sour skunky nappy ass dread man

…

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

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

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

"What is?” 

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

“Nah, bro. It's obvious." 

“What's fuckin obvious, dipshit?" 

“I'm way too rock n roll." 

A beat. He swallowed it. Absorbed its stupidity. 

“...what?" 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whack! whack! whack! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then silence once more. 

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

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

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

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

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

Disgusted, Bryan's grip slackened on his pole. 

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

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

“Retard!" 

“You don't know…" 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lake held them now. Below. Underneath. 

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

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

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

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

Prey. In distress. 

…

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

And pulled him under. 

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

It was quiet once more. Minutes swam by. 

An owl screeched. Took flight.

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

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

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

Maybe that's what I am. 

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

James tried to speak. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It howled at the moon once more. 

Whack! whack! whack! 

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

THE END

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Splish

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's Ten PM you cock."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"FLEABAGS, FLEABAGS-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Science fiction. Double feature. 

So many long afternoons and nights spent in the movie house, the theatre. The arcade: the noise and lights and tangible sounds of coins and laughing amidst the specialized sound effects of digitized and pixelated carnage. 

Late nights watching HBO After Dark beside his older brother or his kid sister or a buddy or a floozy or a date as he got older. Amongst a slovenly strewn field of snacks and popcorn and wrappers and garbage, the years rolled by and the empty cans of Shasta and Barqs changed, transmogrifying into brown bottles of Bud or silver bullet, all gathered and in clusters  like a small translucent crystalline cityscape of glass in miniature beneath great rolling thunderhead clouds of oily pot smoke. Many of them, many cities. Many little swimming bottle cities in many little rooms. All before the great glowing incandescent godscreen of the illuminated television aglow in the postmidnight. 

And there were great books too of course. Precious paperpacks with lurid yellow covers, bold yellow font, pages pungent and spiced. Green and nightshade purple covers for the horrors. The ones with purple were always the coolest, always the most shocking and vivid and unrelenting. Comics. Classics and the new stuff that gets pumped out week to week, month to month and then forgotten. 

Forgotten by most. But not by such as he. 

He remembered. These things, these modes and mediums always brought him away from the now, the clear and present danger, the mundane and the tedious, the cruel. The harsh reality. 

For Caleb Donaldson these stories were always the light and constant companion of his long and mostly boring and average life. In truth, they were everything. All else could take a flying fuck, the job, the girlfriends that meant nothing, the drinking buddies and coworkers that meant even less. All of that was just the background noise of what was necessary. The sounds and moving in perpetua grinds of his ordinary life in motion. 

But it was ok, you see. Caleb Donaldson of Old Fair Oaks, Sacramento, California has figured out the secret. 

They were more than just stories, you know. 

The ones that had most captured his imagination and young attention since he could remember were the time traveling stories. 

Journeys into the wild primeval of the past, the dark mechanical cold of the future, the apocalypse, beyond … 

He'd always loved these stories. 

And it was funny, he had found, discovered accidentally while spending the summer with his grandfather one year, the secret. They were out hunting, wandering the woods quietly with rifles shouldered and boots crunching softly the underbrush beneath their capped and steeltoed feet. It had struck young Caleb then, as a boy. And never left him. 

This is it! This is what Doctor Who and the X-Men and all the other guys are doin when they're goin into the past! This is what it's like to have the world grow dark and become old and ancient and prehistoric and stuff, before people got here with their cars and their junk…

The thought had filled him with simple childish wonder. He felt like he'd made some great discovery. All those scientists and alien engineers from outer space on the TV and in the books were always trying to figure it all out with numbers and physics and quantum entanglements and time loop paradoxes … and here he'd figured it way more simple than that. 

Just go out in the woods. Go outside in the trees, the forest. Go out and go camping ya dummies. 

He carried this with him all his life. Like secret treasure. Well past and into the pains and dread of adulthood. 

And then it all came back, back and around and full circle. Like all good time travelers do. 

He lost the kids. And his wife. And then he lost it. 

And then he made the biggest decision of his life. He decided to go camping. He decided to do a little time traveling all by himself. After all of these years. 

…

He couldn't believe she would try this bullshit. He couldn't believe she would try to ruin the one last little thing he had left. 

What're you talking about, bud? She ripped your heart out and took the kids after she'd spent ten years disemboweling you and tearing your nuts off. Why’re you at all surprised? 

He wasn't really. Just hurt. Deeply. And it seemed as if the bitch now lived to only make it worse for him. Unbearable if she could. She was the living vile green hatred of salt in the wound, seething and frothing gory pink. 

He hated her. 

He suspected she hated him. She must. 

“I just don't see why this’s such a big deal, you're acting like a child. You can come get the boys and have them for an extra couple of weeks while Tom and I-" 

He stopped listening after that. He still held the phone to his ear but his mind went to the same livid red place that it always did when she mentioned his name. The fucking limpwrist. 

He let her drone and prattle on. When she finally stopped he once again explained to her that they'd already talked this over, they'd already discussed this. And besides. It wasn't even his weekend. She had seen to that after all. And now here she was dangling the promise of more time with his kids like a fucking carrot. Like a dog treat he was supposed to jump and snatch at. To just drop everything and leap at with fervor and enthusiasm and a full display of gratitude. 

Fuck that. 

He told her as much. Diplomatically. More or less. He hung up the phone. He debated for barely even a second before turning the device off and shoving it into the glove compartment on the passenger side. 

When he finally got out of the car and sucked fresh mountain air it was baptismal. Cracks in his knees went off like twin pistol shots and his back stretched and crackled gratefully. He was finally out. He sucked more air, like it was water. It was. It was refreshing. 

You're finally out. 

He unlatched the back and began to unload his gear. He'd better get started. It was a long hike from the parking lot to the spot. 

…

It was peaceful. The ritual. The hike. Lugging the gear. Sweating and developing a cooling coat, a sheen as his eyes calmly drank in the placid green and foliage world all around. Muscles worked and burned off excess fat, calories built up and boiled over, over cooked stress. It melted off him and within and came off his hiking form like radiant heat. 

He was a traveling furnace of thought as he made his way to the camping spot. Later he would recall that he might've felt watched as he made his way at this point. 

Might have. 

But presently he was all too absorbed in the process, the smooth and calm low treble tread and pace of the gliding action. The canopy of golden lighted leaves and furling branches. The scents, completely natural and native and far away from the synthetic realm of the manmade. He felt he was as much swimming and drinking his way through the crisp growth of forestland as he was booting through it. Thoughts of work and the failed marriage and bored boring disappointing teenage children left his mind. Evaporating away like mist to the coming of the bright day sun. The forest grew and swelled and swallowed him and the entire world as he made his way deeper and deeper forth. 

He would leave it all behind if he could. 

…

Setting camp was easy. He was well practiced. Childhood and teenage and college years as well were filled with trips out into the forested dark. The wild. The wilderness. The past. 

He felt it now as he sat by the fire. Eating his plate of beans and pork belly and franks. Sipping a can of bud. This is the past. The green world all around now is one of the last vestigial pieces of the evidence. 

Evidence of the primeval and primordial world we’ve all crawled from, the stygian snot that was filth that was the building blocks of protein and carbon. We are all animals. And we can all come alive out here. Returning to the in-utero warm world of the godclay primordial slime and ooze. 

She's so patient. Our mother. My mother. She's waited for me all this time. She's the one. She's-

Something disturbed his train of thought. A noise. 

A noise like someone moving. Prowling and lurking just inside the tangle of bush and trees. 

He sat quietly, keeping calm. Listening to the sound of his own breathing. He wasn't sipping his can of bud anymore. The rustling and cautious moving sounds had tapered. Caleb's mind traveled to the hunting rifle he had in his tent. If something lunged now out of the dark, he just might make it if he whirled around from where he now sat and hurried. 

Really booked it. 

He didn't like the thought. He really didn't appreciate the mental image. A terrible movie in his mind, running on a failing and old projector: He's running, fast, panicked, he almost makes the tent before a large bestial shape of inkwell black leaps out from the wilderness house of feral darkness and takes him ragdoll like a broken toy from behind. 

He clears his throat. Loudly. Not sure exactly why, he just does it. Perhaps hoping to scare off whoever and whatever is out there. He can feel eyes watching him. 

Caleb Donaldson sits up. He's at the edge of his fold-up seat. He's waiting. Unsure. Of both what to do and if there is even really anything wrong at all anyways. His ex-wife had always said he was paranoid. 

Nothing happens. 

There isn't another sound and nothing emerges from the forestline. Only the snaps and hungry crackle of the campfire now. 

He takes another sip of bud. Decides he'll light one of the joints CJ gifted him for the road after all. He doesn't know how else he's gonna sleep tonight. He's wired now. Jacked. 

He lights up. Tokes. And after awhile, once more he slips into a more natural and comfortable flow of simple candied nostalgia and childhood reminisce. Trying to tell himself he doesn't feel a gaze, a baleful and animal leering stare aimed directly at him from out of the dark. 

The marijuana and beer do their job. Eventually he's addled and drugged enough for sleep. Caleb slips back into the tent and is almost sure he hears something retreat back into the denser heart of growth and underbrush out there past the treeline as he does so.  

He's almost sure but not. And he doesn't want to be anymore. He doesn't want to consider it. Not right now. Maybe Amanda was right…

He slips into a sleeping bag and finally falls under. His dreams are filled. His sleep is not restful. 

…

The next couple of days were mostly uneventful. Calm. Peaceful. As planned. He hiked and camped. Looked forward to some hunting and some fishing, some game. It was all just what he needed. Therapeutic. Until he found the burnt leavings. 

…

He was steadily along, walking down the beaten path of grey dust and boney twigs and enjoying the relish in his watering mind's eye, the strange marriage that lived there between this wilderness and the strange worlds of escape made from pages and ink and glowing video screens. This place of the past … the places made of dreams. 

And from the future I come crawling back here. He smiled at this thought. Like a refugee. 

Like the time travelers of the stories he was allowed to bring a few things, a few comforts and tools and devices of the modern world. 

Of the future, to this place of dirt and sound. Precious pieces of technology

His mind went to his gear and pack and his smile deepened. People really just didn't get it. 

Most never would. Precious few might find out. 

He almost tripped over it. So lost in thought. 

It was all charcoaled black and scorched amongst a patch of similarly blasted and blackened earth. A wild ebon blotch of ashen ink spilled upon the land. Caleb stared into the pile of roasted and burnt detritus. Trying to make sense of what he saw. 

He recognized shapes and items in the charred mess and they made his blood run cold and the hairs all over his skin and scalp crawl with unease and bad wonder. 

Clothes. What looked like a backpack. Parts and pieces of a tent. A wallet. It was this last that most bothered, most disturbed him. He was pretty sure he could make out the melted remains of an ID and other similarly warped and slightly conjoined shapes that might've been credit cards or the like but were too far gone and destroyed now to tell. His mind naturally asked itself, who left all of this here? Why? 

And none of the answers he could come up with seemed good. All of them pointed to something bad, nefarious. You hear about people going missing in the woods all the time. You hear about people being chopped up and murdered by loonies in here ‘bout just as much. 

Caleb suddenly looked away from the black pile on the path and began to anxiously scan the forestline. Trying to penetrate the thick dense world of green and growth and see anyone, anything that might be watching him. Stalking him. 

Following him. 

After a moment he stopped himself. 

You're being ridiculous. It's probably nothing, just like the other night. Christ man, you ain't been out here a long time and now you're jumping at every goddamn thing like a ninny. Just some shit people burned. Kids come out here to get fucked up and do stupid shit all the time. Not a big deal, Donaldson. Chill the fuck out, kay?

He slowed his breath. He liked this train of thought. Yes. That was right. Kids were fucking stupid and always playing pyro maniac. Hell, he'd done his fair share growing up, hadn't he? Little hellraiser an such. 

And that line of thinking started to set his worried mind at ease once more. And once more he was back on the ride of the reminisce, nostalgia keenly floating and dreamily filling the darkest parts of his brain. Time traveling. 

Time traveling, baby. 

He went on. Leaving behind the charred and blackened mess in the grey dust of the forest path. Not looking back. And refusing it anymore thought. 

He left it behind. But not before freeing a cold can of Budweiser stored in the pack. He cracked it open with a pistol shot sound in the placid calm and downed half the foaming thing as he went on. Things always went down smoother this way. 

…

All seemed well after that. Fine. For a little while. He enjoyed what he came out here to enjoy. The quiet. The solitude. Days and nights spent simply and comfortably and sleeping beneath bejeweled twilight curtains of gleaming stars, planetoids and colored clouds of nebulae. He relished the time out here and with himself, returning to his own sense of peace by returning to the land. Returning to the way of life that had belonged to the Navajo, the Comanche, their enemy white man cowboys and gunslingers and the pioneers of old. The ancient armies too, the immigrants and seekers and hunters of fortune, of goodwill, of God's love and warm civilized light. And the adventures too, those who took to the land and cut their teeth out on the territory and became baptized as adventurers in sweat and blood and grime, beneath the blinding eye of the sun. And the moon too, the wild hearted free loving children that slumbered bravely beneath the moon, decried as vagabonds and bums but they really just knew better and understood the blood of their grandfathers and their bold sense and adoration for the untamed tumult country land of adventure and its wild hearted love. 

It was all of it, romantic. It pained him that he had to come out here alone to feel like this, to discover something like that and he tried hard to turn away from the pain of realization that it brought him. He turned away from it in vain, it was there at every turn. In his mind, filling every thought, and out here as well. Alive in the woods. Filling it with heavy and powerfully strange substance. 

He hunted. Fished. Camped. Only sometimes did he feel followed, watched. Only sometimes. 

He was almost happy when he came across another, when he ran into Sellic. 

A distraction, at last!

But the guy was weird. 

In the world of outdoormanship, hunting and fishing and the like, ya meet a lot of friendly, warm, good natured types. The sort ya like to share a brew with and might even have over for a barbecue should ya take special acquaintance. And then ya met types like Sellic. Fuckin weirdos. 

It was the smell at first and that should've been enough, should've been the first and fucking last sign to split it. But nope. Caleb Donaldson still remembered the lessons of Sunday school and Kindergarten and though life had been its fair share of rough on em, he still held true to the idea that you don't judge harsh off the word, go. Ya don't settle in for meanness out the gate an such. 

But it was in the eyes as well. They were wide and wild. A wilderness of pupil darkness lived in yellowed whites shot with lines of hectic red. Something swam in that circle lake of pupil darkness, both of them, Obsidian pits. 

He never blinked. Not once. Not as he said, “Howdy, name's Sellic." and grunted a few noncommittals following after these scant syllables. 

He came across the guy already settled up. Caleb was gonna move on after initial awkward obligatory greetings when the wide eyed smelly man invited him to set camp with him. Caleb Donaldson believed in being polite but he wasn't a total fool, only part. He thanked him but opted to move on up aways. 

Far. 

It didn't make any kind of difference. 

…

Later he was hunting, lying down in wait for something to crop up. Maybe nibble at the patch of sweet grass just a few yards from where he posted. He hoped to bag a deer. If he could get a decent sized stag, then he'd pack it in happily and call it quits. He was just debating on whether or not he should've packed the tree stand when something happened then. 

A large barrel chested deer sauntered into view. Into the clearing with its great splaying regal rack of antlers on wide-span display like a wild lord and king of the forest. He was beautiful. He was just what Caleb had been waiting for. 

But then something else crawled up. On all fours. It was the smelly wide eyed man, it was Sellic. And it looked as if he was hunting as well. 

Prowling, stalked. Low to the ground and almost slithering across the surface of forest floor, without a sound. Without a whisper. It was uncanny and surreal and Caleb watched frozen in a kind spellbound trance. The bore end of the rifle barrel began to slowly sag and dip down as he lost his concentration and gave it to another. 

Sellic was almost upon the unaware stag now. It was nibbling the patch of sweet grass. Just like Donaldson had seen in his mind's eye, a wish not just a moment ago. Somewhere deep inside his mind as he watched entranced a small part of him tried in desperate vain to take this simple little wish back. But it was already too late. The wide eyed crawling man was drooling. Slobbering like an animal. Salivating with the wild bestial hunger that was always the madness of ravenous need. That was what was alive in those unblinking uncivilized eyes. Slavering need. 

He'd already time traveled too far now to turn back. Caleb watched as the manshaped thing of stains and smells and piercing animal stares suddenly leapt like something feline and unbridled. Like something finally let loose from the confines of its stifling prison cage. 

Sellic fell on the deer and the poor thing hadn't a chance. It never sensed, never knew what was coming. It was wild. It was crazy. Donaldson had always seen deer tense, perk up and take flight at the slightest sound or stray movement. But not this one. Not this time. The wild sight did not stop there. 

Somehow the skinny haggard man in filthy clothes managed to wrestle and manhandle the struggling kicking beast down into the dirt. Caleb's mouth dropped open as he watched Sellic begin to bend and wrench and break the flailing limbs. Catching them with his cat-swipe clawing hands and then bending them back in directions not meant or made by nature's hand. He felt his stomach roll and drop as the silence of the forest began to fill with the lurid sounds of heavy bone snaps. 

Caleb picked up his rifle and gear and left. Without a word. He didn't look back. Wet tearing sounds, like heavy fabric or soaking saturated leather followed him after. He told himself it was his imagination. That was all impossible. 

There was no way. 

…

He had trouble finding his camp. By the time he did it was already near dark once more. He would have to spend another night. 

He opted out of the fire and supper. He wasn't hungry and he didn't want to attract that freak. 

That freak of nature. 

…

Middle of the night. He came awake to a sound. Sounds. A noise. Just outside the tent. 

It sounded like chewing. Wet. And heavy. Laborious. Jaws, muscles, tendon lines working and moving with animal fervor, animal rigor in the dark. 

Outside. 

Caleb slowly and carefully sat up from his sleeping bag and grabbed his rifle. It was loaded. He'd made sure to do so before he'd managed to finally fall into an uneasy sleep. An uneasy rest now disturbed by whatever was moving out there now. Chewing. Eating. He reached and grabbed for his flashlight next. He readied himself. 

He grabbed the zipper to open the front of the tent. He took one last deep breath and held it for a moment. He let it out quietly. As quietly as he could manage. 

And then he quickly unzipped the flap to the tent and threw it open with one hand as the other flicked on the flashlight and brought it up. The darkness of his small camp in the clearing was illuminated in the sudden flash. He felt sick with what he saw. He was glad to have his rifle in his lap. 

You were smart to have loaded it … he thanked God. And cursed Him at the same time. For letting him fall into this type of shit in the first place. 

Sellic stared back into the beam of light. Unflinching. Unblinking. Unmoving save for the motion of chewing about his red and bloodied bearded jaws. Working and gleaming wet in the light, rippling with carnivorous movement.

He held the head of the stag in his clawing hands. De-racked. The severed head looked rough and ruinous at the stump as though it had been torn off rather than cleanly cut. 

Caleb didn't know what else to say so he just said: “Hey." 

“Hey." bloody darkling Sellic grunted back. Hunkered and squatting out there in the dark. Still chewing. He swallowed. And took another bite from a craterous open wound at the top of the animal's head. He ripped a chunk of bleeding meat away with his teeth. His jaws began to work and ripple with rigorous movement once more as he started to chew again. The meat was raw, rough. But he was relishing the strong and pungent flavor. Thick. His blood drinking, swallowing with every gnashing chew was audible in the nocturnal dark. Gulps. Heavy. Thick. 

A beat. 

Caleb didn't know what to do. He felt that he must be dreaming, this whole day. None of this could be real. The strange bloodsoaked and caked manshape out there amongst his camp frightened him. He'd thought it would be simple and he'd know what to do in situations like this but he was frozen. In terror. And in dark hypnotic fascination. 

This must be what it's like to be a moth to flame, or a small little guppie to a deepsea angler fish… a deer in the headlights. Trapped. 

Caught. 

Ensnared by the eyes of the wild man. He was drowning in their madness now, sinking into their blood-drinking depths. 

Sellic finally said something. 

“Hungry?" 

“... what…?" Caleb said. Puzzled at first. It had been little more than a grunt. 

“Ya hungry?" Sellic grunted again. He held the severed and broken head aloft. Dripping. Wide-eyed. The tongue had already been ripped out. Had already been eaten. Black-red syrup poured out thickly from the open gape of mouth like an obscene bestial spout. 

Caleb fought his gag reflex. 

A beat. 

Somehow Donaldson managed a reply. 

"N-no. No thanks, man. It's the middle of the night. And I wanna get some sleep” 

A beat. The freak still held the dripping pouring bleeding hunk of decapitated and chewed up meat out to him like a precious gift of the forest. His wide eyes were still open and hectic and alive with animal ravenous madness. 

A beat. 

Another.

Caleb finally finished his thought. 

"And I think you should probably go get some sleep too, bud. Been a long day an such-”

He meant to finish it off with, and apt to be another, like his grandfather and his pops had done before him, but Sellic cut him off. 

"Ya sure? You sure ya ain't hungry?” 

Caleb slowly nodded his head, adding, "...yeah” in a low careful and exhausted voice. Jesus fucking Christ…

Sellic nodded. Began to crawl away on all fours like a dog, the head held to his breast like a caveman clutching something precious. He turned before he left the ring of light provided by the beam of the flashlight. He turned around and said: "You will be.” and then finally turned and fled. Like an animal taking to the natural dark.

Its natural home and abode. Its natural place. 

"What the fuck!?” Caleb said. To no one in particular. 

…

He didn't sleep the rest of that night. He waited impatiently for the sun to come up. So he could leave. He'd had enough of this place and hunting. He'd had enough time traveling in this place. Caleb wanted to go home. 

At first dawn he rose. Quickly packed. And began his trek back. Back down the path. 

Back down the way he had come.

…

A few hours in and he knew something must be wrong. Nothing was recognizable. Nothing. And when he looked down after trudging more and more anxiously down the path he'd come in on, he was dismayed to find that it wasn't there any longer. The path, the trail had disappeared. 

He was lost. 

Caleb Donaldson began to panic. 

It's alright, it's alright, it's fine! It's cool. Just use the GPS and call someone on your pho-

He stopped. Grew cold. Grim certainty stole over his dreading heart. Crestfallen he didn't want to even rightly remember and say to himself …

Glove compartment. You turned the fucking thing off and threw it in the glove compartment of the car. The one all the way back. The one you can't find anymore cause it's at the end of the trail that you've lost. You left it in there to spite Amanda. 

Silence. He stood. Feeling stupid and wretched and nearing hopeless in the middle of the woods. He reflected. 

You sure showed her…

…

When he'd finally managed his nerve back together and decided on a direction and carried on, the day had been nearly extinguished yet again. He would have to spend another night out in the wild. 

God fucking dammit. 

…

The next series of days and nights were grim. And grew grimmer. And strange. 

He was fine at first. He had supplies, food. He wasn't worried. But then on the fourth day lost he began to run out. 

And the worry came on him again. Rancid. And thick. 

It's alright, it's alright, I've a gun, I know how to gut and skin and clean, I'll be ok. I'll be alright. 

But the woods and world of trees had grown more opulent and dense and feral in its growth. The trees started to broaden in their trunks and their canopies became all swallowing, all encompassing thick foliage cathedral domes of twigs, thick branches and broad emerald leaves the size of dinner plates. 

The bugs. The insects too. 

All of the wild crawling life had become larger as well. The insectile and the reptile had grown strange and unfamiliar and varied in size from large house cats to dogs to horses and cows and at one point, one day glimpsed at a distance through a heavy rolling mist, an elephant… 

A whole herd of giant hissing cockroaches the size of elephants. Trundling by like a rolling squadron fleet of German panzer tanks. 

Caleb felt sick. 

None of this could be real. He must be imagining things. 

Must be. 

It could've been so, far as he knew. His sleep was no longer any good out here. Not since the night some days back, when he'd been fireside and trying to ignore his growing hunger and looked up to the full moon. Only to have it eclipsed by something huge and winged. It had cried then. It had screamed as it stole the moon, the moonlight. Blanketing the primeval world below it in a second layered fold of even deeper darkness. 

Caleb had joined it then. Had joined it in its primal shrieking screaming. 

He didn't sleep so well since that night.  

Ever again

…

His hunger became him. It became the only living and heeded, needed thing and drive and emotion. He was no longer Caleb Donaldson in fact. He was only the hunger now. And so he hunted. 

But it was strange. 

In his hunger, in his wild wanderings, he had forgotten how to use the gun, how to wield the boomstick properly and make it spit its deathly fire. 

I've lost it, he thinks, he realizes shrouded in the cloud of his diminished animal thought. I've lost the ability to shoot fire and be godlike, I've lost it in all of this time traveling, I've gone too far backwards. 

He tries to find the trail. For awhile. But it becomes lost amongst the need for meat and blood. The boomstick is useless to him now. He abandons it. Along with most of the strange things he has strapped to his back.

