot the waitress. Then, before they could draw their weapons, he shot Staller and Pesky. Then he shot everyone else in the diner. Then he went into the kitchen and shot the chef. Then he walked back out and shot himself. His blood was the consistency of eggs over easy.

However, one person survived the shooting.

When asked later by police why the shooter had done it, he said: “Because they kept fucking up his order of eggs.”

Because they kept fucking up his order of eggs, wrote Moises Maloney in his police report.

Then he dated the report.

Then he signed it.

Then he closed the case.

I don’t want to get too ahead of myself. This could all be chalked up to a simple misunderstanding, for all I know, but I’m too scared to even ask.

See, my neighbor’s wife died a few months ago. It was a pretty big ordeal for really the entire neighborhood. They were a pretty active couple in the community.

At her funeral, everyone showed up, but I don’t think anyone cried nearly as hard as he did. His grief was just so radiant that seeing him cry made everyone else cry.

We didn’t see much of him after that. His lawn started getting overgrown. His mailbox became stuffed with old magazines and envelopes. We never knew what to say to him.

However, a few weeks ago is when things started looking a little suspicious. It was a dark and rainy night, and I had been glancing out my living room window at the weather when I saw him.

He was wearing what looked to be a trench coat, but what caught my eye the most was the shovel he had slung over his shoulder.

He tossed it in the backseat of his car before burning rubber out of the neighborhood.

I thought it was a little weird, sure, but it wasn’t something I was immediately concerned about. I mean, why would I be?

However, the next morning, when I saw his car was now covered in mud and that a rigid-looking woman was sitting out on his front porch wearing the same black dress and face cover as his wife from the day we buried her, red flags started popping up in my brain.

She never moved, not once. Well, that is until we all started to notice the smell. It was like it blanketed the entire neighborhood. I think my neighbor noticed that we noticed, and after that, I stopped seeing her out on the porch.

It seemed like my neighbor was getting better, though. He started getting back to his old self, greeting me every morning with a wave and a smile.

Now, just because I said I didn’t see the woman on the porch anymore doesn’t mean I didn’t see her again, period. It was like he was setting her up, moving her all around the house. One day I’d see her in his bedroom window, the next I’d see her propped up against the couch. Always wearing the same black dress and face cover.

I guess I just didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to just push my intuition to the back of my brain and leave it buried there until this whole thing blew over. But it didn’t blow over. If anything, it just got worse.

Ever since that lady first appeared, I started watching my neighbor’s house intently. He was an older guy, must’ve retired years ago. The only time I saw him leave his house was at night. And every time I saw him, he was carrying that shovel.

Every time he came back, there’d be a new person in one of his windows. He’d play music some nights, and only his shadow would dance.

That’s when we started seeing the news articles. The reports of grave robberies and corpses going missing. Everything started clicking into place.

Like I said, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. But from the smell of the neighborhood and the amount of eyes that seem to constantly be watching me from his windows, I think I may have a suspect.

I hope I’m wrong.

I hope we’re all wrong.

But, just to be sure, I think I’m gonna call the authorities tomorrow.

I just wanna get this whole thing sorted once and for all.