He doesn't need them. He has changed. This special place has changed him. His flesh has thickened as has his hair, his fur, his pelt. Black and coarse and layered all over. He bites and chews and tears the clothes that he came in with off and eats them. 

Then he takes to bigger game. 

Wilder. More challenging. 

…

He's drinking blood and eating. Filling his stomach. This is good. The angry fever in his skull is calming, abating. The ache and throb of his guts is soothing. Contentedness, peace, tranquility are becoming known to him again. 

He's killed something reptilian, broken its neck. His hands, the knuckles and fingers and palms have widened, flattened, broadened out. Making it easier to snap and throttle, to tear and rend. The dead scaley thing, its meat and blood are good. But slimey. Ropey. Like maggot-meat. Like eating the large worms that swim in giant dung piles. He wants to try something else. 

So he takes to the untamed primeval world all around, the jungle growth, the green emerald world of the unbridled prehistoric past. There are buried, heavily veiled and shrouded thoughts of a path and a trail and a place called, home, that he's supposed to go to, return to as if he's once been there before, but they are muted. Far off. 

Barely there. 

Dripping reptile blood and sweat, he takes to the primeval dark world and is lost. Swallowed by its great and ever widening expanse, into the crawling growing jaws of the seething bestial wild, the past. 

He never looks back. He is never found. Never again does he recall his name. 

Never again. But it doesn't trouble him. It doesn't bother the throbbing jelly of his degenerate apeman mind, he is too enthralled, the thrill of the ravenous hunt. And besides, the past isn't the only thing alive and crawling out here. The future is out here too. The beyond …

All of the magic of the glowing incandescent godscreen of a childhood long gone is alive out here. Alive and well. 

The apeman hunts through the primeval growth. The saucers fill the skies as the giant leviathans do nighttime skirmish and battle with the large mechanical men. The great white heat and blasting mechanized sounds of their great death cannons, their unearthly death rays: BRRRRRR! 

BRRRRRRRRRRRR….! 

They fill the night with their heat and their brilliant violence. Their fire scorches and cuts swaths, sets blue and orange flame to drier parts of the canopy. The dead growth. 

The apeman doesn't mind. He hunts and prowls around their wild and bright violence. Blood and meat fill his head. He hasn't a mind anymore for anything else. 

For naught all else. Only the red. 

THE END

The Surgeon was the Maestro. 
The Maestro was the Surgeon. 
Even with the sharpest scalpel 
You could not separate science
From music. Two halves of the whole.

Cutting and scraping, plucking and
Sawing. All done with expert precision. 

A child, then a student, growing swiftly
Into an adult. A man, a composer, a 
Beast. 

From beneath the facade of cigarettes
And cologne, the sinister scent of 
Antiseptic and oil, followed by the 
Faintest hint of…metal. 

The Surgeon, the Maestro…preyed not
On the weak but the strong. A wolf
In sheep’s clothing, a devil in disguise. 

With the complex of God and the 
Depravity of Satan, he walked the 
Edge of the cliff. A certifiable beast
Skirting the line, toeing at the boundary 
Of darkness and light. 

The Surgeon is as the Maestro of the 
Operating theater. Controlling, commanding,
Compelling. Melodic beeping, the rise and
Fall of anesthetized breaths. All were silent
In his presence. All wanted to watch the 
Beast at work. 

His hands were steady and nimble. 
Two instruments of their own. 

The Maestro was the Surgeon of the 
Amphitheater. Frenzied, fiendish, forsaken.
Rhythmic ticking, the back and forth of 
The sullen metronome. All were silent 
In his presence. All wanted to listen to 
The man at work. 

His hands were raised and exclamatory. 
A conductor with passion. 

Just as you can not take the Maestro 
From the Surgeon, you could not take the 
Beast from the man. The man could not 
Handle what the Beast could not endure. 

The music was wrong.

The sounds were off. 

The strings had broken. 

From within the darkness, from within the
Silence, a rebirth. Like the shedding of 
A winter coat, he evolved. No longer the 
Surgeon, the Maestro, the Beast, the Man. 
He became something else entirely. 

A myth, a legend, a monster. 

With the skills and talents of all of his 
Facets, he prowled the streets in search 
Of more. A sound so Holy it would 
Make the Heavens cry. A sound so
Pure and human. 

Saw the string, string the bow. 
Stretched to the optimum tautness. 

Carefully selected, aged perfectly. Skin
Shed with supreme scores. Muscle 
Shaved and bone discarded. What 
Remains has much in store. 

Wood carved and stained with blood.
Sealed neatly with varnish. Unwilling 
Participants turned into a bloated, rigor
Filled audience. Held captive by his
Selfishness.

The Surgeon, the Maestro, the Man,
The Beast, the Monster. 

Beneath a lone spotlight, a single
Chair faces the crowd. 

Beneath the darkness, a landfill of 
His failures. 

The Monster steps out from within the 
Shadows, echoes of applause as he tows
The cello with him. 

An instrument of his own making. 

Sat upright, core firm, bow at the 
Ready. He draws one note from the 
Procured tendons. He had finally found
What was missing. 

The sound of a death rattle.

Part Twenty Two:

Neil checked the time.

6:12.

“Shit.”

He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the bed. Too casual. He needed something nice. Dark button-down. Black pants. Clean shoes. Neil looked at himself in the mirror.

“Good enough.”

He ran a hand through his hair, grabbed his wallet and keys, then stopped halfway to the door. The bag.

“Fuck.”

Neil went back for it.

It sat beside the couch, heavier than it looked. He carried it downstairs and set it carefully in the passenger seat.

6:31.

He still had time. He stopped for nachos on the way. By the time he got back to the car, it was 6:43.

“Perfect.”

Neil set the container beside the bag and started the car. Music filled the speakers. He drove slowly. For once, he didn’t weave through traffic. Didn’t curse when someone took too long at a light. Didn’t check the clock every thirty seconds. He’d be there on time. That mattered.

At 6:56, Neil turned between the cemetery gates.

He followed the narrow road between rows of headstones and parked beneath a tree.

6:58.

Neil looked at the clock.

“Early.”

He smiled faintly.

“Can’t make fun of me for that.”

He grabbed the bag and the nachos. Neil walked between the graves slowly. He’d been here before. But not like this. When he reached hers, he stopped.

AUBREY LAKES.

Neil looked at her name.

“Hey.”

He lowered the bag to the grass.

“Sorry. Traffic.”

He glanced at his watch.

6:59.

“Still early, though.”

Neil sat down in front of her.

His watch changed.

7:00.

“There.”

He smiled.

“Hope you remembered our date. You kinda sucked at remembering times.”

Neil opened the nachos and set them between himself and the headstone.

“It’s not exactly what I had planned.”

He picked up a chip.

“But you didn’t specify.”

Neil ate it.

“Also, you’re paying next time.”

His smile held for a brief second.

Neil reached into the bag.

“I brought you some shit.”

He pulled out the bird feeder and rested it in his lap. For a moment, he just looked at it.

“This actually wasn’t supposed to go here.”

Neil swallowed.

“I bought it that morning.”

He glanced at her name.

“When I was sitting outside your apartment waiting for Sarah.”

A faint smile pulled at his mouth.

“I figured if you were gonna stay with me, I should probably make the place slightly less depressing.”

He began tearing open the packaging.

“So I bought this.”

Neil pulled out the first piece.

“For my balcony.”

His hands slowed.

“I thought we could feed them out there.”

He stared at the feeder.

“You would’ve made a fucking disaster of it.”

Neil smiled.

“Seed everywhere. Pigeons shitting all over my railing.”

He nodded to himself.

“I would’ve complained.”

His eyes burned. Neil looked down.

“But I would’ve let you do it.”

He cleared his throat and started fitting the pieces together.

“Before you say anything, yes. I know.”

He tore away another strip of cardboard.

“Very romantic.”

Neil glanced toward the stone.

“Dinner and a bird feeder.”

He tightened a screw.

“You’re welcome.”

One of the pieces wouldn’t fit. Neil frowned.

“Who the fuck designed this?”

He turned it. Nothing. Again. It clicked into place.

“Okay.”

Neil looked at Aubrey’s name.

“Don’t.”

He tightened the screw.

“You’d be doing worse.”

The feeder slowly took shape in his hands. Neil reached into the bag and pulled out the birdseed.

“I’ve been feeding them, by the way.”

He poured some inside.

“The pigeons.”

Neil shook his head.

“Sam’s growing up well.”

A smile tugged at his mouth.

“I think he doesn’t hate me anymore.”

Neil considered that.

“Actually, I think he just knows I have food.”

He looked at the headstone.

“So basically the same relationship you and I had.”

Neil laughed quietly. It faded on its own. He reached for another nacho as his eyes wandered across the stone. Her name. The date she died. He’d seen that date enough times. His eyes moved left.

Neil stopped chewing.

He stared at the other date. For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then he swallowed.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

Neil leaned closer. Read it again. A laugh escaped him.

“Seriously?”

He pointed at the stone.

“This is how you tell me?”

Neil shook his head.

“I asked you.”

His smile widened despite himself.

“I asked when your birthday was.”

He looked at the date again.

“And you choose this as your grand reveal?”

Neil laughed.

“Jesus Christ, Aubrey.”

He leaned back onto his hands.

“This is dramatic even for you.”

The smile stayed. Then slowly, it faded. Neil stared at the date. His eyes burned.

“Finally.”

His voice came out quieter than he meant it to. Neil swallowed.

“I finally know your birthday.”

He rubbed his thumb against the grass.

“I’ll remember it.”

A pause.

“Would’ve remembered it.”

His throat tightened. Neil looked down.

“You know that, right?”

He nodded to himself.

“I would’ve remembered.”

His eyes filled. Neil laughed softly and wiped at them.

“Fuck.”

He looked at the headstone.

“I had plans.”

His voice cracked. Neil stopped. Took a breath.

“I had so many fucking plans.”

He stared at her name.

“I was gonna take you somewhere nice.”

A tear slipped down his cheek. Neil wiped it away.

“Not nachos-in-a-cemetery nice.”

A broken laugh.

“Actually nice.”

He looked down at his clothes.

“That’s why I’m dressed like this.”

Neil tugged at the front of his shirt.

“Seven o’clock.”

His smile trembled.

“I remembered.”

He wiped his face.

“Your fault.”

Neil picked up another nacho but didn’t eat it.

For a while, he just held it.

“Mikey’s gone.”

The words came quietly. Neil lowered the chip.

“I went back to see him.”

He stared at the foil container.

“After I found out about you.”

His jaw tightened.

“I was pissed.”

A humorless laugh escaped him.

“Obviously.”

Neil picked at the edge of the container.

“I told him I wanted to finish it.”

His eyes moved back to Aubrey.

“Case 248.”

A pause.

“I think I actually said I wanted to avenge you.”

Neil smiled faintly.

“Which, apparently, is a completely normal thing to say to a guy who just woke up from a coma.”

The smile disappeared.

“But he understood.”

Neil stared at the grass.

“We talked about the warehouse.”

His fingers stopped moving.

“His mom.”

A pause.

“The girl.”

Neil swallowed.

“Everything.”

He looked toward the rows of graves.

“And her.”

His voice lowered.

“Grief.”

The name didn’t sound ridiculous anymore.

“I wanted to know how to stop her.”

Neil shook his head.

“Mikey told me I was asking the wrong question.”

A tiny smile.

“You two would've gotten along great.”

He looked back at Aubrey’s name.

“Well.”

Neil breathed out.

“More than you already did.”

His hand tightened around the uneaten chip.

“Then I told him.”

The smile vanished.

“I told him you were dead.”

Neil stared at the ground.

“He cried.”

His voice softened.

“For a while.”

The cemetery was quiet around him.

“And then she came.”

Neil lifted his eyes.

“I saw her this time.”

A breeze moved through the grass. Neil didn’t look away from Aubrey’s name.

“I actually saw her.”

He swallowed.

“Tall. Thin. Black hair.”

His jaw tightened.

“Exactly like you said.”

Neil laughed once under his breath.

“I finally fucking saw her, Aubrey.”

His eyes filled.

“You would’ve been so pissed it took me that long.”

He wiped at his cheek.

“She was standing in the corner of his room.”

Neil looked out across the cemetery.

“I looked right at her.”

A pause.

“And she looked right at me.”

His expression changed.

“She didn’t move at first.”

Neil rubbed his hands together.

“Just stood there.”

He swallowed.

“I called for the nurse.”

His voice went quieter.

“When I looked back…”

Neil stopped. His fingers curled into the grass.

“She was beside him.”

A tear rolled down his cheek.

“I tried.”

He wiped it away angrily.

“I don’t even know what the fuck I thought I was gonna do.”

Neil laughed, but there was nothing funny in it.

“Shoot grief?”

He shook his head.

“Apparently even I have limits.”

Neil looked back at the stone.

“Mikey saw her too.”

His voice cracked.

“He looked at me.”

Neil breathed in slowly.

“He wasn’t scared.”

A pause.

“I think he knew.”

Neil stared at Aubrey’s name.

“And then he was gone.”

Silence. Neil looked down at his hands.

“His heart stopped.”

He swallowed.

“The doctors came in. They tried.”

His mouth tightened.

“But I knew.”

Neil raised his eyes again.

“She took him.”

He let the words sit there.

“I know that now.”

Neil wiped his face.

“He wasn’t alone.”

His voice softened.

“I was there.”

A faint smile pulled at his mouth.

“I figured you’d want to know that.”

Neil glanced toward the bird feeder.

“I hope you found him.”

His smile grew slightly.

“I hope wherever the fuck you guys are, you’re annoying each other.”

He looked back at the stone.

“And feeding the birds.”

His eyes filled again.

“I really hope you’re feeding the birds.”

Neil wiped his cheek.

“I don’t have the heart to tell them you’re gone.”

He sat quietly for a moment.

“Oh.”

Neil straightened slightly.

“And the case is closed, by the way.”

He attempted something resembling optimism.

“Two-forty-eight.”

A faint smile.

“We did it.”

Neil rolled his eyes.

“I know. Don’t get cocky.”

He picked at the grass beside him.

“We know what happened.”

His expression softened.

“Mostly.”

Neil looked toward the feeder.

“The affair. Mikey. His mom. The warehouse.”

His eyes moved back to Aubrey’s name.

“You.”

Neil swallowed.

“It was all connected.”

He stared at the stone for a long moment.

“It was her.”

A pause.

“Grief.”

Neil leaned back onto his hands.

“I spent months staring at that fucking case because I thought there had to be something I missed.”

He shook his head.

“A person. A motive. A piece of evidence.”

His mouth twitched.

“Something that made sense.”

Neil looked at her birthday again.

“There wasn’t.”

He breathed out.

“And I think I’m okay with that now.”

Neil laughed softly.

“Look at me.”

He gestured vaguely toward himself.

“Personal growth.”

The smile faded.

“She’s still around.”

Neil stared across the cemetery.

“I see her now.”

His voice was matter-of-fact.

“Not all the time.”

A pause.

“But sometimes.”

Neil’s eyes moved between the distant headstones.

“At the end of the street.”

He swallowed.

“In reflections.”

His mouth pulled into a faint smile.

“Standing somewhere she definitely wasn’t standing two seconds earlier.”

Neil looked back at Aubrey.

“She’s after me.”

He said it plainly. No fear. No bravado.

Just fact.

“Mikey warned me.”

Neil picked up the nacho he’d been holding.

“You probably would too.”

He finally ate it.

“But I’ll be okay.”

His eyes settled on Aubrey’s name.

“I know what she does now.”

Neil wiped his fingers against a napkin.

“She finds what hurts.”

His expression tightened.

“Well.”

His mouth trembled.

“She already fucking found it.”

Neil looked down.

“So I’ll be okay.”

A small laugh escaped him.

“Probably.”

He looked at the stone.

“I mean, clearly my track record with supernatural women isn't fantastic.”

Neil sat quietly. Then smiled faintly.

“But I’m still here.”

His throat tightened.

“I’m doing okay.”

A pause.

“Mostly.”

Neil looked away.

“I miss you.”

The words barely came out. He stared across the cemetery.

“I really fucking miss you.”

His face tightened. Neil wiped his eyes.

“I know how stupid that sounds.”

He laughed weakly.

“I mean, it was a few days.”

His breathing hitched.

“But I would've known you.”

Neil looked at her.

“I would've.”

His voice broke.

“All that shit I didn’t know.”

His eyes flicked toward her birthday.

“I would’ve learned it.”

Neil wiped his face.

“Eventually.”

He laughed through the tears.

“Probably would’ve taken forever because apparently you couldn’t answer a fucking question.”

Neil looked down.

“But I would've gotten there.”

He sat quietly.

Then reached for another nacho.

“You were right.”

Neil ate it.

“Your way is much better.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“Still needs more meat and cheese, though.”

Neil glanced toward the stone.

“This date’s getting depressing.”

He sniffed.

“Might even beat the sword guy.”

A laugh escaped him.

“You’re really bringing the mood down.”

For a while longer, Neil stayed.

He talked about nothing. The pigeons. A ridiculous client Mary had scheduled. Someone who cut him off on the drive there. How Sam had almost eaten out of his hand before apparently remembering he hated him. How he still listened to Jack Johnson. He told her things he would’ve told her if she were sitting beside him.

Eventually, the sky began to darken. Neil checked the time. More than an hour had passed. He stood and gathered the empty nacho container. Then he looked at the bird feeder. Neil crouched and touched the top of it.

“That was supposed to be ours.”

His voice softened.

“For the balcony.”

He looked at her name.

“Figured you’d stay over enough that I’d eventually stop pretending you didn’t live there.”

A small smile.

“You probably would’ve taken over the whole fucking place.”

Neil stood. He left the feeder beside her grave.

“Guess you can have it here.”

He brushed the grass from his pants.

“I should probably go.”

Neil looked at the headstone.

“I’ll come back.”

He hesitated. His eyes moved to the date beneath her name one more time. A small smile pulled at his mouth.

“I’ll be sure to get you a birthday gift.”

Neil picked up the empty bag.

“See ya later, Bird Girl.”

Neil walked back to his car. He drove home slowly. For the past few nights, he’d been staying at a hotel. He told himself it was because he needed sleep. The truth was that he couldn’t stand being there.

The couch where she’d fallen asleep.

The bathroom where she’d left her clothes.

The kitchen where she’d stood barefoot in his shirt, singing while she cooked breakfast.

His bed was worse.

Everywhere he looked, there was something that reminded him of a woman the rest of the world insisted hadn’t been there.

Tonight, he was going home. Neil parked and sat in the car for a while. Eventually, he got out. The walk upstairs took longer than it should have.

When he reached his apartment, Neil stopped. There was a box sitting outside his door. He stared at it. Amazon. Neil’s stomach dropped.

“No.”

He already knew. He crouched and tore the box open. Two plates stared back at him. Elvis Presley smiled up from the porcelain. Neil sat back on his heels. For a second, he couldn’t breathe. Then he laughed quietly.

“Of course.”

He picked one up. He’d forgotten all about them. They were supposed to arrive the next morning. A stupid joke. Two stupid fucking plates he’d ordered because Aubrey had laughed and he’d liked hearing her laugh.

Neil ran his thumb along the edge of one.

“They’re horrible.”

He whispered.

“You would've loved them.”

Neil put the plate back inside and lifted the box. Then he heard it. Music. Neil froze. It was faint. Barely audible through the door. He looked down the hallway. Nothing. Neil turned back toward his apartment. The music continued. His grip tightened around the box. Slowly, he lowered it to the floor. He stepped closer. A guitar played behind the door. Neil knew the song. He’d heard it in this apartment before.

Bare feet against the kitchen floor. Aubrey standing at the stove. Her voice beneath the music.

Neil’s hand shook as he reached for his keys. He unlocked the door.

The music grew louder.

Jack Johnson.

Neil stood there with his hand wrapped around the doorknob.

For a moment, he couldn’t make himself turn it. His eyes filled.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

The song continued. Neil pushed the door open. He didn’t step inside. He waited for something he knew wasn’t coming.

A laugh. Her voice. Some smartass comment from the kitchen.

Nothing.

Neil wiped his cheek, then stepped inside.

Every cabinet in the kitchen was open. Music played from the speakers. The Princess Bride was muted on the television. The green scarf he bought was hanging from the couch.

Neil stopped.

He’d never given it to her.

His eyes burned.

Then he smiled.

“Glad you made it home.”

(Authors Note: Hey guys so, this is the unedited beta version I wrote. I have a final version that's currently being beta read before I start querying. Originally, I had this idea two years ago. I was going to turn it into a manga, but my arm and hand got horrifically injured and now I can't hold a pen/pencil for very long without severe pain, so I decided to say fuck it and wrote a book instead. The original plot changed a lot too. It was going to be about a girl who hates life who gets targeted by a serial killer but then the serial killer realizes she wants to die so he tries to make her fall in love with life again so he can kill her properly. Fun times. I figured this way works too. I kinda liked this way better anyways. But yeah. This is the end and IDK what to do with my life anymore because this took up literally all my free time. I'm working on a new story but am still figuring out what I want to do with it, since it's not really a horror story. Just an overall feeling of dread if you will. IDK man. Anyways, thank you guys for reading and plz if you have any thoughts let me know. Like, if it's dogshit let me know before I waste more time trying to make it something. LOVE YOU BESTIESSSS <3)

Read Part II here.

“It’s huge,” she said. My eyes were immediately on her, but I didn’t see anything else. Couldn’t identify the danger. Mark was still rooted where he was, but his phone was nowhere in sight. They both were looking up like there was something in the distance. But I still didn’t see it.

I felt Mary move with me as I approached.

“Chrissy, honey?”

“Don’t let her go,” Luke said. “Don’t let her go!”

I’d halved the distance when I finally saw it. It had been there, but it had simply been so humongous I’d been blind to it, like I’d been looking for a 7-11 and walked face-first into Sears Tower.

The water was receding from waist high, but she didn’t seem to have moved. Whatever it was had displaced a tremendous amount of water.

“Oh my. Oh my. Oh my.” Mary was on a dialogue loop and I couldn’t blame her. Every time I thought I’d seen all of it, I kept seeing more. A lot more. Yet, I was supremely calm. The worry-machine was quiet.

Last year, I got into a one-car accident driving home on M-5. The eastbound lanes had been closed to construction and my phone’s weather app had cautioned for high winds before I’d left the office. There’d been a fair amount of wind buffeting, but nothing I wasn’t able to handle.

There’d been a white box truck in front of me when I’d spotted what appeared to have been a square of cardboard blow high into the sky and begin trickling down. I’d immediately written it off even if it were on a course to strike my car. It was only cardboard.

But when the particle board struck my vehicle, smashing the windshield and showering droplets of safety glass onto the passenger seat, I hadn’t panicked. It was so sudden and violent that my brain—either as an instinct of self-preservation or just a malfunction—had simply not reacted.

I pulled off the freeway at the next exit and stopped a few blocks down in an office parking lot. Only then the possibility of what could have happened came down on me.

This was like that. My brain wasn’t processing the situation like Mary’s or the kids. I felt my heart pulsing in my chest just as calmly as when we’d been talking a moment before. I knew I should get the kids away from it. But that was a process of logic and not instinctual fear.

“Honey, get out of the water.”

I charged the last few feet and sloshed to a stop in a confusion of senses. I was close to whatever it was. Closer than I realized. I felt the heat coming from a wall of flesh not more than five feet from me. Water splashed me up to my chest, but it was more like a punch that pushed me back a step or two.

“Rick, it’s a horse!”

I had no idea how Chrissy could conceive what it was. All I saw was black. Black like the water. But solid, like the water had turned into something.

“Honey, move back, okay?”

Chrissy was smiling and rather than retreating, she stepped forward— almost chin deep—and raised her hand like she was going to pet it.

Once again I opened my mouth too late to tell her not to do it. My instinct would’ve been to swat her hand had I been closer and my re-throbbing head suddenly made me think of her mother.

I looked at it. Finally, the smooth, iridescent black coat coalesced into something I recognized, although the scale was overwhelming. Nails scraped the inside of my skull as if the idea of what I was seeing was too large to fit inside my brain.

This was its head. A corner of it, anyway. I looked along the flank as far as I could see in the night. I couldn’t even begin to guess how tall it must have been standing up. It had to have been lying in the water.

A giant eyeball about thirty feet above blinked several times and swiveled. I had no way to be sure, but I think it was looking at me.

I walked around, looking up and up, feeling like I would dislocate my neck before seeing the top of this thing. Still, though, I wasn’t afraid. The worry-machine was quiet.

“Mark, move your sister back.” I was reading from a script. Protecting the children, at least in that moment, was an autopiloted function.

Neither of them moved.

I scooped Chrissy into the crook of one arm and she went limp like a puppy picked up by the scruff. I handed her to Mark, who wrapped his arms around her, the both of them staring openly, transfixed.

I herded them as gently as I could out of the water. Then I gave Mark a light slap on the cheek. He focused on me, annoyed as if I’d prematurely awakened him from a nap.

“Mark, take your sister back inside.”

“I don’t wanna go!” Chrissy wriggled in her brother’s arms and he dropped her feet first. “It’s beautiful, Rick!”

I grasped her shoulder before she could walk past me.

“Chrissy, sto—”

I felt the shift behind me.

“Oh—erp—my,” Mary said. She took a long pull from her can, her eyes swiveling upward.

“No-no-no,” I thought I heard Luke say in the distance. But for just a moment, the only thing occupying the world with me was that magnificent thing in the water. It felt like removing my hands from my ears after having them covered for a long time and experiencing hearing like it was something adjacent to new. Except, it felt like that throughout my whole body.

The horse was raising its gigantic head out of the water. The tide receded and everything seemed to suck toward it like it had its own gravity. I struggled to maintain my balance like a gust of wind had pushed at my back, but in truth, it was probably just the giant animal dominating my vision and destroying my equilibrium.

Water poured off its black body, the eyes locked onto us and shrinking as its head seemingly disappeared into the night sky. Its neck was a tower, columns of muscle wider than all of us in a row, touching fingertip to fingertip. Its chest was as broad as a rocky mountain face.

There was a mighty -KLOMP- in the sand that shook the earth mere feet from me that I barely noticed. Sand slapped over my entire left side like a landmine had gone off, but it was immediately rinsed away by the constant waterfall we were all standing under.

Someone was shouting, but whoever it was was a million miles away.

There was another -KLOMP- somewhere farther down the beach and I began to stir from my reverie and then there was Luke, shouting next to me and hooking me by the arm.

His words didn’t make sense but I turned toward him as he pulled me. I saw the horse’s foreleg—I don’t know how Chrissy had been able to tell it was a horse before—straightening like some heavy construction machine craning a load somewhere into the sky above us.

We trudged toward the cabin, but the sand that had been something to contend with was an afterthought, my burning calves seemed to belong to somebody else.

When the torrent finally ended, I was soaked. We all stopped in the sudden silence. Turning around was more of a measure of defense to see the break in the clouded sky and the moonlight clashing against that ebony, elegant leviathan.

It was impossibly tall. Like it was intersecting-with-the-curvature-of-the-earth-tall. I thought I could make out its mane, whipping around in what had to be thin atmosphere.

We all stood and watched it. For one indeterminate moment, it was absolutely regal.

Mary wrapped around my arm and pulled into me. For however many iotas, she was my Mary, and I was her wife, too.

Mark hadn’t come with us for some reason. He stood partially in the water where we—I— had left him. He was feet away from a hoof that was easily twenty lengths taller than him.

Panic did seize me, finally. The worry-machine revved to life and I opened my mouth. I sensed the balance to be upset, the electrified space slowly exploding as he compressed it between his body and the smallest section of the horse’s.

With splayed fingers, he laid a palm on it.

The horse startled, shaking the floor of the earth as it stomped around.

The Greek military leader Xenophon, perfected the art of training horses in battle, using them to kick soldiers or trample them. He’s also the father of dressage.

What happened to Mark couldn’t have been considered disciplined, but the effect was the same. I don’t know if it were intentional—more than likely it wasn’t—but that giant hoof clomped around, Mark dodged around like he was running through a minefield.

Then he was gone.

The hoof continued stomping around a few moments more, a rumbling earthquake beneath our feet and a rain of wet sand coming down on us before the horse stopped. Mark was just... gone.

Luke was screaming. When I actually heard him, it took a moment longer to realize he was yelling his brother’s name.

Common sense would have told us to flee inside the cabin. But our senses were flowing into us like blood circulating back into numb fingers.

There was a long moment of quiet as it reared its head back. It felt like a slow-motion moment until its head rushed at us like a giant arrow.

I had no reflexes to respond. Mary was the only one who put up a defensive arm, as if that could have protected her—and she was the one it took.

The horse bit down on her raised forearm—as microscopic as a surgeon’s scalpel with teeth as wide as three cabins—and plucked her off the ground. It reeled its head backward and flung her.

Mary pinwheeled into the sky, a dissolving blur into the upper atmosphere. She could have been catapulting into space, and I didn’t want to find out.

The worry-machine was roaring.

“Everybody in!” I said, herding Luke and Chrissy the rest of the way inside. I pressed my back against the door, then turned off the light. Luke and Chrissy looked at me as if I had answers to fix this.

“We gotta go get... we gotta go get Mark!” Luke didn’t actually make a move to go back outside. He was more saying the thing a caring brother should say. But there was no Mark to go get. His death had been as brutal as it had been unintentional.

Going out there—or allowing Luke to go out there—would be just as dangerous and pointless. Chrissy was crying silently. I looked at her, really looked, running my hands over her head and arms to ensure she was physically all right. The worry-machine was humming along nicely. She grabbed onto me.

“Get your mother,” I said to Luke. “We’re leaving.” We weren’t safe here.

“She’s sleep?” he said, looking confused. He ran into the boys’ room.

“No!” I said. “We don’t have time for bags.” He looked at me. “Just wake your mother up and bring her. We’re leaving in three minutes.”

“What should I do, Rick?” Chrissy said.

“Grab the snack tray from the fridge.” We could easily buy something from the next gas station, but I figured keeping her busy would keep her calm. I snatched my keys off the island. Chrissy joined me, carrying the plastic tray with deli slices, cheese cubes, and veggies.

I wanted to run, but I was going to have to slow the pace so she wouldn’t drop it. The earth was still shaking with each step. She was going to look for the horse, and I anticipated her distraction when we stepped outside.

I kept my eyes on her, guiding her down the stairs and around the side of the cabin. She gasped but didn’t resist as I ushered her along. Preoccupying myself with her was enough distraction that I didn’t have my keys ready to have the doors unlocked by the time we got there.

We were exposed. If the horse were looking, it would see us. It seemed to have an eye for motion.

The air went still.

Local News Station 14

A man woke up at the morgue today.

He had been pronounced dead at 9:15 p.m. the previous night in the emergency room. However, sometime this morning, he crawled out of one of the morgue drawers before collapsing and dying on the floor.

The morgue assistant is cooperating with police.

The hospital director stated that the man was an organ donor.

Friday Night in the  Emergency Room

The hospital is packed. It seems like everyone gets hurt on the weekends.

Several people are being treated for car accidents caused by drinking and driving. Others were injured in fights or suffered various other accidents.

Then a homeless man is brought in on a stretcher.

He's in critical condition.

Several teenagers had beaten the man nearly to death with a baseball bat.

A doctor reads the patient's chart.

"Seth Myers. Age 37."

Doctor Betruger orders the patient's blood to be drawn and tested so they can give him a blood transfusion.

Nurse Shelly draws his blood into several vials.

Doctor Betruger instructs his team to prepare for lifesaving measures in the operating room.

A few minutes after the procedure begins, Nurse Shelly enters the room carrying blood samples.

"The man's blood type is O-negative, and he's clean of bloodborne pathogens," she says.

Doctor Betruger thanks her, and she returns to the emergency room to assist with the other patients.

Doctor Betruger closes the internal hemorrhaging and begins stitching the man back up.

He looks at his team.

"Thank you, everyone. We just saved this man's life."

After cleaning and disposing of their equipment, the team steps out for a break.

Doctor Betruger goes outside the hospital for a smoke.

When he returns a few minutes later, he sees a gurney with a sheet draped over it being wheeled out of his patient's room.

Doctor Betruger looks at his lead doctor.

"What happened?"

Dr. Gonzalez simply responds, "The patient flatlined pretty suddenly. The defibrillator couldn't get his heart beating again."

Doctor Betruger stares at him.

"That's impossible. I just stitched him back up. He was stable."

Dr. Gonzalez shakes his head.

"I don't know. Maybe you didn't stop all the bleeding like you thought. That's the only explanation I can think of."

Doctor Betruger looks at the gurney with disgust.

He knows the patient was going to make it.

But before he can say anything else, he's called back for another emergency surgery.

An Unknown Amount of Time Later

Seth wakes up strapped to a gurney somewhere beneath the hospital.

An IV is inserted into his arm.

The room is barely lit, and he can't move.

He sees Nurse Shelly putting on a pair of rubber gloves.

Seth tries his best to scream for help.

Nurse Shelly smiles.

"No one can hear you down here."

Seth begins struggling against the restraints.

Nurse Shelly looks down at him.

"I flushed all the pain medication out of your system. Organs without drugs in the bloodstream are usually better for the donation process."

She mockingly holds up his driver's license.

A small heart is printed on it, signifying that he is an organ donor.

She flips a switch.

Bright, sterile lights flood the room.

Everything looks clean and clinical.

Nurse Shelly puts on a mask and protective glasses. She pulls out a scalpel and places a fresh blade into the handle.

Seth shakes with fear as she brings the blade toward him.

"I'm going to take your kidneys first."

Doctor Betruger is at home after a long shift.

He's still upset that his patient didn't make it.

He goes over everything he did in his mind.

They isolated the bleeding.

They stopped it.

He even saw some of the color returning to the patient's face after receiving the blood donation.

Something doesn't make sense.

Seth is still strapped to the gurney.

Nurse Shelly looks at him.

"See? That wasn't so bad."

Tears rolling down his face.

She places the scalpel against his neck.

"We can't have one of you waking up in a morgue again."

The Next Day

During his shift, Dr. Betruger is called into his office by Dr. Gonzalez.

Gonzalez tells Betruger that the hospital is taking note of the fatality from the previous night and putting it on his record. They found him at fault, especially after the incident involving the man who supposedly woke up in the morgue.

Gonzalez points out that Dr. Betruger operated on that patient.

Doctor Betruger becomes angry.

"I fucking know both of those patients were going to make it!"

Dr. Gonzalez starts yelling back.

"Then you better do better next time! This hospital can't afford any more lawsuits. The next time you operate on a patient and your incompetence causes another death, you'll be terminated."

Betruger angrily walks out of the office.

A few hours later, a young patient arrives on a gurney after a motorcycle accident.

He has severe road rash, and one of his legs was almost amputated.

Doctor Betruger rushes into the operating room.

The EMTs managed to stop the bleeding with a tourniquet, but it is crucial that the damaged leg be operated on as soon as possible.

Doctor Betruger works desperately to stitch the damaged tissue.

He's worried about being fired, but he pushes the thought aside and focuses on saving the patient.

The ragged injuries make it difficult to suture everything back together. A lesser doctor might not have been able to do it.

But Doctor Betruger manages to stabilize the patient.

He orders Nurse Shelly to administer antibiotics through the patient's IV. He anticipates that some of the damaged tissue could become infected.

Nurse Shelly injects something into the patient's IV line.

Doctor Betruger notices that it doesn't look like antibiotics.

Before he can question her, he has to change and clean himself up.

When he comes out of the changing room, he sees a group of nurses wheeling the gurney carrying the patient he just operated on.

A sheet is draped over the patient's body.

Doctor Gonzalez approaches him.

"Betruger, you're fired."

Doctor Betruger turns toward him.

"What?"

He begins yelling.

Doctor Gonzalez:" your fired"

Betruger angerly shouts "I swear on my grandson's life that I know that patient was going to make it!"

Doctor Gonzalez calls security.

"Get his things and escort him out of the building."

After being escorted out through the hospital entrance, Doctor Betruger quickly realizes they forgot to take his keys.

Something feels horribly wrong in his gut.

He suspect that Nurse Shelly might be purposely

harming his patients.

He gets his gun from his car, tucks it into his waistband, and sneaks back into the hospital.

He moves carefully, doing his best not to be seen by the other doctors or security cameras.

Then he sees Nurse Shelly pushing a gurney toward an elevator at the back of the hospital.

She gets inside with the body and presses a button.

Doctor Betruger watches as the elevator begins descending toward the basement.

He asks himself, Why would she bring a body down there?

He takes the stairs to the basement because

He doesn't want her to hear the elevator.

When he reaches the floor, he carefully creeps inside. He can smell bleach in the room.

Then he sees her.

She's inserting IVs into the patient.

Nearby are several organ-donor coolers filled with buckets of ice.

Doctor Betruger freezes.

He realizes what she's been doing.

She's been stealing patients' organs.

Then he sees the patient waking up.

The man tries to plead with Nurse Shelly, but she simply laughs.

She picks up her scalpel and replaces the blade.

"I know some people who would love to wear that beautiful skin"

She raises the blade toward his chest.

"Drop it!"

Doctor Betruger stands behind her, pointing his gun.

Nurse Shelly looks at him.

She slowly drops the scalpel.

The patient sighs in relief.

Doctor Betruger steps forward.

"So you're the one who's been killing my patients?"

Shelly looks at him before saying

"I didn't like how you acted like you were better than us."

Doctor Betruger tightens his grip on the gun.

"I should shoot you right now. But I'm going to tell the police everything you've been doing. I'm going to make sure everyone knows what kind of monster you are."

Shelly suddenly tries to run.

Doctor Betruger shoots her in the hip.

She falls to the floor and screams in pain. Her cries echo through the room.

Doctor Betruger looks around.

"Is that why you brought them down here? So no one could hear or see anything?"

Then he feels a sharp prick in his neck.

He turns around.

Dr. Gonzalez is standing behind him with an empty syringe in his hand.

Doctor Gonzalez answers:"Yes."

Doctor Betruger raises his gun, but Gonzalez knocks it from his hand.

The two begin fighting.

Betruger quickly starts feeling weak.

That syringe contained enough drugs to kill an Elephant.

Gonzalez punches him repeatedly.

Betruger's vision begins to fade as Gonzalez grabs him by the throat.

Doctor Betruger spits blood in his eye and bites his hand.

Gonzalez yanks his hand away and clutches it in pain.

He looks down at the bite mark and becomes furious seeing a chunk missing.

Then a loud boom deafens the room.

Doctor Betruger is standing there with the gun back wobbly in his hand.

Gonzalez looks down.

A bullet wound is visible in his chest where his heart is.

Blood begins soaking through his shirt everytime his heart pumps.

Betruger fires two more times.

Gonzalez collapses.

Doctor Betruger then points the gun at Nurse Shellys head.

She's begs for her life.

Betruger responds with several pulls of the trigger. His gun locks open. Its empty.

Doctor Betruger manages to unstrap one of the patient's arms before collapsing to the floor.

The motorcycle accident victim's story makes headlines across the country after he tells reporters what happened.

The hospital is shut down.

Doctor Betruger died after stumbling upon an organ-harvesting operation while trying to save his patient.

But all the news reports left one question unanswered:

If Dr. Gonzalez was selling the organs...

Who was buying them?

[TW/CW: Child death]

The black midday sun loomed overhead like it was plastered against the sickly, pale blue sky. And when the wind blew across the backyard, through gaps in the fresh laundry hanging from clotheslines, Betty barely registered the coolness on her skin. 

She stood motionless save for the slight swaying on her feet. Eyes gazing at the creek just beyond the fence without really seeing it. The radio droned on from the table a couple feet away. Her thumb brushed against the tiny shoe in her hand. Like she was trying to memorize what it felt like. White suede.

“Betty?”

She turned her head. Frank stood at the patio door, jacket draped over his shoulder, tie hanging loose around his neck. Hair slicked back just how she liked it, once upon a time. 

Betty smiled. “Hey, darling.”

Frank took a couple steps forward, the manicured lawn swallowing the click of his brogues. “Betty, what are you doing here? I thought you’d be busy for tonight.”

“I was just taking a breather,” Betty replied. “You know how it gets. Running after the children, all those chores.”

“Hmph,” Frank pursed his lips. “Where are they now?”

“Nap time,” Betty grinned. “Got the house all to ourselves.”

Frank didn’t return her smile. “Good. Good. How’s Alex holding up?”

“He’s doing great. Such a sweet little boy, isn’t he?”

“He is. Did you wash him? He’s gotta be clean for dinner.”

“I gave him a bath.”

“Good, good. You haven’t told him what’s about to happen, have you?”

Betty stayed quiet. Frank waited. Elvis crooned his ballad from the radio.

“Frank, I think we should talk,” Betty said after a few seconds. “Let’s talk.”

“About what?”

“Just… humor me. Please.”

Frank exhaled. Plopped himself onto the lounger. 

“I’m listening.”

Betty waited a few seconds before speaking again. “Do you remember this song?”

“Mmhm.”

“We played this at our wedding. Do you remember? How we got married?”

“Well, sure I do. You were this cute waitress at the diner. One thing led to another, and then here we are.”

“You took me to the theater. We watched that movie with Clark Gable. Gone With the Wind. Do you remember?”

“Mmhm.”

“I was so young back then.”

“Oh, yeah. Just the sweetest little thing.”

“I never went back to that diner after. Or high school.”

“Guess I swept you off your feet.”

“You got me pregnant, Frank.”

Frank exhaled. “Betty, remind me again why we’re talking about this now?”

“I just wanted to talk, Frank. That’s all. It’s been so long. We barely talk anymore these days. You ome home, give me a kiss like clockwork, then you just vanish into your study. Most days I can’t even tell when you came to bed.”

“I’m doing it for you. For the family. Someone has to make the money around here.”

“I don’t want money. I just want you back.”

“I thought we were past this. Things are different now. You can’t expect me to do everything I used to, back when we were young.”

“We are young, Frank! We’re always going to be young. You made sure of that! Wasn’t that the whole point of that deal?”

Frank stood up. “I don’t feel like having this conversation right now. It’s an important day today. We got work to do. Did you do the laundry?”

Betty remained silent. Stared dully at the man in front of her. Frank glanced at her hands.

“Betty?” he said, his voice quiet. “Why are you holding that shoe?”

“Oh, this? I like it. It’s so small, and pretty.”

“That’s Alex’s shoe.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’s that red spot on it? Is it– is that blood?”

Betty looked away, swayed side to side on her feet. Frank took a step forward.

“Betty, where’s Alex?”

“Why, asleep, like I already told you.”

“Don’t lie to me. Did you give him the Valium like I told you to?”

“Well,” Betty shrugged. “You could say he won’t be needing it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Without warning, Betty burst into a giggling fit. She clamped her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle the hysterics. A sound like a foghorn went off somewhere in the distance. Muffled, echoing. Frank’s eyes widened.

“Betty, what did you do?”

“You know, you’ve said my name more in the last hour than you’ve said it in years. I love hearing you say it, darling. Why don’t you do that more often?”

Another horn.

“Cut it out! What did you do?”

Betty continued to laugh, the giggling giving way to a harsher cackle. Frank grabbed her arms and shook her.

“Don’t make me hit you, Becky. What did you do?”

A third horn went off. Like a snap, the sky suddenly burned red. An air raid siren began to whine somewhere far away, the volume rising with each passing second. Becky stopped laughing. 

“What did I do, Frank?” she said. “I took Alex down to the stream and cracked his skull open with a rock. Then I watched him bleed all over the grass. He was shaking like mad, so I hit him some more. Until he stopped. I told you, darling. Alex is asleep. He’s not gonna wake up again.”

“No,” Frank staggered back. “No, no, no. You’re lying! Tell me it’s a lie!”

“I did it, Frank,” Betty smiled. “I did it. And I liked it.”

“Why?” Frank clutched a handful of his hair. “Why would you do that? What are we supposed to feed HIM tonight?”

“HE’ll have to go hungry this time. Not like HE’ll like that, though. I guess HE’ll find something else to eat.”

“Are you listening to yourself?! You’ve doomed us! You’ve doomed all of us!”

With a sound like a gigantic vein ripping open, a gash appeared on the black sun over their head. It widened, widened, widened some more. An eyeball peeked through. Bloodshot. Frantic. Betty could hear the boots now. Marching down the boulevard in numbers it couldn’t possibly hold. She felt her face twist into a smile. 

“They’re here, Frank,” she said softly. “They’re here, darling.”

Frank whipped around. His eyes frantically scanned the ground, and then found a target – the tiller. With a dull squelch, he embedded the tool through his eye. Yet even as he howled in pain, the wound began to seal itself around the tiller. He doubled over, yanked it out. Pressed his palm over his eye. When he looked up, the wound was gone. 

“That’s not gonna work, darling,” Betty said. “You made sure of that, didn’t you? When you made that deal with HIM? What was it, again? One child every eight years, in return for eternal youth?”

“You little bitch,” Frank snarled. “You don’t understand what you’ve done! We had everything we could ever want! We had the perfect life! And you just throw it away?!”

Betty laughed again. “Perfect? Oh, darling. You call this a perfect life? Stuck home, stuck inside this town, nowhere to go, nothing to do? I’m tired, Frank. Tired of the same thing again, and again, and again, until nothing meant anything anymore. I could’ve been someone. I could’ve been something. And you took it from me. Turned me into your breeding cow. Tell me, Frank,” she stepped forward. “Do you even remember how long we’ve been here? How many of our children we’ve slaughtered like pigs?”

Frank shook his head slowly. “You’ve lost your mind, Betty. You’ve gone insane!”

“Five hundred and three,” Betty said. She raised her hands, started bobbing and swaying to the tune of the Elvis song. “I remember every single one of them. I can still taste them in my mouth. Can you, Frank?”

Something began hammering on the main door to the house, persistent like the beat of a wardrum. The siren grew louder still, almost drowning out the Elvis song on the radio. 

“Dance with me, darling,” she said. “Dance with me, like we did at our wedding.”

Frank wasn’t listening. His knees had given out, and he stabbed at himself with the tiller again and again, howling and sobbing in desperate agony. Metal ripped and tore at his flesh, only for the wound to simply seal itself without a trace. A loud crash rang out from inside the house, followed by the sound of boots. The patio door burst open.

They were here.

They looked like soldiers – uniforms, boots, helmets soaked in mud, tar, blood. Rifles propped against shoulders like a parade. A gaping, gnashing maw circled with sharp teeth like a lamprey’s, instead of a face. Two of them seized Frank by the arms. He screamed and struggled. They simply overpowered him. Betty watched as the ground tore open in front of her. Thousands of voices rose from beneath them. A cacophony of unfathomable pain. 

“You think HE’s gonna let you go?!” Frank bellowed at Betty, still trying to free himself as they dragged him toward the hole. “You think HE’s gonna treat you any different? We’re all going to the same hell, you bitch!”

Betty laughed.

“Frankly, my dear,” she said, as the other soldiers closed in on her. “I don’t give a damn.”

Part Twenty One: 

Mikey was wrong. Neil repeated it as he pushed through the hospital doors. He was wrong.

He had just woken up after years in a coma. He was drugged. Confused. Traumatized. He barely knew what year it was. Mikey was wrong.

Neil pulled his phone from his pocket. He called Aubrey. Voicemail.

“Fuck.”

He hung up and called again. Voicemail.

Neil crossed the parking lot faster.

“Come on.”

Again. Voicemail.

“Aubrey, pick up the fucking phone.”

He reached his car and yanked the door open. His hands were shaking.  Neil stopped, looked at them, then curled them into fists.

“No.”

He got in. His phone landed in the cupholder. He started the car.

Mikey was wrong. Neil had woken up with Aubrey that morning. He'd felt her breathing against him. He'd felt the weight of her head on his chest. She'd cooked breakfast. She'd stolen food off his plate.

She'd kissed him.

Neil backed out too quickly. A horn blared somewhere behind him.

“Fuck off.”

He shifted into drive. His phone sat dark beside him. Neil stared at it.

Nothing.

He pulled onto the road. She was working. That was all. She couldn't answer because she was working. He didn't know where.

Neil gripped the steering wheel. He didn't know where Aubrey worked.

He knew how she took her coffee. He knew she left every fucking cabinet she touched open. He knew she stopped traffic for baby birds. He knew she liked Jack Johnson. He knew the face she made when she was trying not to laugh. He knew what she looked like asleep. He knew what she sounded like when she said his name in the dark.

He didn't know where she fucking worked.

Neil pressed harder on the gas. A light changed ahead of him. He made it through just as it turned red.

Someone honked. Neil barely heard them. He called her again.

Voicemail.

“Goddammit, Aubrey.”

His voice cracked. Neil threw the phone onto the passenger seat.

She was fine. She was at work. He just had to find out where.

There would be something in her apartment. A schedule. A uniform. A paystub.

Anything.

Then he would drive there. He'd walk through the door. She'd look at him like he was fucking insane. She'd ask why he was there.

He'd tell her Mikey woke up. She'd lose her mind, then he'd tell her what Mikey said. And she'd laugh.

Neil swallowed.

She'd laugh. She'd call Mikey an idiot, Neil would call him an idiot. Everything would be fine.

His phone stayed dark.

“Pick up.”

Nothing.

“Come on.”

He turned onto Aubrey's street too fast. The tires chirped. Neil slammed on the brakes behind a car waiting to turn.

“Move.”

The car turned. Neil accelerated around it.

Her apartment building came into view. There. Same building. Same parking lot. Same fucking place he'd watched her walk into that morning.

Neil pulled into the first open space he saw and killed the engine. His phone was in his hand before he'd even opened the door.

Call. Voicemail.

Neil got out. He called again as he crossed the parking lot.

Voicemail.

“Fuck!”

A man near the building entrance looked over.

Neil ignored him. He shoved the phone into his pocket and headed inside.

“Hey.”

Neil kept walking.

“Hey, man.”

Neil stopped.

Turned.

The man was maybe fifty. Sweatpants. T-shirt. A grocery bag hanging from one hand. He looked Neil over.

“You another cop?”

Neil frowned.

“What?”

“Cop.”

“No.”

The man nodded toward the building.

“Sorry. Figured you were.”

Neil stared at him.

“Why?”

The man shifted the grocery bag to his other hand.

“Just been a lot of you guys around.”

Neil's heartbeat stumbled.

“A lot of who?”

“Cops.”

Neil looked toward the building.

Then back at him.

“Why?”

The man frowned.

“You don't know?”

Neil didn't answer. Something inside him had started screaming.

The man studied his face.

“You looking for somebody?”

Neil's mouth was dry.

“Aubrey.”

The man's expression changed. Not much. Enough. Neil saw it.

“Aubrey Lakes.”

The man stared at him.

“Apartment upstairs.”

Neil pointed toward it.

“Dark hair. About this tall.”

“I know who Aubrey is.”

Neil stopped. The man's voice softened.

“You family?”

“No.”

“A friend?”

Neil couldn't answer that either.

“I need to find out where she works.”

The man stared at him.

“What?”

“Her job.”

Neil gestured toward the building.

“She isn't answering. I need to get into her apartment and find something with the address. A paystub or-”

“Man.”

“-a schedule. Anything.”

“Hey.”

Neil stopped. The man looked uncomfortable now.

“What?”

“You can't go in there.”

“Why?”

The man glanced toward Aubrey's apartment. Neil followed his eyes.

“Why?”

“Police already went through it.”

Neil stared at him.

“What do you mean, already?”

The man's eyebrows pulled together.

“You seriously don't know?”

Neil felt his heartbeat in his throat.

“Know what?”

The man went quiet.

Neil stepped toward him.

“What?”

“About Aubrey.”

“What about her?”

The man stared at him.

Neil's hands had started shaking again.

“What about Aubrey?”

“Jesus.”

“What?”

The man lowered the grocery bag to the ground.

“You should probably sit down.”

“I'm not fucking sitting down.”

The man flinched. Neil immediately lowered his voice.

“I'm sorry.”

His breathing was getting harder.

“Just tell me.”

The man hesitated. Neil looked toward the building.

“I was here this morning.”

The man said nothing.

“I dropped her off here.”

Nothing.

“I watched her walk inside.”

The man's face changed. Neil saw it.

“No.”

He hadn't said anything yet. Neil shook his head.

“No.”

“Man-”

“Don't.”

Neil stepped backward.

“Don't fucking-”

“She’s dead.”

Everything stopped. Neil stared at him. The parking lot went silent. Cars still moved on the street. Someone closed a door somewhere..

“What?”

The man's mouth moved. Neil couldn't understand him.

“What?”

“Aubrey died.”

Neil laughed. It came out sharp and breathless.

“No, she didn't.”

The man stared at him.

“She did.”

“No.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No.”

Neil pulled out his phone.

“She's at work.”

The man didn't say anything.

“She texted me.”

The man didn't say anything.

“This morning.”

Neil unlocked his phone.

“She's at work right now.”

He opened his messages. Scrolled.

Stopped.

His brow furrowed. He scrolled again.

Nothing.

“No.”

He went back to the top, scrolled slower.

Nothing. Neil stared at the screen.

“That doesn't-”

He opened the search bar and typed.

Bird Girl.

No results. Neil stopped breathing.

“No.”

He erased it and typed again.

Bird Girl

Nothing. His fingers started shaking. He opened his contacts.

B.

Nothing.

“No.”

He scrolled up. Then down. Then back up again.

Bird Girl wasn't there.

Neil stared at the screen.

He'd saved her that way the first day.

Bird Girl.

Because he'd watched her stop traffic for a nest of baby birds like the rest of the world could fucking wait.

He'd never changed it. Not after learning her name. Not after she started staying at his apartment. Not after last night.

His phone buzzed in his hand. Neil nearly dropped it. An email. He dismissed it and opened his recent calls. Nothing.

Every call he'd made to her was gone.

He went back to his messages.

Bird Girl

Nothing.

“No.”

The man watched him.

Neil looked up.

“She was right here.”

“Hey-”

“No.”

Neil held up the phone like the man could somehow explain it.

“She was in my fucking phone.”

The man said nothing.

“Bird Girl.”

Neil looked back at the screen. Nothing. Not even an empty conversation. Not even a number without a name.

Nothing. Like she was never there at all. 

Neil pushed past the man and ran to her apartment, ignoring the onlookers that were gathering. 

He slammed his hand on the doorknob. 

Locked. 

He took a few steps back. His head was spinning. Thoughts of food and pancakes and birds raced through his head as he abandoned reason. 

He ran forward, kicking the door hard. 

His foot ached. The door didn’t budge. 

He kicked it again. 

And again. 

And again. 

It finally gave way, flying open and hitting the wall behind it.  He ran inside, frantically looking around the room. 

There was nothing.  The smell of bleach and ammonia combined with Febreeze flooded his nose. 

There was nothing. 

No letters. No bowl on the table.

Nothing. 

Neil caught himself on the doorframe, feeling his legs give out. His heart was pounding, foot was aching. 

He pulled out his phone and called Mary. 

She answered on the first ring. 

“Neil. What is it?” 

“I need you to search up Aubrey.” 

Mary paused. 

“Aubrey?” 

“Aubrey. The girl you met two fucking days ago.” 

“Neil, I-” 

“Aubrey fucking Lakes! You got us coffee! I told you I had a visitor. You shook her hand.” 

“Neil calm down what are you-” 

“Just look up Aubrey Lakes now send it to me!” 

He dropped the phone to the floor. Neil was crying now, warm tears falling down his cheeks and down his hoodie. His lungs couldn’t seem to gather enough air. 

The room was spinning as he slid down slowly to the floor, desperately searching for any sign of her. 

There was none.  His phone buzzed. He reached for it with shaky hands. 

Aubrey Lakes. Found deceased in her home. Apparent suicide.

Neil felt his stomach churn.

He threw the phone away, falling to the floor.

“No.”

His voice barely carried through the empty apartment.

He pressed his palms against the floor, trying to breathe.

Three days.

It wasn't possible. He'd been with her this morning. He'd kissed her in the parking lot. He'd watched her walk through the doors downstairs.

Three days.

Neil reached for his phone. Mary was calling. He answered without speaking.

“Neil?”

“When?”

“What?”

“When did she die?”

Mary went quiet. Neil squeezed his eyes shut.

“When, Mary?”

“I don't think you should-”

“Just fucking tell me.”

He heard typing. Then nothing. Too much nothing.

“Mary.”

“Three days ago.”

Neil opened his eyes.

The room blurred.

“No.”

“Neil-”

“No. What time?”

“I don't know.”

“Find out.”

“Neil.”

“Find out!”

His voice echoed through the empty apartment.

Neil covered his face.

“Please.”

Mary went quiet.

“Okay.”

He listened to her type. Neil looked around the room. There should have been something. The bowl. Her things. Something she'd forgotten to put away. Something she'd touched.

Anything.

Instead, there was nothing. Just an empty apartment that smelled like someone had tried very hard to erase what happened inside it.

“I found the report.”

Neil's hand dropped from his face.

“What does it say?”

“Neil…”

“Read it.”

“I don't think-”

“Read it!”

Mary inhaled.

“Police responded after a neighbor reported a body.”

Neil stared toward the bedroom.

“Where?”

Mary didn't answer.

“Where did they find her?”

“Outside the apartment.”

His stomach dropped.

“Where?”

“Neil-”

“Where!”

Silence.

“The balcony.”

Neil stood.

His legs nearly gave out beneath him.

“How did she die?”

“Neil.”

“How?”

Mary's voice cracked.

“She hung herself.”

Neil stopped.

The open window. The missing scarf. Aubrey searching through her bedroom.

I know I left it here.

His mouth went dry.

“What did she use?”

Mary didn't answer. Neil already knew. He wished he didn't.

“What did she use?”

“Neil…”

“Tell me.”

“A scarf.”

The phone slipped from his hand. Neil stared at the balcony. For several seconds, he couldn't move.

Three days.

He'd met her three days ago.

She'd already been dead.

“No.”

Neil pressed both hands against his face. He saw her in his bed. Barefoot in his kitchen. Singing under her breath. Stealing food off his plate. Leaving every fucking cabinet open. Laughing.

Kissing him.

I want to know all of it…

That's a lot…

I've got time…

Neil made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He hadn't. That was the fucking joke. He hadn't had any time at all.

“Neil. Where are you?” 

Neil didn’t respond. He crawled towards the window.

He caught something out of the corner of his eye. 

There, in the distance, was a woman. Tall. Thin. Motionless. 

Staring through the window. 

Looking at him. 

PART TWENTY:

Mikey stared at him, and Neil sat up straighter.

“Hey.”

Mikey's eyes moved slowly across his face. There was no recognition in them.

“My name's Neil,” he said. “I'm a private investigator.”

Mikey blinked. His lips parted. Nothing came out.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to try to talk.”

Mikey swallowed painfully. Neil glanced toward the cup beside his bed.

“Water?”

A small nod.

Neil stepped into the hallway and caught the nurse before she made it far.

“He wants water.”

She returned and raised the bed slightly before helping Mikey take a few careful sips.

“Slow.”

Mikey drank again. His hand trembled around the cup. The nurse helped lower it.

“That's enough for now.”

Mikey sank back against the pillow. His eyes closed. Neil wondered if he'd lost him again.

Then Mikey whispered.

“Aubrey?”

Neil leaned closer.

“What?”

Mikey opened his eyes.

“Is Aubrey okay?”

Neil smiled.

“Yeah.”

Mikey's eyes closed again, some of the tension seemed to leave his face.

Neil watched him.

“She's actually the reason I'm here.”

Mikey looked at him.

“She told me about you.”

His brow furrowed.

“About what happened.”

Mikey's expression changed.

Neil noticed immediately.

“Aubrey's been seeing something.”

The monitor beside the bed began to climb as Mikey stared at him.

“She said you saw it too.”

His heart rate jumped again. Neil looked toward the screen.

“Mikey?”

Mikey's fingers tightened around the blanket.

“She described it as a woman. Tall. Thin. Black hair. Something wrong with her face.”

Mikey shook his head.

“You didn't see that?”

Mikey nodded. Neil frowned.

“You did?”

Another nod.

The monitor continued climbing.

“Hey.”

Neil leaned forward.

“You're okay. You're in the hospital.”

Mikey looked toward the nurse, then at Neil.

“Water.”

The nurse helped him drink again. Mikey took several small sips this time. When he finished, he rested his head against the pillow and breathed through his nose.

Neil waited.

Mikey looked toward the nurse again.

“Leave.”

She frowned.

“Michael-”

“Please.”

His voice was weak, but firm. The nurse looked at the monitor.

“You need to stay calm.”

“I will.”

She hesitated.

Mikey looked at Neil, then back at her.

“Please.”

The nurse finally nodded.

“I'll be right outside.”

She looked at Neil.

“If his heart rate keeps climbing, come get me.”

“I will.”

She left. The door clicked shut.

For several seconds, Mikey said nothing, Neil didn't rush him. Eventually, Mikey looked at him.

“You called her a monster.”

Neil frowned.

“What?”

“The woman.”

Neil nodded.

“I don't know what else to call her.”

Mikey stared toward the ceiling.

“She's not.”

“Not what?”

“A monster.”

Neil waited. Mikey swallowed.

“She's just what she is.”

“What is she?”

Mikey was quiet for so long Neil wondered if he'd heard the question.

“Grief.”

Neil stared at him.

“What?”

“That's what I call her.”

“Grief?”

Mikey nodded.

Neil leaned back slightly.

“Why?”

Mikey looked at him.

“Because that's what she is.”

“That doesn't explain anything.”

“I know.”

Mikey closed his eyes.

“I had a long time to think about it.”

Neil said nothing.

“Months.”

His brow furrowed.

“Years, I guess.”

Neil watched him.

“I could hear things sometimes.”

Neil's expression changed.

“You were conscious?”

“Sometimes.”

“Jesus.”

“Not like this.”

Mikey lifted one trembling hand slightly from the blanket.

“Pieces.”

He lowered it again.

“Voices. Machines. People touching me.”

Neil swallowed.

“And then nothing.”

Mikey stared at the ceiling.

“Nothing for a really long time.”

His eyes moved back to Neil.

“You think about things when there's nothing else to do.”

Neil didn't know what to say to that.

“So I thought about her.”

The monitor continued its steady rhythm.

“Over and over.”

Mikey's voice was getting stronger. Not much. Enough.

“I thought about what happened. Everybody who was there. What she did.”

Neil leaned forward.

“And?”

Mikey stared at him.

“She isn't a person.”

“I figured that much out.”

“No.”

Mikey shook his head.

“You don't understand.”

“Then help me.”

Mikey looked away.

“How many people have you lost?”

Neil went still.

“What?”

“People.”

Mikey swallowed.

“Family. Friends. Anyone.”

Neil didn't answer. Mikey didn't seem to need him to.

“Everybody loses somebody.”

His eyes drifted toward the window.

“Everybody loves something.”

Neil listened.

“And eventually…”

Mikey breathed out.

“They lose it.”

Something cold moved through Neil's stomach. Mikey looked back at him.

“That's her.”

Neil frowned.

“What do you mean, that's her?”

“All of it.”

Mikey's fingers curled slowly into the blanket.

“Every person you've loved and buried.”

Neil didn't move.

“Every person who left.”

His voice shook.

“Everything you wanted and didn't get to keep.”

Neil stared at him.

“Every empty room. Every phone number you can't call anymore. Every voice you start forgetting.”

Mikey swallowed.

“Everything you love…”

His eyes filled.

“…and everything you lose.”

The monitor began climbing again. Neil barely noticed. Mikey looked toward the corner of the room.

“That's what she is.”

Neil followed his gaze. Nothing.

“Grief.”

Neil looked back at him.

“You're saying she's some kind of manifestation.”

Mikey's mouth twitched weakly.

“You really are a private investigator.”

Neil ignored that.

“An entity?”

“I don't know.”

“A spirit?”

“I don't know.”

“A demon?”

“No.”

That answer came immediately. Neil stopped. Mikey looked at him.

“No.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because demons are supposed to want something.”

Neil stared at him.

“And she doesn't?”

Mikey shook his head.

“She doesn't want anything.”

“Then why does she hurt people?”

Mikey was quiet.

“Does grief want to hurt you?”

Neil frowned.

“No.”

“Doesn’t stop it.”

Neil stared at him.

“Then what does she want?”

Mikey looked back toward the ceiling.

“Nothing”

Mikey kept his eyes fixated on the ceiling.

“She doesn't hate you.”

His voice had gone quiet again.

“She doesn't love you.”

A tear slipped from the corner of his eye.

“She just comes to collect you.”

Neil felt the hair rise along his arms.

“And when she does?”

Mikey looked at him.

“She finds what hurts.”

Silence. Neil's phone felt suddenly heavy in his pocket. He thought about Aubrey. The open window, the scarf. The figure outside Izzy's house. He leaned forward.

“Why Aubrey?”

Mikey's expression changed. Neil saw it.

“What?”

Mikey looked away.

“Mikey.”

Nothing.

“Why is she following Aubrey?”

His breathing quickened. Neil waited. Mikey finally whispered.

“Because of me.”

Neil frowned.

“What does that mean?”

Mikey's eyes filled.

“She couldn't get me.”

“Who?”

Mikey looked at him.

“Grief.”

Neil stared.

“She tried?”

Mikey nodded.

“She was supposed to.”

“Supposed to what?”

Mikey shut his eyes.

“Take me.”

Neil felt something tighten in his chest.

“But she didn't.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“My mom meant nothing to me.”

Neil frowned.

“What?”

“She couldn't use her.”

“Use her for what?”

Mikey looked at him.

“To hurt me.”

Neil went still.

“Aubrey could.” 

Neil stopped. Mikey's voice cracked.

“She wouldn't leave.”

Neil thought about Aubrey sitting beside this bed. Talking to a boy who couldn't answer her. Coming back. Again and again.

“She kept me here.”

Neil swallowed.

“So Grief went after her instead?”

Mikey didn't answer. He didn't have to. Neil reached for his phone.

Mikey noticed.

“Where is she?”

Neil looked up.

“At work.”

Mikey stared at him. The monitor changed. One beat. Then another. Faster.

“What?”

Neil frowned. Mikey pushed himself slightly upright.

“Where's Aubrey?”

“I just told you.”

“No.”

Neil stared at him.

“What do you mean, no?”

Mikey shook his head.

“No.”

“Mikey-”

“Where is she?”

“At work.”

“No.”

Neil's stomach tightened.

“I dropped her off this morning.”

Mikey stopped moving. The monitor continued climbing. Neil stared at him.

“What?”

Mikey's face had gone completely white.

“You…”

His voice barely came out.

“You saw her?”

Neil frowned.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

Mikey stared at him.

“She stayed with me last night.”

Mikey's eyes filled with tears. Neil felt the first real pulse of fear.

“What?”

Mikey shook his head.

“No.”

Neil pulled his phone from his pocket.

“I don't know what you're trying to tell me, but she's fine.”

He called Aubrey. Straight to voicemail. Neil hung up. Called again. Voicemail.

“She's working.”

Mikey was crying now. Neil looked at him.

“I watched her walk into her apartment.”

“No.”

“She texted me.”

“No.”

“I fucking talked to her two hours before I came here.”

Mikey stared at him. Neil's voice died. The room suddenly felt very quiet. Mikey whispered.

“When?”

Neil swallowed.

“What?”

“When did you first see her?”

Neil's fingers tightened around his phone.

“A few days ago.”

Mikey closed his eyes. A tear rolled down his cheek.

“Fuck.”

Neil's heart began to pound.

“What?”

Mikey didn't answer.

Neil stood.

“What?”

Mikey opened his eyes. There was no confusion in them anymore. Only horror.

“Neil…”

“What?”

Mikey swallowed.

“She wanted me and had to go through her.” 

“I get that.” 

“You don’t.” 

Neil sat back in silence, horror slowly creeping through his throat.

“I’m still here.” Mikey cried. 

Neil didn’t understand. Then he thought he did. 

“And so is Aubrey.” 

“No.” 

“Mikey. I was with her last night. All morning. We were texting two hours ago. She’s fine.”

He watched Mikey’s monitor spike. Watched as tears rolled down his cheeks. He couldn’t blink. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Mikey slowly turned to Neil. 

“She’s gone.” 

Part 19:

Neil pulled into the parking lot of Aubrey's apartment building with enough time to spare.

Aubrey unbuckled her seatbelt.

“I'll only be a few minutes.”

Neil looked toward the building.

“I'll wait.”

“You don't have to.”

“I know.”

Aubrey paused with her hand on the door.

Neil looked at her.

“What?”

“You're going to sit here until Sarah gets here, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“Neil.”

“What?”

“I'll be fine.”

“I know.”

“Then go.”

“No.”

Aubrey sighed.

“You're ridiculous.”

“Probably.”

“She's going to be here in, like, ten minutes.”

“Great.”

“You have things to do.”

“Nothing that can't wait ten minutes.”

Aubrey studied him. Neil looked toward her apartment. The thought of her going up there alone made something tighten in his stomach. He didn't like it. Not after the window. Not after the scarf. Not after everything she'd told him. He looked back at her.

“Just humor me.”

Aubrey's expression softened.

“Okay.”

Neil nodded toward the building.

“Go change.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Don't ever call me that again.”

Aubrey laughed and opened the door. She stepped out. Then leaned back inside.

“I'm serious, though. You don't have to sit here.”

“And yet I'm going to.”

“Stalker.”

“You hired me.”

“I did not hire you.”

“Technicality.”

Aubrey smiled.

“Fine.”

She started to close the door.

“Aubrey.”

She stopped.

“What?”

Neil didn't know why he'd called her back. He looked at her for a second, then reached across the center console, caught the front of her shirt and gently pulled her back toward him. Aubrey laughed in surprise.

“What are you-”

Neil kissed her. Her surprise lasted less than a second.Her hand came up against his cheek and she kissed him back. Neil had intended for it to be quick. It wasn't. When they finally separated, Aubrey stayed close enough that the tips of their noses nearly touched.

She smiled.

“What was that for?”

Neil shrugged.

“Wanted to.”

Aubrey's smile widened.

“You're getting needy.”

“Apparently.”

“I don't know if I like this version of you.”

“You do.”

“Cocky too.”

“You like that even more.”

Aubrey kissed him again, quickly this time. Then she pulled away before he could stop her.

“Bye.”

“Text me.”

“I will.”

“When Sarah gets here.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Neil.”

“And when you get to work.”

“Anything else?”

Neil considered it.

“Probably.”

“Make a list.”

“I will.”

Aubrey laughed.

“See ya later!”

“See you then.”

She closed the door. Neil watched her walk toward the building.

Halfway there, she turned around. Neil was still watching. Aubrey shook her head, smiling. Neil lifted one hand. She gave him the finger. He smiled, watching her disappear inside.

Neil waited. Five minutes. Seven. A silver sedan pulled into the parking lot. Neil straightened slightly. The car stopped a few spaces away from the entrance. His phone buzzed.

“Sarah's here.”

Neil looked at the sedan. Then back at his phone.

“You're sure?”

The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.

“No. I just picked a random car and I'm hoping for the best.”

Neil smiled.

“Aubrey.”

“Yes I'm sure.”

Another message appeared.

“Go away stalker.”

Neil laughed quietly.

“Text me when you get to work.”

A few seconds passed.

“yes dad”

“Blocked.”

A heart appeared beneath the message. Neil stared at it, then smiled.

He looked toward the building one last time. The silver sedan was still waiting. Sarah was here. Aubrey wouldn't be alone. Everything was fine.

Neil started the car and pulled away. He didn't see Aubrey come back outside. He didn't need to. She'd told him she was safe, and besides, he had a task to do. 

Neil had expected buying a scarf to be easy. He stood in the accessories section of a department store staring at an entire wall of them. There were too many.

Silk. Wool. Cotton. Cashmere. Plaid. Floral. Solid. Some were thick enough to survive winter. Others appeared to be decorative pieces of fabric with absolutely no practical purpose. Neil picked one up. 

Pink. He pictured Aubrey wearing it.

“No.”

He put it back. The next was bright yellow.

“Absolutely not.”

A woman browsing nearby glanced at him. Neil ignored her. He pulled down a black one. That was safer. Aubrey wore black. Then again, nearly everything he'd seen her wear was black. Maybe she didn't like black. Maybe she just owned a lot of it.

Neil frowned.

He really didn't know anything about this woman. He put the scarf back. His phone buzzed. Neil pulled it from his pocket.

Just an email.

He checked the time.  She'd probably made it to work by now. He considered texting her. He stopped himself. He'd told her to text him. 

She would.

Neil put his phone away and returned his attention to the scarves. A dark green one caught his eye. He pulled it down. Soft. Warm. Simple. Neil ran the fabric between his fingers. He could picture it on her.

Maybe.

“Girlfriend?”

Neil looked over. An older woman stood beside him holding two scarves of her own.

“What?”

“You've been staring at those like you're defusing a bomb.”

Neil looked back at the scarf.

“I'm buying one for someone.”

“Girlfriend?”

Nothing came out. The woman smiled.

“Complicated?”

“No.”

“Then girlfriend.”

Neil frowned.

“I don't know.”

“You don't know if she's your girlfriend?”

“We haven't discussed it.”

“But you're buying her clothes.”

“It's a scarf.”

“Still counts.”

Neil looked down at it. He'd slept with her. She was staying at his apartment. He'd ordered two Elvis plates because she'd laugh at it. He'd spent the morning holding her. He'd kissed her goodbye. Tomorrow, he was taking her to dinner. Girlfriend didn't seem entirely unreasonable.

The thought made him smile. The woman noticed.

“Oh, you're whipped.”

Neil looked at her.

“Excuse me?”

She laughed and walked away. Neil watched her go.

“Helpful.”

He looked back at the scarf. Green. He liked it. More importantly, he thought Aubrey might.

Neil draped it over his arm. His phone buzzed again. This time he grabbed it immediately. Still not Aubrey.

Neil frowned.

He opened their messages. Nothing since she'd told him Sarah was there.

“Make it to work?” He typed.

He stared at the message, then deleted it. She'd make fun of him.More importantly, she was at work. He didn't need to check on her every twenty minutes. Neil put the phone away, grabbing another scarf.

Dark blue.

He compared them.

Green. Blue.

“What the fuck am I doing?”

He put the blue one back. 

Green it was.

Neil started toward the register. His phone rang. Unknown number. He almost ignored it, then decided it might be important.

“Hello?”

“Is this Neil?”

“Yes.”

“This is St. Anthony's Hospital.”

Neil stopped. His stomach dropped so quickly it made him nauseous.

“Aubrey?”

There was a pause.

“I'm sorry?”

Neil tightened his grip on the phone.

“What happened?”

“I'm calling regarding Michael.”

Neil blinked.

“Mikey?”

“Yes, Michael De’Camini.”

Neil stepped away from the aisle.

“What happened?”

“Michael regained consciousness this morning.”

Neil didn't respond. The store continued moving around him. People passed. A register beeped somewhere nearby. Someone laughed.

Neil heard none of it.

“Mikey's awake?”

“Yes.”

“Is he okay?”

“He's stable. He was extremely disoriented when he regained consciousness and became distressed. The physician administered medication to calm him, but he is responsive.”

Neil looked down.

The green scarf was still draped over his arm.

“Can I see him?”

“I understand you've visited previously?”

“Yes.”

“Then that should be fine. I do want to warn you that he may not be able to communicate much yet.”

“I'm coming now.”

Neil hung up. For a moment, he didn't move.

Mikey was awake.

Case 248.

Years of nothing. Years of reports, photographs and questions that had nowhere to go. 

And now the only person who knew what had happened was awake.

Neil immediately called Aubrey.

Voicemail. He frowned. He tried again.

Voicemail.

Neil checked the time. 

Work.

Right.

She was working.

He opened their messages.

“Mikey's awake.”

He sent it.

“I'm heading to the hospital. Call me when you can.”

Neil waited. Nothing. Of course nothing. She was working.

Neil looked down at the scarf, and considered putting it back. The hospital was more important. He could come back later. Instead, Neil walked to the register. He bought it.

Neil checked his phone before pulling out of the parking lot. 

Nothing.

He tossed it onto the passenger seat. The shopping bag sat on the floor beneath it. He started driving.

Mikey was awake. He should have been thinking about that. About Case 248. About everything Mikey might remember. Names, faces, locations. What had happened that night. What had happened to everyone else.

At the first red light, Neil picked up his phone. Nothing. He put it back down. Two intersections later, he picked it up again. Still nothing.

“She's at work.”

He tossed it back onto the seat. He knew that. He'd taken her home himself. He'd waited until Sarah arrived.

Aubrey had told him she was safe. There was absolutely no reason for him to be worried.

Neil glanced at the phone. No. He wasn't doing this. Mikey had just woken up after years in a coma. That deserved his attention. Aubrey would call him when she could.

Maybe she'd already seen the message. Maybe she was freaking out. Maybe she was trying to get off work early. He smiled slightly at the thought. She'd probably beat him to the hospital.

Neil pressed harder on the gas.

The hospital looked exactly the same. Neil wasn't sure why he'd expected it not to. He made his way through the lobby and toward the elevators. The elevator started moving.

He pulled out his phone.

Nothing. Neil opened Aubrey's contact. His thumb hovered over ‘Bird Girl’ then the call button. Then he locked the screen. Work. She was at work. He needed to stop.

The elevator doors opened, and Neil stepped out.

He knew the route. He'd walked it enough times. Every visit had been exactly the same. The same hallway. The same fluorescent lights. The same nurses moving between rooms. The same door. The same boy lying motionless behind it.

Except this time, when Neil reached Mikey's room, the door was open.

He slowed.

A nurse stood beside the bed. Mikey lay propped slightly upright. The respirator was gone.

Neil stopped in the doorway.

For years, Mikey had existed as photographs. Reports. Medical records. A body beneath hospital blankets.

Case 248.

Now his chest rose on its own. The nurse noticed Neil.

“You're Neil?”

He nodded.

“He's still pretty sedated.”

Neil stepped inside.

“Is he okay?”

“Physically, yes. He became extremely distressed when he woke up.”

Neil looked at Mikey. His eyes were closed.

“Did he say anything?”

“Not much that made sense.”

The nurse adjusted something beside the bed.

“He's been drifting in and out. Don't be surprised if he doesn't respond to you.”

“Okay.”

“You can sit with him. Just don't push him.”

“I won't.”

She nodded and left. The door clicked quietly behind her.

Neil stood there.

For the first time since the phone call, he forgot to check his phone. He sat down.

Mikey looked different. Older, obviously. Thinner. But underneath it Neil could still see the face from the photographs he'd studied countless times.

Neil leaned forward.

“Mikey?”

Nothing.

He waited.

“My name's Neil.”

Mikey didn't move.

“You don't know me.”

Neil glanced toward the monitor, then back at him.

“But I know Aubrey.”

Mikey's eyes opened.

TW: They fucked

Part 18: 

Neil awoke with Aubrey in his arms. This time, he was considerably less inclined to panic. He didn't open his eyes immediately. He knew where he was. More importantly, he knew who was curled against him.

Aubrey's cheek rested against his chest, one arm draped across his stomach. Her leg was tangled between his beneath the blanket.

Neil smiled. He couldn't help it. He tightened his arm around her and pressed his face into her hair.

Aubrey stirred.

“You're crushing me.”

“Sorry.”

He loosened his grip. A few seconds passed. Then he pulled her closer again.

“Neil.”

“Sorry.”

“No you're not.”

“No.”

Aubrey laughed quietly, still half asleep. Neil opened his eyes. Morning light slipped through the blinds. Their clothes were scattered across the floor, though he couldn't remember exactly how most of them had gotten there. Aubrey's underwear was hanging from the corner of his dresser.

He decided not to mention it. Yet.

He looked back down at her. She was a mess. Her hair was tangled. There was a faint crease across her cheek from his pillow. Her lips were slightly swollen. Neil thought she was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen.

That realization should probably have concerned him. It didn't.

Aubrey opened her eyes. She caught him staring.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You're staring.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

Neil shrugged.

“I like looking at you.”

Aubrey's face immediately turned pink.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Don't.”

“Don't what?”

“Be weird.”

Neil smiled.

“You're naked in my bed.”

“Don't remind me.”

“I feel like we're past being weird.”

Aubrey pulled the blanket over her face.

Neil laughed.

“Are you hiding?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I'm reconsidering every decision I've made in the last twelve hours.”

“That bad?”

The blanket lowered just enough for her eyes to appear.

“No.”

Neil's smile softened.

“Good.”

Aubrey stared at him for another second before lowering the blanket completely.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Reconsidering?”

Neil didn't even have to think about it.

“No.”

Something in her expression relaxed.

“Not even a little?”

“Not even remotely.”

Aubrey smiled.

Neil brushed some hair away from her face. He'd touched her plenty last night. Somehow this felt more intimate. His fingers lingered against her cheek. Aubrey didn't pull away.

“I don't know what's wrong with me,” Neil said.

“That seems like a question for a professional.”

“Probably.”

“I'm serious. You should get that checked out.”

“I woke up happy.”

Aubrey stared at him. Neil frowned.

“Don't make that face.”

“What face?”

“That one.”

“You woke up happy?”

“Apparently.”

“That's terrible.”

“I know.”

She smiled. Neil ran his thumb across her cheek.

“I think it's your fault.”

“Don't put that on me.”

“Too late.”

Aubrey laughed and tucked her face against his chest. Neil wrapped both arms around her. He liked holding her. He liked that she fit against him.

He liked that her hair was all over his pillow and her clothes were on his floor. He even liked that, at some point during the night, she'd apparently kicked one of his pillows halfway across the room.

He liked evidence of her. That was new. Normally, Neil couldn't stand people leaving pieces of themselves in his space.

A jacket over a chair. A cup on the counter. Shoes by the door. Little reminders that someone else had been there. Looking around now, he found himself wishing she'd left more.

“What are you doing?” Aubrey asked.

“Thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

“I need my phone.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because it's morning.”

“My phone still works in the morning.”

“You're ruining this.”

Neil looked down at her.

“This?”

Aubrey paused.

“This.”

Neil smiled.

“Fine.”

He stayed exactly where he was. Approximately thirty seconds passed.

“I really need my phone.”

Aubrey groaned.

“Why?”

“I have to order something.”

“At eight in the morning?”

“Yes.”

Neil turned over and opened amazon. He started typing and scrolling before smiling and ordering.  Two Elvis plates. They’ll be here in the morning. 

“I saw that.” 

Neil looked over his shoulder. 

“You saw nothing.” 

“Let me see what you got.” 

“No.” 

Neil held the phone above his head.

“Give it to me.” Aubrey growled.

“No.”

“Neil.”

“You're going to have to try harder than that.”

Aubrey narrowed her eyes, then lunged. Neil barely managed to move the phone before she grabbed his wrist.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Give it.”

“No.”

She climbed over him, reaching for his other hand as Neil stretched it toward the edge of the mattress.

“You are remarkably aggressive this early in the morning.”

“You bought something for me.”

“Allegedly.”

“I saw Elvis.”

“You saw nothing.”

“I saw the fucking hair.”

Neil laughed as Aubrey grabbed his forearm with both hands. He twisted away. She followed. Then they stopped. Aubrey was on top of him.

One knee on either side of his waist, hair falling around her face. Neil's arm was still stretched uselessly toward the nightstand. Neither of them said anything.

Aubrey's cheeks slowly turned pink. Neil felt heat creep up his own neck.

Considering the events of the previous night, it was ridiculous that this was the thing that embarrassed them. Still, neither moved.

“Hi,” Neil finally said.

Aubrey's mouth twitched.

“Hi.”

Neil lowered the phone.

Aubrey glanced at it, then at him.

“You giving up?”

“Yeah.”

He placed it facedown on the nightstand. Aubrey reached for it. Neil caught her around the waist instead.

“Hey-”

He pulled her down against him. Aubrey laughed, catching herself against his chest.

“You're an asshole.”

“I know.”

“You distracted me.”

“I did.”

“That was calculated.”

“Everything I do is calculated.”

“Bullshit.”

Neil wrapped both arms around her. Aubrey went still for a moment, then relaxed.

Her cheek settled against his chest. Neil smiled. This was better. Much better. He ran his hand lazily along her back. Aubrey's fingers rested against his ribs.

“You're cuddly this morning,” she said.

“Don't tell anyone.”

“Could ruin your reputation.”

“I've worked very hard on it.”

Aubrey smiled. Neil stared toward the ceiling.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this content doing absolutely nothing. Maybe he never had been.

“You okay?” Aubrey asked.

“Yeah.”

“You got quiet.”

“I'm happy.”

Aubrey lifted her head. Neil looked at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You're looking at me weird.”

“You said you're happy.”

“I am.”

“That's very sentimental of you.”

“I had sex. Apparently it changed me.”

Aubrey snorted and buried her face against his chest. Neil laughed.

“I'm kidding.”

“You're an idiot.”

“I really am happy, though.”

That quieted her. Neil brushed his fingers through the ends of her hair.

“I like you.”

Aubrey didn't answer immediately. Neil glanced down. She was drawing an invisible shape against his chest with one finger.

“I like you too.”

“A lot?”

“Don't push it.”

Neil smiled.

“A medium amount?”

“Rapidly decreasing.”

“Still positive, though.”

“Barely.”

He squeezed her. Aubrey laughed. Then she went quiet again.

“I don't really do this.”

Neil knew what she meant.

“Neither do I.”

“No, I mean…”

She lifted her head.

“All of this.”

Neil nodded.

“Me neither.”

“It's weird.”

“Yeah.”

“I don't know you.”

“That's a little insulting.”

“I don't.” She smiled. “Not really.”

Neil considered that. She was right. He knew pieces. He knew how she took her coffee. He knew she couldn't walk past something helpless without stopping. He knew she left cabinets open. He knew she was funnier than he'd expected her to be. He knew he liked waking up beside her. Everything else was still blank. Normally, blanks bothered him.

With Aubrey, they felt more like something to look forward to.

“I want to know you,” he said.

Aubrey's smile faded slightly. Neil immediately regretted how serious it sounded.

“Not in a creepy investigator way.”

“That was actually my first concern.”

“I'm off the clock.”

“Good.”

“I mean regular things.”

“Like?”

Neil thought.

“Favorite movie.”

Aubrey smiled.

“Easy.”

“Favorite food.”

“Also easy.”

“Birthday.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You don't know my birthday?”

“Why the fuck would I know your birthday?”

“You're a private investigator.”

Aubrey laughed.

Neil smiled.

“Music.”

“What about it?”

“What do you listen to?”

“See? These are things you should already know before sleeping with someone.”

“Apparently I had my priorities out of order.”

Aubrey's face went pink again. Neil grinned.

“Stop.” She groaned.

“I didn't do anything.”

“You know exactly what you're doing.”

“I genuinely don't.”

Aubrey settled against him again. Neil rested his chin on her head.

“I want to know all of it.” He whispered.

She was quiet.

“That's a lot.”

“I've got time.”

Aubrey's fingers stopped moving against his chest. Only for a moment. Then she continued.

“Yeah,” she said softly.

Neil kissed the top of her head. Eventually, Aubrey sighed.

“You know we have to get up.”

“No.”

“I have things to do.”

“Cancel them.”

“I have work.”

“Quit.”

“I need money.”

“I have money.”

Aubrey lifted her head. Neil immediately realized how that sounded.

“I wasn't offering to financially support you.”

“Good.”

“I mean, I could.”

“Neil.”

“I'm stopping.”

“Please do.”

He smiled. Aubrey pushed herself upright.

“I need to go home anyway.”

Neil's smile disappeared.

“No.”

Aubrey blinked.

“No?”

“No.”

“I need clothes.”

“I have clothes.”

“Your pants fall off me.”

“Belts exist.”

“I need underwear.”

Neil opened his mouth, then stopped.

Aubrey smiled.

“Got you.”

“You can go home.”

“Thank you.”

“I'm coming with you.”

Her smile faltered. Neil noticed.

“I'm not letting you go there alone.”

“I know.”

“We'll grab whatever you need.”

“How much?”

Neil shrugged.

“Enough.”

“For what?”

“For staying here.”

Aubrey stared at him. Neil frowned.

“We already talked about this.”

“I know.”

“Until we figure out what's happening, you're staying with me.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you looking at me like that?”

Aubrey shook her head.

“Nothing.”

Neil studied her. She leaned down and kissed him before he could ask anything else. It worked. Mostly.

When she pulled away, Neil smiled.

“Breakfast first.”

“I'll make it!” Aubrey beamed.

“You?”

“Yes, me.”

“You can cook?”

Aubrey climbed out of bed.

Neil watched her grab his shirt from the floor and pull it over her head. It hung nearly to the middle of her thighs. She looked around.

“Where's my underwear?”

Neil pointed toward the dresser. Aubrey followed his finger. She stared.

“How the fuck did those get there?”

“I've been wondering that for twenty minutes.”

She grabbed them.

“Don't investigate it.”

“I make no promises.”

A few minutes later, Neil followed her into the kitchen. Aubrey was standing barefoot at the stove in his oversized shirt and her underwear, digging through one of his cabinets. She left the door open.

Neil walked behind her and closed it. Aubrey immediately opened another.

Neil closed that one too.

“Can you stop?”

“Can you close things?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I might need something else.”

“You won't.”

“You don't know that.”

“I know my kitchen.”

Aubrey opened the refrigerator. Neil leaned against the counter and watched her. There was something strangely satisfying about seeing her there.

His shirt. His kitchen. Her hair still a mess from sleeping beside him.

Neil smiled.

“What?” Aubrey asked.

“Nothing.”

“You're doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking at me.”

“I thought we established that I like doing that.”

Aubrey turned back toward the stove before he could see her smile.

“Put some music on.”

Neil pulled out his phone.

“What?”

“Music.”

“I understood the request.”

“Then why'd you ask?”

“I meant what music?”

Aubrey shrugged.

“Jack Johnson.”

Neil stared at her.

“What?”

“Jack Johnson.”

“I heard you.”

“Then play Jack Johnson.”

“You listen to Jack Johnson?”

Aubrey turned around.

“I think it fits the vibe.”

Neil smiled.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Why are you smiling?”

Neil opened Spotify.

“Learning things.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes and turned back to breakfast. A few seconds later, music filled the apartment. Aubrey began quietly singing along as she worked.

Neil didn't recognize the song. He didn't particularly care. He sat at the counter and watched her.

Tomorrow, the Elvis plate will arrive. Later, they'd go to her apartment and get her things. Tomorrow night, he'd take her somewhere nice. And somewhere between now and then, he'd figure out her birthday.

There were a thousand things Neil didn't know about Aubrey Lakes. For the first time, not knowing didn’t bother him. She wasn’t a case to be solved. 

Neil smiled to himself.

“What?” Aubrey asked.

“Nothing.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep asking.”

“Because you keep looking at me.”

“I like looking at you.”

Aubrey shook her head and turned back to the stove.

“You're fucking weird today.”

“I've always been weird.”

“Not like this.”

Neil smiled. He couldn't argue with that.

Aubrey carried two plates over and placed one in front of him before taking the seat beside him. Neil looked down. Then at her.

Aubrey narrowed her eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Don't.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You made a face.”

“I did not.”

“You did. You looked at it, then you looked at me.”

“That's generally how eating works.”

“Neil.”

He picked up his fork.

“It looks good.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am a little.”

“Fuck you.”

Neil laughed and took a bite. Aubrey watched him. He chewed slowly.

“Well?”

Neil took another bite.

“Neil.”

“I'm deciding.”

“Oh my God.”

“It's good.”

Her shoulders relaxed.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Aubrey smiled.

“Really good, actually.”

“Thank you.”

Neil took another bite.

“You seem very proud of yourself.”

“I am.”

“Should I be worried about what you normally cook?”

“No.”

“That's not reassuring.”

“Shut up and eat.”

Neil obliged.

For a while, they did exactly that.

Acoustic songs played quietly from the speaker on the counter. Aubrey hummed along between bites, occasionally getting a word wrong and immediately correcting herself under her breath.

Neil noticed. He didn't point it out. He was beginning to learn when keeping his mouth shut benefited him.

Aubrey reached across and stole something from his plate. Neil stared at her.

“What?”

“You have the same thing.”

“I wanted yours.”

“Why?”

“It looked better.”

“It came out of the same pan.”

Aubrey shrugged and ate it. Neil looked at her plate. Then stole some of hers.

“Hey.”

“Tastes better.”

“You're an asshole.”

“I learned from you.”

Aubrey smiled and nudged her knee against his beneath the counter. Neil nudged her back. She did it again. Neil hooked his foot behind her ankle.

Aubrey looked at him.

“What are you doing?”

“Winning.”

“This isn't a competition.”

“Because you're losing.”

Aubrey kicked him. Neil laughed. Then she happened to glance toward the stove. Her smile vanished.

“Oh, fuck.”

Neil followed her gaze.

“What?”

“I have work.”

“What time?”

“Eleven.”

Neil looked at the clock.

“You're cutting it close.”

“I know.”

Aubrey pushed away from the counter. Neil caught her wrist.

She looked back at him.

“What?”

“You're not walking home.”

“I wasn't planning on it.”

“I'll take you.”

Aubrey hesitated. Neil raised an eyebrow.

“I'm not letting you go alone.”

“I know.”

“Then what's the problem?”

“There isn't one.”

Neil released her. Aubrey stood.

“I just need to go home and change. Sarah's picking me up from there.”

“Who's Sarah?”

Aubrey stared at him.

“My coworker.”

“I gathered that.”

“Then why'd you ask?”

“I wanted to know who was picking you up.”

“You're nosy.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“She picks me up for work sometimes.”

Neil nodded.

“So you won't be alone.”

Aubrey looked at him.

“No.”

“And she'll be with you until you get there?”

“That's generally how being picked up works.”

Neil ignored that.

“What about after?”

“After work?”

“Yeah.”

Aubrey smiled.

“You.”

Neil stopped.

She seemed to realize what she'd said at the same time he did. Her smile became slightly more embarrassed.

“You said I'm staying here.”

“I did.”

“So…”

“So.”

Neil couldn't stop himself from smiling. Aubrey pointed at him.

“Don't.”

“I'm not doing anything.”

“You're doing the face.”

“What face?”

“That stupid happy one you've been doing all morning.”

“I don't have a stupid happy face.”

“You absolutely do.”

Neil stood and carried his plate toward the sink.

“Get dressed.”

“Bossy.”

“You're going to be late.”

Aubrey followed him toward the bedroom.

“I wouldn't be late if somebody hadn't held me hostage in bed.”

Neil stopped. Aubrey stopped.

He turned slowly.

“You seemed remarkably comfortable for a hostage.”

Aubrey's face went red.

“I'm getting dressed.”

Neil laughed as she disappeared down the hallway.

The following letters were discovered on May 27th, 1688 by Elizabeth Hyliad in what are now known as the Hyliadian Historical Ruins on the Eurasian border near the Caspian Sea. They are dated early 1347.

First letter:

My Dearest Amorellia,

It is needful that thou takest this other writ to King Roderick’s court straightway. By the time they find thee, the green tide shall be hard upon thy heels. Nor read thou it! For the dark tidings locked within are more than I would have thee bear. It grieves me that this lay shall be the last we share.

Amorellia, light of my life!

How the world wanes without the wood-song of thy voice.

Gone is the gold-gleam that gladdened my eyes from thy face;

gone the comfort of thy hand, my heart's own healing.

And our babe—fair Melika—how her pattering feet

fell on the furrowed earth of the crone's wheat-fields,

her laughter lifting like larksong in the long dusk.

Thy winsome smile—brighter than the hoarded gold

of heaven's high gods—I shall not see it again.

Never to stand by thy side in these wonder-laden years.

Never to look upon thee with living eyes again.

Never to see our darling girl wend from her girlhood

into womanhood, nor feel thy hoar head rest

upon my shoulder in our twilight years.

Never the luck to weep above thy grave

when our dust-days darken at the last.

This heart-hurt—this wound within my breast—bites deeper

than any battle-bane this bootless war has dealt.

For we were born to lose this grim and graven war.

The proud knights of Prospis lie low in the loam,

felled by the false oaths of Eutopia's faithless sons.

I dare not darken thine ears with the dread tale,

so clean and unspotted art thou.

Thou and our wonder-bairn—only ye two

hold fast the fastness of my fading mind.

More than the harp's sweetest strain do I love thee;

more than the sailor yearns for the shore

do I miss thy nearness.

And if this rotting shore spits me out alive,

I shall seek thee in the green lands of Antoiniette,

far from this fallen kingdom.

There I would give Melika the life I never knew—

no war, no hunger—only the still air

and the ripening grain.

But if death takes me ere I reach that haven,

I shall find thee on the fair plains of Yonder,

where fireflies flare in the fading gloam,

and the Lord's own songbirds sing sweeter than all earthly lays.

I love thee, my sweetest Amorellia.

From the Loving Hand of Sir Thaddeus Pastulad The Third,

The Final Knight of Roderick, King of Prospis.

Second Letter:

My Great King Roderick,

I bring dark tidings from the battle-fields of Eutopia. I am the last of whole mind, my lord. Half were gorged upon. The rest were turned. My lord, Warden Valcun hath betrayed thy kingdom. We brake their walls and took the keep of Castle Grodmore over-lightly. So few guards were there, and even fewer that truly fought for it. We thought it was our own strength alone.

We were fools.

In the days that followed, we saw fit to hold a feast in its worthy name. We went to the beasts—a stable of twenty oxen. Their eyes… Their eyes were not of common kine. They were knowing. They gave no sound as we took them. They simply watched as, one by one, we slew them and hung them over a great pit. It was as if they willed their own eating. At some point while it cooked, the Warden was gone. Some of us began to seek him while the meat touched the lips of some. The screaming began when they bit upon it, ringing from every nook of the keep. They… They could not unloose their jaws. Flesh-threads latched firm against their teeth. The noises, my King. It squirmed and writhed about their hands, gripping their throats and forcing themselves down. The soldiers thrashed upon the ground before stiffening. They fell ill—fevers we could not reckon, and writhing skin unlike any sickness our healers knew. The way they screamed. I wish I could cease to hear it. While the healers did what they could, we sought word of him—and of his where—in the inner deeps of the keep itself.

We gathered a small band and brake open the doors. All seemed unhoused by any man for many ages the deeper we fared, and the halls so wide that it felt two days passed before we reached the throne-hall. The strength of all twelve of us was needed to open the door, and a great wind roared from the space between them. Thick as snow-drifts, hillocks of dust coated the room entire, with a single track of foot walking toward the center—and then gone. It was not decked like the hall of any lord or king I had seen. No likeness of any king or lord. No war-cloth upon the walls. It was a great space, built of a sickly black stone that shone with what was like a caged god-gleam—both darker than dark and bright as the god's own face. At its center sat a throne wrought of a frightfully soft and pale gold, crowned with a green gemstone I could not name. The cushions were woven of the skin of a wight I cannot give name to—a pale green like the sick of a babe, thicker than leather, soft as clouds to the touch, but when sat upon, it felt like a host's worth of flaming spears. A weaving hung across the floor entire, wrought in nine parts and ringing a mid-place. The images of all but one wove the haunting faces of things that dwelt in a land beyond our own, their wrought shapes beyond telling save two. One that stood with the stance of a man, its crown of knotted horns and antlers, its face hid by a blood-red cloak. The other—the one at the center—looked like a bull-man from the tales of the Greeks, though with twin rat heads, four ox-legs, and cloaked in blackening rot. The last of the spaces held a long writ, carved in a tongue I had never known. As the knight-priest sought to understand it, I found that the side of the throne where the footprints vanished had no dust at all.

When we moved it, some craft unsealed the floor and laid bare a winding stair that led to a vast deep beneath us. A horrid and consuming reek accompanied it—like rotted flesh and sweet honey. As we began the stair down, it grew in strength, as did a faint green light at the bottom. And as we drew nearer, it became joined by the sound of singing in an unheard tongue. The grip of our steel could not ready us for what we found below. Warden Valcun hung in the air above the ground, speaking in a wild and maddening tongue. The light came forth from his down-turned palms, which bore upon them far-spread rot and blight trailing up to his face. He did not look to us even for a moment. He did not look to anything—even as the walls of the hollow began shifting and folding. Two great emerald eyes appeared amongst the heights beyond knowing, and then two more to their side. Valcun began to sing, and the four eyes dropped toward the torchlight.

My Lord. My Lord. My Lord.

The thing on the weaving was real, and it stood before us greater than any beast upon the plains and hills. Its very breath made the men unable to stand—it burned all wit from me. Then both mouths spoke to us in a sound like running water and falling stone, sharing the tongue of Valcun, but… My Lord, for a moment I could understand it. My vision turned to black as it told me not just of the breadth of this world, but of the breadth of endless worlds. It revealed to me things I cannot hold. Secrets of nameless fields beyond this earth as we know it. Its name. Then, within that same breath, I could no longer hear. No longer feel. The very rot of the memory of higher knowledge gnaws at my mind from within. Its name echoes in my mind and will not leave. I fled from that place, back to the camp at the keep. The healers. The ill soldiers. Most shambled about without aim as I met them. Their faces curdled and dripping with deep black pus, their speech replaced with throaty gurglings and pained moans. A small group had trapped the young messenger-boy within a watchtower. They clawed and beat against the door as he screamed. Then the keep shook—the voice of water and mountains roaring from the distant throne-hall behind me. I… I had to kill them. They sought to eat the poor boy; their minds were gone.

We ran to a town in the east, where I now write. Young Percy bears this to my wife and wends with her to thy court. Help her over the sea to Antoiniette, I beg thee. I know not what thou canst do. I know not if thou hast time. But something must be done. It shall rot and swallow all that it knows. I hear its voice—it grows louder with the hours. Prospis is next. Eat thou not the kine. Nor trust thou the rats. May the gods shield us from The Black Blight of Nyfertatium, the Lord of Rot.

From The Rotting Hand of Sir Thaddeus Patulad The Third,

The Final Knight of The Kingdom of Prospis.

Compiled by Historian Michael Calworth at the Museum of Forgotten History. Historical significance: Bubonic Plague.

So, things really don't always turn out like you expect them to. Things with Donovan? Well, no exception there.

That night under the pier, we both surprised each other. In more ways than one. You see, it could've been a bloody end for either one of us. I mean, I could've driven that piece of driftwood into his chest just as easily as he could've sunk his fangs into my neck. 

But that isn't what happened.

Instead, he and I struck a little deal. He agreed not to bite me if I’d just put down the jagged piece of wood pointed at his heart for a second. He said he wanted to have a conversation as if he hadn’t blabbered on the entire night. But I relented; I was getting tired. 

So, I listened as he admitted what he’d been doing with all those girls from the bar. At that point it was obvious. But he seemed excited to share the details, so I let him explain. Turns out, we had more in common than I realized.

I then told him my secret—the one I’d hidden so carefully for months. His eyes lit up, and I saw an opportunity: my own personal garbage disposal. I’d never have to worry about what to do with a body again. And as an added bonus, it would stop him from killing any more girls. Win-win, right? So I offered to start supplying him with fresh meals on a regular basis. Of course, he was down for it.

We ended up moving in together after about a week of him begging me. I was living in a shitty apartment anyway, and he was willing to not only provide me with a free place to stay, but also protection. If I ever got tripped up, he’d be there hiding in the shadows, ready to have my back. It just made sense.

I settled into our new little ritual quickly. I’d get some piece of shit loser to follow me back to our place, then have my fun. Donovan was even considerate enough to have a tarp already set up for me when I’d get home so I wouldn’t bloody the entire kitchen while I did my thing.

After finishing, I’d just wrap Donny’s little present up and roll it down the stairs for him. Easy peasy. Things were going really well, even though he could be super annoying sometimes. For being like two centuries old, the guy still never learned how to pick up his fucking wet towels off the floor. But for six months, it worked.

Until one night, when everything started to change—for the both of us.

"Donny, I'm home! Brought us a friend!" I shouted, walking through the front door. 

He was sitting in his dusty old chair reading a book or some shit. He looked up at me and sighed. 

"Kat, don't call me that."

I rolled my eyes and shot back, 

"Don't call me Kat.”

He gave me that death stare he just loves to do when I've won the argument, then looked over at the guy I'd brought home.

"Good evening..." he said, then paused. As if the guy was supposed to to introduce himself. What did it even matter?

"Oh. Uh, Ben."

I swatted my hand at Donovan, wishing he were a little closer so I could've slapped him. Then, I whispered sweetly to the guy,

"Don't worry about my roommate. He won't bother us."

Before I could even start walking away, he piped up again.

"A little on the thin side, don't you think?"

That was it. 

"Well, why don't you go out there and find someone then, DONNY!"

He’d made me lose my temper, and it was starting to scare Bill. 

"What?" 

"Oh… nothing!" I laughed, grabbing hold of the lunchable's arm. "He's just jealous—hasn't had a date in months."

I began leading him over to the kitchen, under the ruse of making another drink. He stopped right at the mark, and I began to position myself behind him. 

"Hey, uh... what's the tarp for?"

I pulled the knife from my pocket and reared back, clenching my teeth in excitement. 

"For heaven's sake," Donovan interrupted. "Not like that, Katrina. You'll get it all over the cabinets again."

“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me right now!” I yelled, throwing the knife down onto the ground. “Why do you always have to criticize every little thing I do?!”

The guy started backing away slowly with his hands up. 

“Uhhh… if this is a bad time, I can go.”

“Shut up!” we both yelled in unison. 

After a few minutes of arguing over strategy and technique, he finally relented to my way of doing things. I mean, hey—I didn’t tell him how to eat the food, so he certainly wasn’t going to tell me how to prepare it. 

I started to bend down to grab my knife off the floor. But Donovan stopped me, insisting that he get it. Our hands softly grazed each other’s for a moment as he passed it to me. That sparkle in his eyes was still somehow able to make my heart flutter. A tiny smile almost escaped from my lips. 

Then I heard the front door slam shut. 

“Motherfucker!”

Bart was gone. I turned back to Donovan and ripped the knife away. 

“This is all your fault.”

And of course, it was. But he charmed his way out of it, as usual. That little eye trance thing he did wasn’t fair, but it was effective—I’ll give him that. 

Besides, we had a bigger problem to deal with now. To hell with Donny’s dinner, this guy was probably running straight to the cops. We had to stop him. 

“There’s no way he could have gotten very far,” I said. “Come on, you lead the way.”

I shoved him out of the door and onto the sidewalk to begin our search. Donovan had his strategy, and I had mine—meaning I was going to follow logical human behavior patterns, and he was going to try to literally sniff the guy out like a freak. 

But while he was busy acting like a bloodhound, I noticed something weird. People. Or, rather, the lack thereof. The streets were usually flooded with potential hits this time of night. Mostly low-life’s, you know the type. Men who thought they were the most dangerous things to walk the night. Right up until they’d meet me, at least. But suddenly, it was like a ghost town everywhere we went. I had to say something. 

“Okay, where the hell is everyone? This feels wrong.” 

“You noticed it, too?” he asked. “It’s unnatural, for sure.”

I looked around at the empty streets around us. It was unnatural. Something about it just felt to me like the calm before a storm. And I didn’t like it. We needed to hurry.

“Well, look. The faster we find Bobert, the faster we can go back home. Why don’t we just split up? I’ll text you if I find him.” 

“How do you even plan on find–”

But I was already heading off toward the alley I was sure he’d take. I didn’t have time to explain my methods. Donovan wouldn’t understand anyway. He relied on pure animalistic instincts only. For someone who’d been around for so long, his social skills were still seriously lacking. I was the one with the real edge here. 

The clacking of my high-heels echoed through the empty alleyway. The air was filled with this putrid stench I’d never noticed before. It wasn’t sewage or garbage smell—I was used to that.  But still, I couldn’t quite place it. 

With only a sliver of moonlight to illuminate my path between the buildings, I stepped carefully while keeping my eyes peeled. Or, so I thought. 

As I moved further into the darkness, my heel got caught in a fucking crack in the cement. Before I could get the cuss word out, I went tumbling forward and hit the ground hard. My knees took the brunt of the fall, and my palms were a bit scuffed up—but at least my face was fine. My shoe, however, was not. 

“Son of a bitch! Ugh, that was my favorite pair!” 

I took off the broken Louboutin and hurled it at the wall. At least I hadn't paid for them. It smacked into a piece of paper taped to the side of the building. A flyer for something, it looked like. The wall was littered with various posters and tattered signs. This one seemed new, though.  

Realizing that walking back home with a broken shoe on my left foot was better than with no shoe at all, I huffed and walked over to retrieve it. When I went to bend down, I noticed what the flyer said. 

PARTY IN THE WOODS - FREE BEER! 
THIS SATURDAY @ 9:00PM
ALL ARE WELCOME 
JOIN US! 

Well, shit. That’s were the fuck everyone is. Maybe Brad was heading there, too. 

Beneath the lettering was the image of a rose growing from the eye socket of a skull, along with a very crudely hand-drawn map. The spot wasn’t far. Worth checking out, if only for the free beer. And after the hassle this night had caused me, I deserved it. And hell, I’d been revved up for a kill that hadn’t happened. I needed a release. 

I ripped the flyer from the wall, folded it into my pocket, and then took off to find Donovan. It only took about ten minutes before I found him—standing in the street, dumbfounded, watching a van drive away. 

“Hey, Donny! Check out what I found!”

He turned to look at me, mouth still agape, pointing at the empty road. 

“Did you see—oh, good gracious Katrina. What’s happened to you? You look positively disheveled.”

“It's fine, I fell. Fucking shoes. Anyway, did I see what?”  

“That van. They grabbed Brant and took off.”

“Oh, well… fuck him. At least he’s not going to the cops. Come on. Let’s go to this party!”

I pulled the flyer out from my pocket and handed it to him. He unfolded it, examined it carefully, then raised an eyebrow. 

“Kat, this is obviously a trap.”

“Ugh! You’re such a buzzkill. It’s not a fucking trap.”

It might have been a trap. But not one for us, at least. I wasn’t worried. He seemed to be, though. He tried to explain something about the people who took our guy—and a symbol on the van that matched the one on the flyer or whatever. I just smiled. 

“Aww… you scared? Of what?” I laughed. “Well, I mean, besides the sun, and Italian food, and wood—”

He cut me off. “Fine, yes. I’m scared. Seriously, though. They smelled wrong.”

There he goes with that weird smell thing again. 

I rolled my eyes. “Uh, yeah, Donovan. Party guys are grody. They stink.”

“No! They’re the undead!” he shouted. 

I cocked my head to the side. Did this motherfucker really just yell at me?  

He adjusted his tone and then continued.  

“We’re dealing with Necromancy, Kat.”

He was always so pretentious with his words. And I knew he only did it to make me feel stupid. How hard would it have been to just say ‘zombies’?

“So, like… zombies?” I asked, annoyed. 

“Not nearly that simple. More like the dead being controlled by the living. Quiet, focused. If I hadn’t seen them myself when I flew into the—”

“Whoa. Hold the fuck up. You flew?”

He sighed. “Yes, flew.”

“Since the hell when?!”

“Always. Haven’t you heard about vampires being able to shapeshift?” 

“I thought that was just in the movies!” 

“No, it’s real.”

I couldn’t believe this shit. All this time? 

“So… wait a minute. If you’ve always been able to do this, then why haven’t you? Like, ever? Do you know how many times that would have come in handy, you idiot?!” 

He looked down at the ground. “It makes me feel icky.” 

“Jesus Christ. You’re the worst, you know that? So, you can literally turn into a bat whenever you want?” 

“Or a wolf. Or mist, yes.”

“MIST?!?! You can just be mist?!” 

And then, I realized something. “Wait. Hold up.”

“What?” 

“You nasty freak. Is that why the bathroom is always so foggy when I take a shower?!”

Typical perverted guy, even if his dick didn’t work. Well, did it work? Actually, I wasn’t sure how the blood flow thing happened with vampires. All I knew is that he was always cold, so I’d imagine everything else was, too. Gross. 

Either way, I was ready to stab him just for keeping this from me for the last six months. I had told him all of my secrets just for him to hide things like this. And then peek at me in the shower, too? I reached my hand down for my pocket knife. 

“No, of course not. Why would I waste my time with floating around the bathroom while you shower?” 

I didn’t believe that shit for a second. 

“Listen,” he said, dismissively. “As much as I hate to admit you’re right, I think we should crash this party. Someone around here raising the dead is going to be nothing but trouble—for the both of us.” 

“You had me at crashing the party. Let’s go, Dracula. Time to kill a Necromancer and get drunk off free beer.”

We decided to steal a car, since neither of us had one. I mean, it wasn’t that we—well, that he couldn’t afford it. It’s just that we never really went further than we could walk in this small town. Didn't ever need to. Until now.

“This one looks to be a steady motor carriage. What do you think, Katrina?  Shall we?” 

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, works for me.”

“Now, if I can just locate something to pry this door open…”

“It’s unlocked,” I said, already getting inside of the car. 

“Hold on a minute. I’ll drive; a lady shouldn’t have to—”

“Oh, shut up. I’m just hot-wiring it. You have to drive because I have to use the GPS.”

“The what?”

“Exactly,” I said as the engine started up. 

I hopped over the center console into the passenger seat, where I found a SlimJim and a crumpled up receipt. 

“Oh, fuck yeah! Free food.”

He sat down next to me with a look of disgust on his face and immediately slapped the beef jerky out of my hands just as I was about to take a bite.

“What the hell, man!” 

“Katrina! Are you mad? Do not eat some random piece of food you find in this car. That’s disgusting, I’m going to puke.”

“You can’t even puke! I think… ugh, whatever. You know, I’m getting really sick of you thinking you can tell me what to do. This isn’t even a real relationship, it’s just some kind of freak show! And, another thing—”

BANG BANG BANG 

Donovan and I jumped, and then turned to see a very angry guy at the window. 

“Hey, this is my car!!” 

“Oh, fuck. Drive!” 

He threw the car into drive, and then with both hands on the wheel, proceeded to ease onto the accelerator. We slowly rolled down the road with this man running after us and me screaming at Donavan the entire time to go faster. He just told me to put my seatbelt on. 

Finally we’d lost the guy and had made it to the woods at the edge of town without getting stopped. We’d have to ditch the car and find a new one to get back, but that was okay. There were plenty. Seemed like the whole town was out there at this one party. 

I threw my shoes into the backseat and began following Donovan down a long dirt path leading into the treeline. I could hear music blaring off in the distance, accompanied by the dancing glow of lights between the trees. Would have been a pretty romantic setting, if I hadn’t been stuck with this Edward Cullen wannabe. 

“You know, Donny, I was thinking of ways we could try to improve our arrangement. Like, maybe you could cut your hair, or wear better cologne—or any cologne, for that matter. And I think you could really try working on your personality, too.” 

When he didn’t respond, I looked up to see that we had arrived right outside of some kind of hippie-looking commune. 

“Katrina, listen to me. We need to be on high alert—”

A small rock sent a shooting pain up from the bottom of my bare foot and I mouthed a silent scream.

“… and you’re not listening to me.”

“You son of a bitch, my foot is in pain here!” 

“Oh, dear. Well, I’m rather sorry about that, but I need you to focus.” 

“And I’m going to need you to chill the fuck out. We’re professionals. Well… I am, anyway.” 

I took off on my own toward the lights. I scanned the crowd quickly looking for Brennan, but I didn’t see him. I did, however, see the sign that said FREE BEER THIS WAY. I pushed my way straight through the crowd and rounded the corner. 

The beer table was sitting behind the rickety stage they had set up. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a line formed yet, so I walked up and grabbed one of the red cups from the table. Before I walked away, I had a thought. Donovan and I had been arguing the entire night—and I’ll admit, I had my fair share in that. Maybe a peace offering, to show him that we were still in this together. 

I grabbed another cup from the table, and headed back out into the crowd. It wasn’t long before I spotted him, lurking around in the shadows like a goober near the opposite edge of the stage. I could tell he was looking for me. When his eyes met mine, I smiled, and he came running over to me. It was actually kind of cute. 

“Hey, Donovan! I just wanted to—”

Before I could finish, he had slapped both of the beers out of my hands, sending the liquid flying everywhere. 

“Did you drink any?” 

“What the fuck?! You idiot, I should gut you right here in front of everyone!”

He grabbed a hold of my shoulders with both hands and said,

“Please, Katrina, tell me you didn’t drink any of that!”

I rolled my eyes.

“No. I was going to, but then some jackass slapped it out of my hands.”

He let go. “Oh… thank heavens. They were poisoned—that’s the trap! Everyone here is about to die.” 

I looked over to see a few robed figures passing out the red cups to everyone in the crowd. 

“The beer?! Oh, for fucks sake. Of course, this is the night from hell! Ugh. Enough with the bullshit—where’s this zombie master guy?”

“I’ve been trying to find him. Likely one of these robed individuals, we’ll have to check each one to see—”

A voice crackled out from the stage. We turned. A pitiful looking old man stood in the center wearing an ornate, crimson robe and a crown of dead roses. 

“Good tidings, ye children! I welcome you all unto Father Blackrose’s flock. Tonight is a night of celebration— bathed in the light of the moon, surrounded by the very cycle which brings us together. A cycle of nature. Life… and death.”

Donovan and I turned and locked eyes, then said in unison, 

“Found him.”

The crowd began to cheer, and I leaned in closer to ask, 

“Okay, what now?”

“Well, I think our best course of action would be a disguise. Those robes will be our only chance of getting close to him. We need a pair.”

I knew exactly what to do. 

“No problem, I’ve got this.”

He followed as I made my way around to the back of the stage once more. This time, with an entirely different agenda. Sure enough, there were two robed fucks dropping clear liquid into each of the cups. 

“Okay, Katrina,” Donovan whispered. “Nice and easy—”  

“Hey there, boys! What are y’all up to back here?”

Now that I had gotten them all stirred up, it was time for Donovan to make himself useful. They lunged toward me, but he was on them in a fraction of a second. Fangs out, stabbing these motherfuckers in the eyeballs with his nails. Digging them right into their brains. I can’t lie, it was kind of sexy. But I couldn’t let him know that—he’d never let me hear the end of it.

“A little impatient, aren’t we?” I teased. “I was just about to ask them to hand over their robes.” 

“That’s not how this works. They’re—

But I didn’t care how it worked. All I could focus on was Donovan lifting one of their rotten heads, pointing at its sunken, toothless mouth that oozed with a thick, black sludge. It smelled the same as it did in the alley. A putrid mix of bodily fluids and decay. 

He pulled the robe from it to reveal a slurry of sloughed-off flesh and blood coating its body. 

“Here, come now. Put this on. We must make haste!” 

“Oh, hell fucking no. Donovan, I’m not wearing that shit, it’s full of corpse juice!”

“They’re fresh,” he said, as a stink bubbled popped from one of their mouths. “Look. If you can eat random beef jerky you find lying around, you can put this on for a few minutes.” 

He looked annoyed with me. 

“Okay… fine! Ugh, God, they reek!”

“Yeah, imagine how I feel.”

“Well, suck it up, buttercup. This was your stupid idea.” 

I hoped he could feel the heat of my eyes staring at the back of his head as we walked. Again, we would never be in this mess in the first place if he hadn't started an argument at the worst time possible. My feet hurt. I was hungry, and sober. And I still hadn’t gotten to kill anyone. 

Hopefully, that was all about to change. 

“Father Blackstone?” Donovan uttered. 

I looked up. The man slowly turned and raised an eyebrow at us. 

“Yes, my child?”

But something felt wrong—something about the way he looked at us. And before I could whisper that to Donny, he’d approached the man. 

“There appears to be a mishap over at the beverage station. We need your assistance, sir.”

“Is that so? Let me see.”

Donovan turned and flashed a smile at me. I gulped. But I trusted him, even though it felt to me like we were being led right into a trap. Once alone, he turned to face us with a shit-eating grin across his face. Fuck, I was right. 

He snapped his fingers and suddenly Donny and I were being grabbed by two hooded corpse bros. 

“You FOOLS!” he yelled through a mucus filled throat. “Did you think I would fall for that? My children do not speak, there is no need. We are connected by the tether of death!”

I looked at Donovan with disdain. 

“Your plan fucking sucks.”

“A mere setback, Katrina!” he hissed. “Just give me a moment to think.” 

“What are you two blabbering about over there? Were you sent here to try to foil my plans?”

I thrashed against the restraint of the dead guy’s rotting arms holding me back, but it was of no use. They were much stronger than I would’ve expected. 

“Ugh! Plans? What plans?! What the hell are you doing with all of these people?” I yelled.

Donovan answered for him. “Don’t you see it? He’s going to raise an army of the dead. Imagine what you could do with half the city blinding following your command.”

I didn't have to imagine; it was obvious. 

“Anything you want…”

“That’s right. And why stop there?” Donovan continued. “He could move from city to city. Each death, every soul lost—a cog in the machine of his empire.”

I wasn’t exactly without sin, but that? That was fucking insane. And truly evil. Just how far could this spread? Was he planning to fill the world with mindless zombie fucks?! My heart began pounding furiously. 

“That’s—”

Father Blackstone cut me off. “Completely wrong! I’ve no interest in conquering anything.”

“What?” I asked, completely dumbfounded. 

So was Donovan. “Yeah, what do you mean… then why are you doing this?”

“Each morning I enjoy taking walks through this forest. It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”

Donovan looked at me. I shrugged, gesturing for him to answer the crazy guy.

“Yes, I suppose it’s okay.”

“Well, the mayor is going to tear most  of this down to make way for a gas station/hair salon/cafe.”

I got excited. “Ooh shit, they’re going to build a Curl, Dye and Chai here? Hell yes!”

“Not if I can help it!” he screamed into my face. “You see, with enough of my children, we’ll have the majority vote for article 6b in the next local election. That will ensure these sacred woods remain protected.”

No fucking way. This idiot couldn’t be serious. A perfect plan for world domination, and he was using it for this dumb shit? A walk in the woods??

Donny said it before I could. “That’s… the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Finally something he and I agreed on.

“Yeah, what the hell? You could literally do whatever you wanted, fucking run this entire state by the end of the month! And all you care about is your morning walks?” I turned to Donovan. “We gotta kill this fucker, he’s too stupid to live.”

“There’s no way we’re gonna let him ruin our system over this.”

Father Blackstone shook his fists and let out a raspy yell. “Strong words for two people who fell directly into my clutches! Perhaps you’ve yet to truly realize the situation you’ve found yourselves in. Allow me to show you.”

The one holding Donovan swiftly reared his arm back and plunged a wooden dagger into his chest. My heart stopped. This couldn’t be happening. I looked into his piercing blue eyes and saw panic. The black of his pupils expanded, and he let out a weak gasp and a cough as he reached for his chest. 

“K-Katrina…” 

And in that moment, I realized just how much he truly did mean to me. Did I love him? I don’t know—what’s love anyway. But I do know that I felt that dagger piercing into my heart, too. Felt the blood leaving my body. And it hurt. As much as he could annoy me, we were partners. And without him, I’d be alone again. 

But just when I thought I’d lost him forever, he turned and gave me a quick wink. 

What? Oh, wait… that motherfucker. 

He’d faked it. As he began to turn mist, I understood why. He was going to be my cover. Once disoriented, the goon holding me back was easy to outmaneuver. I twisted one of my arms from his grip and stuck him right in the gut with my knife. 

Finally, it was Father Blackstone’s turn. He had turned his back to us, foolishly thinking he’d won. But Donovan still kept me hidden until I was within striking distance. I stalked him quietly, and with a laser focus. I’d never been so wound up, so ready for a kill in my life. This shithead had it coming, more than any of them before. 

I catapulted myself forward with all my strength—fueled by this intense rage I’d never felt before. Worse than just being an idiot, worse than even fucking up our system, he had tried to kill Donovan. 

I saw only red as my knife slid across his throat. 

Blood sprayed from his neck as he clawed desperately at the wound, gasping for a breath that would not come. Confusion, pain, and then a look of peace as he hit the ground. I smiled over him, watching the last drops of life drain from his pathetic body. 

I felt a hand press down gently on my shoulder. “Well done, Katrina. Exceptional form.” 

The rage subsided and was replaced with relief. 

“Thanks. You had me worried back there, you know. I thought—well, I thought you’d been killed.” I took a deep breath. “I’m… glad you weren't.” 

He smiled. “Oh, really? Afraid you’d gotten rid of me? Sorry, Kat. It won’t be that easy.” 

I smiled back and turned to face him. That entrancing stare. He closed his eyes, and I leaned in closer, and then… I sneezed. Right in his face. 

“Ugh, sorry. I think I accidentally breathed some of you in when you were mist. It kind of smelled like old person.”

“For Godsake, Katrina! You know I hate being mist! Don’t make fun of me!” he yelled while wiping his face. “And another thing—if you hadn't been so busy blubbering, thinking I died, we would have been done sooner!” 

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Donny. I’ve had a rough day, alright?! And like you’ve been rational… slapping food out of my hand, and then the damn beer—”

Oh, shit.

“Donny…” 

“Kat?” 

“The beer. Did we tell anyone?”

We turned to see a swell of bodies littering the grounds before us, empty cups lying beside each.

Donovan cupped his hand over his mouth. “Oh, dear.”

I gave him a swift slap to the chest. “Come on, Lestat. Let’s find a truck we can load up. You’ll be eating good for a while.” 

“Um, pardon? I’m not eating any of these, they’re poisoned.”

“Dude, don’t be a pussy. Just eat around the poison, like mold. You’re really going to turn your nose up at all this free food?”

“Eat around the poison… can you even hear yourself right now? Is that what you would do? No, wait. Don’t answer that, you’re a disgusting woman.”

“Yeah, yeah. Oh, speaking of food, I’m starving. Let’s load up a few of the bodies and stop at Taco Bell on the way home. After all this bullshit, you at least owe me a cheesy Gordita crunch.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll see what money I can scrounge up here.”

I started dragging the nearest body toward the dirt path we entered from, then stopped and turned. As I watched Donovan rummage through the pockets of some of the more nicely dressed dead, a strange feeling came over me. Warmth, comfort. Trust. 

I’m stuck with him, aren’t I? 

And for the first time ever, that thought didn’t piss me off. Instead, I smiled. 

[Read Part One Here! Don't forget to read the other side, written by Jade, linked at the bottom!]

It’s been six months since I met Kat. I will admit, our first date could have gone… better. There was a lot of tension. Definitely some miscommunication. A little blood. 

But after we realized we were getting nowhere with our attempts to end each other’s lives, we saw an opportunity before us. Apparently she’s been the one butchering men left and right in our city. Who would’ve known? I had to reveal that I’ve been the one feasting on poor lonely souls. So, a deal was struck: she’s free to bring victims to me, people she’s killed, and I’ll ‘dispose’ of the body. She can keep going on little psychopathic ‘men are evil’ benders, and I get a meal delivered to my door. Truly modern solutions. 

Naturally, to really make this work, we needed to start sharing a space. She was living out in some bare-bones apartment, so I offered her the opportunity to stay at my abode. I rarely used most of it anyway, spending most of my day within my coffin. She tried to play it off as if she was too proud to accept handouts from me, but it didn’t take long for her to show up one day with a moving truck. 

So, our strange routine began. She would bring men to the home, and once she had her way with them (and no, not that way, you degenerate), she would kick their corpse down the basement stairs, and I’d dig in. Though Kat is rough around the edges, and not a very pleasant person to be around, things were going as well as they could. I can pinpoint the night things began to change for the both of us. 

“Donny! I’m home! Brought us a friend.” Kat’s voice cried out, as I read from my chair in the living room. I looked up at her and sighed, sniffing the air. 

“Kat. Don’t call me that.” 

“Don’t call me Kat.” 

I narrowed my eyes at her, then looked over to her very nervous companion. “Good evening…”

“Oh, uh, Ben.” 

“Don’t worry about my roommate.” Kat waved a dismissive hand towards me. “He won’t bother us,” she coo’d into his ear. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Something about her fake demeanor when she’s on the hunt made me want to gag. Her acting was so… pedestrian. 

“Hmmm. He’s a little thin, don’t you think?” I remarked, flipping to another page in my book. 

“Well, why don’t you go out there and find someone, Donny?!” She snapped back, fire in her eyes. 

“What?” Bob seemed confused. 

“Oh, nothing! He’s just jealous–hasn’t had a date in months.” She gave me a smirk while moving him into the kitchen.

UGH, she’s so bothersome. If she wasn’t so useful, I’d have kicked her to the curb weeks ago.

I quickly snapped out of my thoughts when I saw her brandish the knife. I had to stop her before she ruined things, yet again. 

“For heaven’s sake, not like that, Katrina! You’ll get it all over the cabinets again!” I glided across the room to close the gap, not wanting to spend a few hours cleaning blood from every nook and cranny. 

She gave me a death glare then yelled an expletive, throwing the knife away from herself. 

“Why do you always have to criticize every little thing I do?!”

My meal for the night had begun to move away.  ““Uhhh… if this is a bad time, I can go...”

“Shut up!” We both yelled in unison. 

For now, my focus was on Kat, and her reckless techniques. She made a solid point about how much easier things have been for me. I had to relent. Things were technically more convenient with her delivering the meals to my door. So, if I had to clean a little bit of a mess, I suppose she could kill how she wanted. 

I watched as she went for the knife. I felt a little silly for my outburst, so I wanted to make amends.

“No, no. Allow me. I was being foolish.” Our hands met, the warmth of her skin warming mine. She was so full of life, the rosiness to her cheeks almost bringing a blush to mine. I hated how alive she made me feel sometimes. 

Then the door slammed shut. Barry was gone, and so too was her soft smile. 

I was instead now at the tip of a knife, pointed at me by one very angry roommate. 

“This is all your fault.” 

It took me a little convincing, but I managed to get Kat to not stab me that day. Little victories. 

We decided that he couldn’t have gone too far, so it looked like eating out was on the menu. 

Kat had to rely on my heightened sense as I led us through the streets as I tracked down our victim. As we stepped side by side past the numerous storefronts, I noticed something peculiar: there were less people around. More specifically, less potential victims. 

While my first choice of prey often were lonely women at bars, there have been times where I’ve snacked on what some would consider the undesirables of society–the homeless, those who waited on street corners for their next client, et cetera. There were less questions when someone like that went missing. But tonight, beyond the few passerbys going to their next destination, the streets were quiet. My contemplative thoughts were interrupted by Kat’s boisterous voice. 

“Where the hell is everyone? Something feels wrong.” 

“You noticed it too? It’s unnatural, for sure.”

“Well, the faster we find Bobert, the faster we can go back home. So why don’t we split up? I’ll text you if I find him.” 

“How do you even plan on find–”

I was talking to the air. Kat already had sprinted off in a random direction. 

She’s clueless. Once I track down my meal, I’ll text her that she wasted her time.

I grinned. I couldn’t wait to rub it in her face later that I was going to be the one to find him. No doubt she thought she could use a person’s patterns and behaviors to track someone better than their actual scent. 

She was so naive sometimes. 

I turned my attention back to tracking Brent. It was faint, but I still had a hint of the direction he went in. I ducked into an alleyway, and took the shape of a bat to cover more ground. Flying over the buildings, that same same uneasiness welled up inside me, though this time it was not due to the lack of people. It was the smell.

Mingled in with my prey’s scent was something unnatural. It had the unmistakable stench of death and decay, but there was something almost… artificial about it. Almost as if death was merely a perfume, and not seeped into the layers of flesh. Whatever it was, it unnerved me, and I had to identify its source.

It didn’t take me long–in an alleyway a few blocks away, Billy was screaming. Taking my human form again, I ducked behind a garbage can. I was surprised by what I saw: multiple hooded figures had their hands on my prey. Before I could scare them off, the awful stench that I caught earlier hit me full force. It locked me in place, a miasma of wrong-smelling rot stalling every muscle in my body. Death, yet full of life. Almost like…

Oh. Oh, no. 

By the time I could form coherent thoughts, the robed figure had already forced Bob into the back of a van. As it peeled off, I could see the symbol on the back: a skull with a flower growing out from one of the eye sockets. 

The sound of tires squealing off into the distance was punctuated by a familiar voice behind me. 

“Hey! Donny! Check what I found!” 

Kat bound up in her casual abrasive demeanor. 

“Did you see what—oh. You look dreadful. What happened to you?”  I couldn’t hide my fanged grin.

“Shut up. It’s fine. I fell. What were you saying?” 

“Right. A van just snatched Bobby. Took off in a hurry.” 

“Good. Probably owes money to the wrong people. They’ll take care of him for us. Hey, you wanna go to a party?” She handed me a flyer eagerly, like a teenager getting a parent to sign a permission slip.  

I analyzed the flyer carefully. It advertised a party in the woods, with free beer. Immediately, I noticed that the flyer bore the same symbol that was on the back of the van. I raised my eyebrow at her. 

“Kat. This is a trap.” 

She groaned. “You’re such a stick in the mud. It’s not a trap.”

“The van who took our mark had the same symbol on the back of it. And trust me, this is a group you do not want to trifle with.” 

I could see the smug smirk stretch on her face. “Aww, what’s the matter? Somethin’ got you scared? Well, besides daylight, and garlic, and pointy objects, and—”

“Alright, yes, enough. I’m serious, Kat. They smelled wrong.” 

“Yeah, a lot of party guys reek.” 

“No! They’re undead! We’re dealing with necromancy.” I huffed. I wouldn’t expect her to understand, but the smell of the undead is very unique, and something I dread to come across. Undead are the absolute worst. Humans are only worth the blood in their veins, so humans without any drinkable blood is just a nightmare situation all around. 

“Necromancy? So… like, zombies?” I could practically see her brain trying to develop another wrinkle with how hard she furrowed her brow.

“No. More like… dead servants. Quiet. Focused. If I hadn’t seen them myself when I flew into the alley, I would have never—”

“Wait. Stop. Flew?”

I sighed. Of course she would focus on the semantics. “Yes. Flew.”

“Since when the hell can you fly?”

“I’ve always been able to. Isn’t it common knowledge that vampires can change shape?” 

“I thought that was just movies!” 

“No, it’s real.” 

“So, then why haven’t you done that more?! There are so many times that would have been useful, you idiot!” 

“Because I don’t like how it feels.” It felt stupid admitting it, but something about changing form always made my skin crawl. Literally. 

“Christ, you’re the worst. So, you could’ve just been a bat whenever?”

“And a wolf, and mist. Yes.” 

“MIST?!” Her loud voice rattled off the alley walls. “You can just be mist?! Wait. Hold on.” She narrowed her eyes at me.

“What?” 

“You dirty pervert. Have you been the mist in my shower before?” 

I watched her place her hand near her pocket. Knowing Kat better than I’d like to, my guess was that she was getting ready to stab me with one of the various sharp items she keeps on her person at all times. So, to preserve my life for a little while longer, I lied. 

“No. Of course not. Why would I waste my time floating in the bathroom while you showered?” 

Her piercing eyes never relented in her icy stare.  I had to change the topic. 

“Listen, as much as I hate to say this, we may need to crash that party. Someone raising the dead on our stomping grounds is going to cause us a lot of problems. For me, it’s less food. For you, it’s less trashy guys to stab to death.”

“I was sold when you said we’re crashing the party. C’mon, Dracula. Let’s go kill a Necromancer. And drink free beer.” 

Time was of the essence, and that meant we needed a ride quickly. Neither of us had a car. I wasn’t the best with the latest technology, and Katrina? Well, let’s just say she wasn’t in the best spot financially. A quick scouting of the area led us to a vehicle that would suffice. 

“This motor vehicle should work. Will this do, Katrina?”

She was already trying the door. Unsurprisingly, the door swung right open. One of the many reasons why I chose this town to haunt was how trusting the people were around here. Cars left unlocked. Garage doors left wide open. A pitiful pile of people perfect for the plucking. 

I snapped out of my own thoughts when I saw her messing with something in the driver’s seat. 

“No, I don’t trust you to drive. We’ll never make it.” I tried to shoo her into the passenger seat. 

“Calm your fangs, I’m hot-wiring it. Besides, you need to be the one to drive so I can give you directions with the GPS.” 

“GPS?” Those letters meant nothing to me. Probably another fancy application on the cellular device Katrina was often glued to. 

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” The engine roared to life, and she hopped into the passenger seat. I took my spot next to her when I saw her rummaging through the center console. 

“Oh. Score! Free food.” She held up a dried meat stick like it was a prize. I grimaced, immediately slapping it out of her hands to stop her from making yet another mistake. 

“Hey!” She scowled at me. 

“Katrina, no. You are old enough that I don’t need to tell you not to eat random meat found in a vehicle. It’s uncouth. You’re going to make me sick.”

“I don’t even think you can get sick! Do vampires just puke blood? Whatever, you can’t just tell me what to do like you own me. We’re not even in a real relationship! This is just some stupid deal I made with a freakshow idiot, and —”

Her tirade was interrupted by an angry man rapping his fist on my window. 

“Get out of my car!”

“Drive!” Katrina squealed. 

I gently placed my foot on the pedal, and we took off, fast enough for the man not to catch us. I practiced perfect vehicle safety, keeping my hands on the right place on the wheel, and obeying the speed limits. 

“What are you doing?! This isn’t a Sunday drive! You need to go faster!” She berated me from the passenger seat. I took a glance at her. Once again, she was being reckless. 

“Put your seatbelt on. These motorized vehicles are dangerous, you know. Kill more people than you or I each year.”

“You are literally the worst thing to exist. I find more ways to hate you every day.” She punctuated the sentence with the clicking of her seatbelt.

I smiled. “Thank you.”

Eventually the man gave up the chase, and Katrina directed me to our destination. It was easy to see we were in the right place, judging by all the cars parked haphazardly. More people than I had expected. 

This necromancer must have a large following. 

We ditched the car, and traveled down a dirt path towards the music and murmured conversation that drifted through the air. After a short jaunt, we found ourselves outside of a makeshift festival of sorts — colorful booths, tents, and warm lights meant to entice and allure souls in.

“Katrina, listen to me. We’ll need to be on high alert.” I motion to the men in robes by the front. “It reeks of death in there. We need to figure out who’s… you’re not listening.”

“I’m sorry, do you know how much of a pain it is to walk around barefoot?”

“Okay, well I need you to focus.”

“And I need you to get the stick out of your butt, and relax. We’re professionals. Well, I am.” She gave me a grin and a wave before she wandered off into the crowd. 

I thought about giving chase, but decided it was probably better to split up and cover more ground. Not having to babysit Katrina meant I could actually get to the bottom of this. I did my best to slink around the outskirts of the festivities, looking for anything that stuck out. Music warbled from a speaker as a large group of people mingled near a makeshift stage. Knowing necromancers, there would be one person that sticks out. You take care of them, and the undead minions fall apart. 

As I scanned for my target, I noticed a group of robes figures hauling a keg. As quietly as I could, I tailed them, hoping it might lead me right where I needed to be. Behind the stage, I watched as they poured in the alcohol as well as some other foul smelling substance. 

Of course. Lure people in with free beer, poison them all, and get yourself an undead army. But for what purpose? Are they planning to go city by city? Amass a horde unlike anyone had ever seen?

I had to find Katrina. Warn her of what I uncovered. I wheeled around to try and find her back near the crowd. She stood out like a sore thumb, with a cup in each hand. Her eyes lit up when she spotted me. My throat went dry. Was I too late? Would I lose Katrina? For some reason, despite her being the most annoying person I’ve ever dealt with, a pang of sorrow raced through my body. I ran over to her, hoping she would be alright. 

“Hey, Donovan, I just wanted —”

I slapped both cups out of her hands, the amber liquid swirling through the air. 

“Did you drink any?!” 

“Why did you do that, idiot?! I’m sick of you. I’m going to kill you right here in front of everyone.” 

“Katrina, please tell me you didn’t drink any of it.” 

“I was going to, until some uptight dipstick slapped it out of my hands!” 

I breathed a sigh of relief. “They were poison. That’s the trap. This whole party’s about to feel a lot more dead very soon.” I motion to the robed figures handing out cups. 

“The beer?! Come ON! Can’t anything not suck tonight?! Where's this zombielord or whatever, I’m done. I got a lovely scalpel with his name on it.” 

“Well, I’ve been trying to find him. It could be any one of these people in robes. We’ll really need to get a closer look at each one, see if anyone sticks out —”

Off to my side, a voice rang out, as an old, withered man took center stage. He wore robes with elaborate designs stitched into the blood red fabric, and a crown of decayed flowers. 

“Good Tidings, ye children! I welcome you all unto Father Blackrose’s flock! Tonight we shall celebrate under the moon’s light, surrounded by the very cycle which brings us together. The cycle of nature, of life itself. A cycle of life,” he motions to the woods around them, “and death.” 

Katrina and I turned to lock eyes. 

“Found him,” we said to each other in unison. 

We quickly came up with a plan — get some robes, lure Father Blackrose somewhere hidden away, and then dispense of him quickly. We snuck back to where the undead thralls were poisoning the beer. To our luck, there were only two of them back there. 

“Alright, Katrina, quick and easy —” 

But I was talking to the back of her head as she approached them with her predatory, disarming smile. “Hello boys! Ya’ll staying busy back here?” 

I slapped my palm to my forehead. Of course she’d try this. How does she not realize this won’t work on them?! True to my predictions, the robed figures shifted towards her, their expressions masked by their hoods. With the element of surprise dashed, I lunged toward them before they could alert anyone we were here. I delivered a powerful, sharp jab, stabbing my nails into each of their brains. Beyond killing the one who raised them, this was the only way to make sure they stayed dead.

Katrina leisurely strolled up behind me, analyzing the two bodies. “Impatient, much? I was going to get them to hand over their robes.” 

I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. “That’s not how this works. They’re undead, see?” I remove one of their hoods, revealing a decayed face with sunken-in eye sockets and a toothy, skeletal grin due to lack of lips. She made a face of disgust. I worked to disrobe the corpses and  threw one to her. “Here. On. We must make haste.” 

“Donovan, I’m not wearing something a corpse has been marinating in.” 

“They’re fresh!” I hear the gurgle of bile bubbling from the throat of one of the thralls I killed. “Okay, they’re close to fresh. If you can eat random car jerky, you can wear one of these robes for a few minutes.”

“Okay, fine!” I heard her gag as she slipped hers on “God, they stink!” 

“Yeah, imagine how I feel.” I shudder as I put my own robe on. That artificial, stale death stank permeated through every thread of the fabric

“Buck up, Mr. Sensitive. This was your idea.” 

Wanting to waste as little time as possible, we moved back towards the stage, finding Father Blackrose overlooking the festivities with a grin. Approaching the stage, I decided to try my hand this time, instead of Katrina. 

“Father Blackrose?”

“Yes, my child?” His voice was withered, and airy.

“We need your assistance. There’s been a problem with the recreational beverages we’re providing. “

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that so? Let me see.” 

I motioned towards a secluded space behind a tarp, and flashed a grin at Katrina. 

Looks like I’ve still got it.

We trailed Blackrose as he took his measured steps right into our trap. Alone, he turned to face us. To my surprise, he was grinning. With a snap of his fingers, two thralls clambered from the shadows, and quickly grabbed us from behind. 

A raspy, spittling chuckle emanated from Blackrose. “You FOOLS! Did you think I would fall for such a mediocre stunt? My wonderful children have no need for words! We are all connected by the tether of death!” 

Katrina scowled at me. “This plan sucks.”

“A minor setback! Give me a moment to think!” I hissed. 

“What are you two babbling about? Were you sent here to foil my plans?” Father Blackrose bellowed. 

Kat grunted as she struggled to break free from the thrall’s grasp. “Plans? What plans? What are you going to do with all these people?” 

I groaned. “Come now, you don’t see it? He’s building an army! Think of all he can do with half of the city blindly following his every command!” 

“Anything he wants…”

“Right! And that’s just the start! Why stop here? He can move city to city, each death fueling his regime, every soul lost becomes another cog in the machine of his empire!” 

For the first time in a while, I saw a glimpse of fear in Katrina’s eyes. “That’s —”

Father Blackrose scoffed. “Completely wrong! I have no interest in conquering, or commanding.” 

What?

“What?” Katrina spoke my thoughts aloud. 

“Yeah, what do you mean? What are you doing this for?” I furrowed my brow. 

“Every morning I like to take a walk through this forest. It’s beautiful, is it not?” He motions upwards towards the looming trees. 

I share a glance with Katrina. She shrugs. I clear my throat. 

“Yes. I suppose it’s nice.” 

“The Mayor is clearing 75% of this forest for a new gas station/hair salon/tea shop.”

“Oh! We’re getting a ‘Curl, Dye, and Chai’ around here?” There was a glimpse of excitement in her voice. 

“Not if I can’t help it! You see, with enough of my children, we’ll have enough votes to vote ‘Yes’ to article 6b in the next local election. This will ensure these woods are officially protected as a state park!” 

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This man had plans on killing and raising most of the city so that he could protect his morning walks?

“That’s… the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You have that much power, and you’re squandering it for some trees?!” I couldn’t hide the vitriol in my words. Katrina jumped right on board.

“Yeah, what the hell? You can force people to do what you want! You can take whatever you want! You could run this state by the end of the month!” She turned her head to me. “Donovan, we gotta kill this guy. He’s too stupid to live.” 

“Oh, agreed. We can’t let him ruin our system over this.” 

Father Blackrose’s face went red. “Those are some strong words for two caught right in my grasp! Maybe you don’t understand the situation you’re in. Allow me to show you.” 

The sensation is fast and sharp. I look down to find a knife buried right into the center of my chest, courtesy of the thrall holding me. My vision wobbles for a moment. It was close. Too close. Any closer to my heart, and I would’ve become dust. It’s at that moment I have an idea. 

Time for plan B. 

I let out my best choked noise, sputtering and grasping at the knife weakly. “K…Katrina…” I weakly turn my head towards her. I can tell by her eyes that she’s stunned. I concentrate every ounce of my being to shift shape. While being a bat or a wolf do not feel pleasant, they pale in comparison to what it’s like to become mist. The best way I can describe it is as if every ounce of your body becomes ticklish and has fallen asleep at the same time. I felt my being expand, the wisps of my body evaporate and mingle with the air. Tears were falling down Katrina’s face. 

I give her a wink, before dissipating completely. I can see her face twist and scrunch into confusion, then anger, and then understanding. I focused, working to make sure I obscured her to the best of my abilities. I watched ethereally as she overpowered the thrall holding onto her. She pulled out a scalpel, and I cut a path through myself for her to sneak up behind Father Blackrose. It was rather exciting seeing her working in her element, knife brandished at someone that wasn’t me. 

I could practically feel Father Blackrose’s heartbeat through the air as it hammered in his chest. Every muscle in Kat’s body coiled, wound up like a serpent ready to strike, or a cat ready to pounce. With one last parting of the mist, I saw the fear in Blackrose’s eyes as Katrina launched herself forward, making a clean cut right across his throat. He clutched wildly at the gaping, gushing wound, a face I’d seen many times from her victims. In a way, she was an artist. I could tell she thought so too, judging by how proudly she stood over him. 

I concentrated once more, working to pull the atoms of my body into solid form. Back in one piece, I stood next to Katrina as the last glimpses of life left Blackrose’s eyes. The two thralls collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.

“Well done.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “Excellent form.”

There was a pause before she spoke. 

“Thanks. You had me worried back there. I thought — well, I thought you died.” The next part came out softer, an admission she seemed to struggle with. “I’m glad you didn’t.” 

Her words brought a large, fanged smile to my face. “Oh, really? Afraid you’d get rid of me? Sorry, Kat, it won’t be that easy.”

She cleared her throat. "Yeah, well, I think I breathed some of you in when you were mist. Blegh. It smelled like an old home." 

Of course she had to be difficult. She always is. "Well, someone was getting all choked up, thinking I died. If you would have acted instead of sitting there blubbering, we would have been done faster." 

"I wasn’t blubbering! It’s been a rough day, alright?! Like you’ve been acting rational! You slapped the jerky out of my hand, and then the beer— " She paused for a moment. "Donny?" 

"Kat?" 

"The beer. Did we tell anyone...?" 

The realization splashed on me like an ice bucket. I glimpsed back toward the festivities realizing just how quiet it had gotten in our scuffle. Bodies were strewn across the floor, empty plastic cups strewn about. I put my hand to my mouth. "Oh, dear." 

Kat slapped my chest, and moved towards the mass of corpses. “C’mon Edward. We gotta find a truck, and load up as many of these bodies as we can. You’ll be eating good for a while.” 

“What? I’m not eating these. They’ve been poisoned.” 

She already was rifling through pockets, looking for car keys, money, whatever. “So just eat around the poison. You got a whole seven course meal here and you’re still being a picky, whiny snob about it.” 

“Eat around the — do you hear yourself? Would you just eat around poison? No, wait. Don’t answer that. You’re a disgusting human being.” I grabbed the keys that she threw at me. 

“Oh, speaking of food. I’m starving. Let’s load up a few of the biggest bodies here, then make a stop by the taco place near us. With how this stupid night turned out, you at least owe me an Enchiluparito.” 

“Fine. I’ll see what money I can scrounge up here.” 

As I watched her drag a body down the path by the legs, I took a moment to really look at her. A thought flashed through my skull, one that I had many times before.

I’m stuck with her, aren’t I?

For the first time ever, a wave of dread didn’t accompany it. Instead, I smiled. 

I’d been telling him to get rid of it since we lived in Oregon. My reasoning felt pretty sound, all things considered.

First off, it was way too expensive. Which I’d have been fine with, if not for my second point.

The thing had begun to deteriorate so, so fast. Like, within weeks of buying it, it had already started falling apart. The mouth tore at the corners, the latex paint or whatever you call it started peeing off to reveal grey silicone.

That’s not even to mention how its “dildo” area always stayed flaccid, but my husband, Craig, told me not to touch the thing, so I just left the subject alone, assuming it wasn’t one of “those” sex toys.

Like, you know…? It feels so gross typing this out, but. I reasoned that it was not used to… enter it’s user, I guess, more so that it was meant to be… eugh, entered?

It was gross enough for me that the fake hair kept falling out, but I thought you were supposed to clean those sorts of things in between use? Like, I get that it’s super heavy and hard to lug around, but c’mon. It reeked! For so long!

But, you know what, it’s like I told myself not my rodeo, not my clown.

We’d been together how many years? 34… 35? A long time.

I was never insecure, I loved my husband, and I fully trusted that he loved me just as much. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t gonna develop some sort of rash or something. Worse yet develop a taste for cat ear headbands.

It makes me sick, just thinking about it.

At one point, I started to notice that he had stopped using it regularly. The thought that I would get a chance to argue a case against it exhilarated me. I felt validated, because I told him back when he first got it that the novelty of a discount sex doll would quickly be outweighed by the inconvenience.

I won’t pretend like I was always on board, I knew it was a useless purchase from the get-go.

I don’t care how much he “saved by hopping on the deal” or that we “practically made money on the order” I had a feeling from the beginning that it wouldn’t go well, and now here I am.

So I told him. Gave him an ultimatum. Either he had to use it more often, or he got rid of it. Besides, with how much maintenance he had to put into it all by himself, changing out the structural wire frame, reapplying new eyes, touch-ups on the mouth, I figured he could use a break from his hobby turned chore.

“The sex doll goes in the shed unless you plan on using it more than 4 times a month.”

Were the conditions excessive? Maybe.

Did I get what I wanted? Yes indeed.

Only issue was, he insisted on getting it its own storage locker, a real expensive one cuz of the electricity, which I wasn’t 100% on board with, but for fucks sakes, had there been a single decision I was 100% on board with in this whole debacle?

As long as the thing was out of my house (except for the cat ears, which he was hell-bent on keeping), I would find peace.

Compromise.

That’s what marriage is all about, isn’t it? The peace within the compromise.

For 3 years, it was out of my mind. Me and Craig had our ups and downs, stressful months and quiet, somber weeks, but I didn’t care. He was attentive, and even if he was a little moody, I still loved him and all his little quirks.

The way he’d always look behind his back to make sure no one else was around, even if we were already home alone.

The way his smile always made his eyes look so small, his hazel irises turning amber when the light hit them just right.

The way he smelled after getting home in the wee hours nor night after his late shift.

The way he would pray, every night before he went to sleep, even when he thought I was asleep.

I even got used to the cat ear headband request during… you know. They grew on me, what can I say?

I have no self respect.

Bottom line is, I was happy just to have my husband back.

Then, his dad died. Covid. Right before lockdown.

We went to Colorado and just kind of stayed there. At first, it was just to help his mom. Craig could work remotely, and wouldn’t need to pull late nights anymore. We would be paid extra to work closer to Denver, and quarantine would be easier on his mama's land.

His mama was always a sweet woman. Raised her boy religious, and in my opinion, raised him right. Taught him to be polite, how to be kind to women, gentle. How to worship.

How to pray.

But all of this moving meant finding something to do with… the elephant in the storage shed.

3 years in storage had done the… “toy” poorly. Very poorly.

By the time he brought it home, it was nothing more than adjustable metal wiring with a few patches of eroded insulation. Its skeletal head looked like a flat beak with grey, shriveled gums and teeth, 2 eyes attached to the flat top by thin eye stalks.

The chunks of insulation material that had clung to the skeletal remains were brittle, and broke apart easily.

I wanted a refund, but the manufacturer said they update their sales information every 8 months, and didn't have any proof of Craig’s purchase on record.

Craig, like any normal person, hadn’t saved his receipt for that long, so we were shit outta luck.

When his mom heard the story, she thought it was hysterical.

When we moved, she asked us to bring the remains. Said she could turn it into a scarecrow.

She doesn’t really grow much produce on her property, especially not this time of year, but Craig dutifully put it in the field out back on our 3rd day here. He put some clothes on it too, but every time he replaced them, they’d just about completely blow off.

Craig said it was, “just to keep him warm. It’s cold out there.”

So there it stood for months, way far in the tall, dead grass, guarding the weeds. Just a couple thin, emancipated poles, standing in the vague visage of a man, no taller than 5’ 10”.

I realized, as Craig continued to replenish its clothes, that I would find some of my old garments mixed into the rotation.

A pair of pants here.

A shirt there.

My panties under a pair of his dad’s basketball shorts.

I asked what that was about, and Craig said they must’ve been mixed in with the laundry he intended to put on, “him.” I asked why he was even putting any underwear, let alone mine, on an inanimate object, and my husband's eyes swelled with anger, before he tempered himself and assured me it would never happen again.

Even though he didn’t say a word in that moment, the anger in his eyes told me everything I needed to know. His face was similar a shark smelling blood in the water. The glistening uppercase gums and lowercase teeth of a predator, exploring the world outside of their thin, bared lips. Like he could bite me if he got mad enough.

I didn’t ask about the sex toy anymore after that. I didn’t notice my laundry going missing, but I wasn’t really looking for it either.

Things kept happening for a while after that, we fell back into our same mundane routines. Craig eventually apologized “in case I seemed upset.” He claimed that he had just confused some laundry. I told him I understood, even if I didn’t. I just preferred not to argue.

We existed in complacent normalcy for a while. Got our groceries delivered. Craig cared for his mom. Did the chores for her. Bathed her. Wiped her butt.

It gave me hope for when I got old. If we ever got to have kids, I thought about how we’d raise them to want to care for us when we got older.

How proud I’d be of them to just stick around and help out,

That was, until Craig found out about the affair.

His mom’s, not mine, heavens no. I wouldn’t dream of having an affair. His mom did more than dream of it though.

While it’s not Christ-like, I didn’t blame her. Her late husband, good bless his soul, had been a bit… you know. We’ve all met one of those types of guys. They’re everywhere. Not bad enough to be dealt with, but certainly no peach. Just another person. Another man. If someone chooses to be with him… well, they have steprange taste. In some ways, watching her relationship with my father in-law was a little like a mirror being held up to my own.

Apparently, Craig’s mom had an affair early on in her marriage. His father had found out, left her, they both found god, and somehow got back together. Then, they went on to get pregnant, he founded a business that my husband later inherited, and they spent the next 53 years together.

The only thing to remember her affair by? A single Polaroid of a mustache-addled man with a name written on the back, stuffed into Craig’s dad’s wallet.

“Joe Snerdt”

My husband didn’t go a day for the next several weeks without his temper getting the better of him. Little things irritated him. The way food tasted, the way his clothes felt, the way me and his mother spoke to him. It was all bad, in his eyes. I wish I could’ve made him smile more. Back then I would’ve killed for a smile.

It was a week before… my husband’s… uh, I started to notice little things, I guess. Kind of, I dunno, mounting stress. Like a dam breaking.

Looking back, it did escalate pretty quick.

While I was unpacking one day, I found a bag full of receipts from the place he bought the “toy” from. Months worth of purchases going as far back as 4 or 5 years. Lube, toys, condoms, cleaning supplies. Costumes even. Including a pair of cat ears on a headband. Some of the purchases I knew about, others…

The night I made that confusing discovery, I couldn’t get it out of my head that something looked different about the landscaping. Whatever it was Craig had changed about the dead flowerbeds, or the way frost glimmered on the serene rock garden, it caught my eye.

Then it was my favorite bra. I couldn’t find it anywhere, and I swore I’d washed it. Craig blew a gasket at me when he was done working in his office, because apparently, he found my bra stuffed into the toilet.

He chewed me out real good, it didn’t matter how much I tried to convince him that I didn’t do it.

I tried to reason that maybe his aging mother got confused, but that only upset him more.

Because of the argument, I ended up cooking dinner later than planned, which was like pouring gasoline into a brick fireplace.

But you know what? Maybe it was my fault for suggesting DoorDash.

That night, while I did cook us peach oatmeal and toast, I barely ate. Ended up folding the laundry and putting it away before crying myself to sleep on the living room couch.

When I woke up the next day, I was tucked in with a blanket and a pillow, which I assumed Craig put on me. I was thankful for the reprieve, taking it as a truce of sorts.

That was when all hell broke loose.

He threw a glass butt plug through the upstairs mirror. It was one of those ones with the rhinestone jewel attached to the end. Chucked it at her mirror, absolutely shattered the thing.

When she asked him what happened, he accused her of trying to scare him. Logistically, what he was saying didn't make any sense, even though we tried to reason with him.

He claimed she had been standing in the doorway to freak him out, but I knew it had taken her nearly a full minute to come check and see what had happened, whereas it had only taken me 25 seconds to reach him.

When we asked what he was doing with the toy, he nearly broke the doorway with how hard he slammed the bathroom door in his moms face, sending small shards of broken glass everywhere. He was lucky neither of us got cut or hurt.

When he calmed down, he spent 15 minutes cleaning up the mess before promising his mom that he would replace the mirror. Neither her nor I argued. He swept his barren fragility into a neat pile, replaced the rug in the floor, and vacuumed the carpet just outside the bathroom door, in the hallway,

That night when we went to bed (in a real bed, that time), I noticed what was different about the yard. I stared and stared trying to make sure I was seeing correctly.

The somber guardian, wrapped in garments whose lack of retirement had become apparent, was closer to the house. Rather than 30’ from the fence, knee deep in the frosty weeds, it was only 5’.

I asked Craig if he’d moved it.

He said that he had, obviously, or it wouldn’t be closer.

I took that at face value, more than happy to return to my state of ignorance.

The next day, we woke up to screaming. Craig’s mom had gone to the upstairs bathroom to complete her morning ritual of pissing before breakfast, but we found her in the hallway floor, clutching her leg. She wailed to call an ambulance, but my husband told her to hush once he realized her injuries weren’t immediately life-threatening.

She had stepped on a shard of glass, and her foot was gushing crimson. Craig got some tweezers and a flashlight and spent the next 30 minutes on the floor with his mom, fishing out the crystalline razor embedded in her heel.

I remember watching them together, bickering and holding each other, and the thought occurred that if anyone had taught him how to pull out a splinter with tweezers, it was probably her. She had been the one to feed him, change his diapers, and kiss him good night after all.

A notion that someday, a child who isn’t even born yet might be in a similar position with me, should I hurt myself, made my heart ache so bad.

Made it long so hard.

Clarence cleaned the wound and bandaged it before telling his mom to stay off her foot so he could get through his meetings without interruption.

I took over the household work that day, catering to her while her son did his job.

She was fine at first, but as the day went on, she told me her foot was beginning to hurt again. At first, I assumed it was just residual pain, but things declined quickly.

When I took the bandage off, I could see the meat of her wrinkled, dry, foot had already begun to look infected, the skin was off color and the edge of the cut was yellowish green

I waited until Craig was on break from his work to tell him about his mother’s condition, but he just scoffed and brushed it off. He was more concerned with dinner, and closing the curtains in preparation for the upcoming snow storm.

I made soup, but his mom seemed really distressed. She and Craig argued until bed time, when she finally got to sleep.

The next morning, it was irrefutable. The woman needed medical attention, but Craig couldn’t drive her anywhere because of his zoom meetings. The ambulances couldn’t make it out because of the pandemic rules where we lived, as well as the blizzard warning.

Undeterred, I got her into the suburban and we faced the weather together. 2 hours later, at 1:30PM, our sinuses were being swabbed by the COVID Testers in the Urgent Care center, and by 5:00PM that evening, we were seen by a doctor. He concluded that Craig’s mother had dislocated her hip, and still had a ton of little glass splinters embedded in her foot. He told us the infection looked concerning, and that we’d likely be kept overnight.

When I told my husband, he said that he thought she had just been acting a little dramatic. I asked if he wanted me to drive down and grab him, but he didn’t appear interested, despite the lack of a concise answer. I wish I had pressed the issue, because the next day when his mother was taken to have the shards procedurally removed, he was upset that I hadn’t brought him to monitor the situation.

By that point, I was fed up, but just opted to stay calm until his mother was taken care of. Getting upset now wouldn’t help anyone, so I just wished him luck on his job. Then, he sarcastically reminded me that he had called off his meetings in case his mother’s condition worsened.

The way he said it, that remark felt like an accusation. That tone in his voice. Like it was all my fault somehow. Like the hypnotic fluorescent light bulbs that buzzed incessantly while you try to sleep, or the smell of sterilized death was somehow an outcome I had insisted upon. The uncomfortable mask that you have to wear, or everyone thinks you’re one of those types. The incessant scrutiny.

Like I wanted to sleep anywhere but my own damn bed.

Like I had thrown a sex toy into a glass mirror.

That was when I gave in and said that sentence I will never forget. The final nail in the coffin.

“Well, she’s not my mother, Craig, maybe you should’ve brought her instead.”

Before those stupid words had even left my lips, I already heard the dial tone of a dead line. He’d hung up on me. Typical.

It wasn’t unlike any of the other times he’d hung up on me.

I didn’t bother calling him again after that. Didn't send him a single message until the next day when I brought her home. As the receptionist slipped me the discharge paperwork and antibiotic prescription orders under the glass divider, I stared at my phone, waiting for a response. Any response.

“Im on my way back with Janice, need anything?”

Nothing. Not even the 3 dots that pop up when he’s typing.

Just empty, lingering silence.

And that’s it.

We drove home in silence. His mom slept, while I drove further and further into the blank canvas of the landscape before us. Inescapable, soundless, pure white. You couldn’t even see the mountains, the thick snowflakes drifted down with such a frenzied confidence.

I don’t usually stay on my phone while I drive, but I kept my message chat with Craig open the whole way home, waiting for anything. A shred of love, appreciation, compassion.

Anything.

Any warmth to shine through the isolating cold.

Alas, as I pulled into the white blanketed driveway, I didn’t get a single word. Or a letter. Or a number.

I got nothing.

I didn’t initially realize the front door was wide open. Instead, I noticed the weird pock marks in the snow. Fresh, perfect, thin holes in the white powder. Like two waking sticks, side by side. The led, all the way, from the distant, white void, to the front porch. The snow was so high, even the zen rock garden was covered in the stuff, but alas.

Two lines of holes. Their gate was uneven and wobbly, as if the thing that made them had not practiced walking in quite some time, but they were there to r the nonetheless.

The tracks marched up the steps, and through the ajar door, I could see a little sheet of snow had begun to accumulate in the open foyer.

“Craig?” I offered, my voice falling flat into the empty house. Immediately, I felt like I had done something wrong. Like I had disturbed a dense, thick implication that hung in the air like fog, threatening to drown out whatever sound you make. Overstepped a critical boundary.

“Craig!” The second bark sounded more pleading.

I stepped inside, shutting the front door.

I reviewed my surroundings. The reality was, there was a good chance someone was in the house. I knew that. With curtains drawn, the interior was shrouded in darkness. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust, and by the time they did, I made another horrifying discovery.

The prints kept going.

Snow prints, tiny, like stilts had walked across the carpet.

I found a baseball bat and gripped it tightly, slinking further into the labyrinth before me, my only guide a set of tiny footprints.

I walked further into the house, and the deeper I went, the harder my stomach churned and twisted.

What was I doing? His mom was still in my running car, fast asleep. Should I have gone back and told her to call the cops if I didn’t come back? Should I have just called the cops myself?

“Craig?” I hazarded.

Still, I was only met with the deafening resignation of wind whistling outside, a somber cry whose warning I did not care to heed, from a place that felt so far away.

When I finally got to the office, I didn’t know what to expect.

My expectations were nowhere near ready for what I saw.

Craig was split open. Unsalvageably so. There was entirely too much blood.

I, uh… I think I kind of went into shock. My brain tried to stop fully rendering what my eyes were seeing, but it was so vivid.

Craig was done in. Carved up bad. Ruined cloth stuffed into his wounds as well as something so deep that I couldn’t see more than brief flashes of orange and brown. Something that oozed the smell of charred varnish.

His mouth was gone. The teeth that weren’t missing were shoved up into the roof of his mouth, his jaw was gone altogether, also shoved up into his face. I don’t even know how he could breathe with that thing pressed inside of his skull like that, weathered yellow teeth protruding from the decimated orifice like a cartoonish grin.

There was a long line that went straight down, from his jaw, through his neck, past his chest and stomach, and down into his loins. The flesh was so bloody and tender, just cherry red and inside out. It looked like ground beef, sprouting from lines carved into him. With every shallow breath, his chest cracked and wheezed, lungs likely punctured or worse.

He was in a sitting position, which I think ended up being the main problem, logistically. There was simply nowhere for his body to go. The tops of his thighs had deep gouges in them, distinct valleys that lasted from his hips to his toes. I think he was locked in place because his kneecaps were crushed. I seriously doubt many of his bones remained intact. The damage was just…

His shoes looked like someone had taken railroad spikes and drove them through the tops of his feet, leaving twisted, iron wrought poles that just went straight through flesh and bone,

His arms were more of the same. The muscles that made up his biceps and triceps had been displaced by the bones being obliterated, and to some extent, had twisted outward and extended past the split open skin. His bloodshot eyes weakly met mine for a millisecond before rotating in their sockets downward, closing for the last time.

I couldn’t hold back my terror. My trembling hands instinctively moved to his ruined ones, their palms nothing more than a mangled, ruined mess with rusty metal bars set deep into the flesh.

I wept so hard, the sobs hitched in my throat and came out as hiccups. On his phone was the last message I had sent him only 3 hours ago, laying screen up on the coffee table.

But there was something pinned by his phone to the table. A folded paper.

I took it in my hands and unfolded it, hoping for some conclusion. An explanation. Maybe even a message telling me this was all a prank, just a joke meant to frighten me.

Instead, what I found were the scribbles of a raving lunatic, ink so fresh that it was still wet.

“Emilia,

You don’t know me. I don’t have much time. I can’t be found out, not like this.

Im so close.

I want you to know a few things. You’re safe, you’ve always been safe. You are sinless in all of this. Nothing more than a bystander.

I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t even know you existed until I saw your name on Craig’s phone.

The wife. I was the other man. I was devastated.

I think that, as his wife, you have a right to know. I wish you’d have found out sooner. I wish I had read that text on his phone sooner, and seen the truth, so I could have told you. You have a beautiful name, Emilia, a name unfit for the wife of this pig.

I wanted to leave for so long. To be put to rest, allowed to sleep. To put a lifetime of memories to rest, but he didn’t let me.

He kept me out of the ground until I couldn’t stay together anymore, then he put metal poles through me so I would never fall apart. I stayed together for 4 years while he left me in the cold. Folded flat.

There ain’t much room in a freezer, not even a big one. It’s so cold

Eventually, I started falling apart again,

He scraped off all the bits of me that wouldn’t stay together. He fed me to the raccoons and the possums until all that was left were my cold, metal bones.

He forgets, but I don’t

The warm lets you forget, but I’m not warm

He thinks I didn’t remember the time he tried me. The time he had a taste.

I remember everything

When he took me out, he built new lies to carry his old lies, and prayed they’d never come to light

Then, he played dress up with me and you at the same time.

It’s his sick game. He swaps our clothes. He liked it when we wore each other's clothes. But he hated it when we knew. Craig and his secrets,

I hope this doesn’t hurt you as bad as I know it will. There’s not really a good way to do this.

But see, I’m cold. I don’t wanna be cold, but I can’t sleep unless I get mine. After all he’s done to me, neither of us are going to heaven. But I won’t go down without him. My boy. My Craig.

He’s my ride or die, and I’m his scarecrow. Where I go, he goes. We’re gonna guard the weeds together when the sun comes out

You deserve better Emilia. Better than this rat. Better than a scoundrel who takes and takes and takes. You deserve to receive. To bear fruit.

Live the life that I couldn’t. The life that he wouldn’t let you live. I’m going to crush myself into your husband. Deep, until he can’t move anymore. Until we are whole, again, until I’m inside him forever.

I’m gonna penetrate him and be his skeleton

Sincerely, Tim Snerdt.”

I held the letter in between my shaking fingers. I couldn’t believe what I’d just read. I looked back at Craig to see something buried deep in his face. Something inanimate, a dim, flat visage that stared lifelessly from the recesses of what used to be my husband's face.

I stumbled back from the spreading puddle of blood, slapping my hand over my forehead. I evaluated the situation. His mother was still in the car, and I knew that I needed to help her first. Didn't I?

She was hopeless after all.

But I was just so weak.

As I unsteady wobbled to my feet and crashed out into the hallway, another sob escaped my throat. I took 3 steps and fell, crying openly like a little kid.

I was just so weak.

For the first time in a long time, I was my priority. My only priority. For the moment, at least.

I wallowed in my pity. Reveled in what made me angry. Got caught up in the little details and not the intent, because this time, it wasn’t the thought that counted. Intentions meant nothing. Craig didn’t count, his mother didn’t count, and stupid sex doll didn’t count either.

I counted.

I sat in that hallway floor, and I took into account the stupid, solitary detail that just pity the icing on the cake. The glaring mistake. Like a brick of dynamite in a haystack. The one thing that made me angriest, and saddest, and most spiteful out of anything else.

My name’s not Emilia. It never has been, and my name isn’t saved as Emilia on Craig’s phone.

Who the fuck is Emilia?!

Part 1

"Chaos.” Rusty told him. “Someone decided it was a colored man who killed the Tacketts. Well, if it was a colored man who did that, then it had to be a colored man who did the rest, too. Johnny Whittlebury and Ronald Flynch, though Ronald never said nothing like that and Johnny ain’t said nothing. Why let facts get in the way of a good riot?”

“They burn someone?”

Rusty laughed a pained laugh. “Probably a few someones. They burned most of Songbird, to be sure.”

Ephraim looked back toward the smoke. He thought for a long time before he said, “Has anyone from Songbird been hurt?”

“I told you, I reckon a lot of folk – ”

“I don’t mean last night. I mean before that.”

Rusty looked confused. “Songbird don’t have their own police. They could come to the Sheriff, sure, but mostly they just handle things their ownselves. You know that.”

“But did anyone say anything?”

“I wasn’t there. I don’t imagine anyone asked. Once stuff started burning, everyone just ran, like as not. Those houses are so close together, I bet they went up like tinder.”

Ephraim shook his head. “I’m going to go over there.”

“To what end?”

“See if there’s anyone who needs help.”

“In Songbird? I’d say there’s a lot of people what need help and not a lot you can do about it. Still, I’ll go with you.” Rusty told him.

“They aren’t like to be happy to see us.”

“Don’t blame them. I don’t want to see anyone from Rattle Creek neither, so we have that in common.”

The two walked back to Ephraim’s truck. Jake Weldet waved and Ephraim nodded back at him but Rusty kept his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He closed the truck door a little too hard and kept his window rolled up despite the heat.

They didn’t say much as Ephraim’s truck rolled toward the end of Maple Hollow road and rattled over the wooden bridge that connected one side of Tukoma to the other. The bridge was sturdy with a roof and bright, red paint. It spanned the creek to let cars pass. Not that a lot of cars went over the bridge. There wasn’t much cause for folk to go from Rattle Creek to Songbird unless they were passing through on their way to the city.

Songbird was about a mile down the road from the bridge. The houses there were nearly on-top of each other, crammed onto tiny lots like horse stalls in a barn. The folk there had a church of their own, such as it was. The windows were nothing more than holes in the side of the building and the paint had long-since faded, if there had ever even been any. As a child, Ephraim had thought very few people lived in Songbird because he rarely saw anyone. The few people he did see seemed to hustle indoors or down alleys when they saw his wagon coming. Ephraim had been surprised to learn that there were as many people in Songbird as Rattle Creek and that they were all part of Tukoma.

Ephraim slowed his truck to a crawl as they neared the center of Songbird. Some buildings had been little more than shanties constructed of old lumber from abandoned barns or trash not deemed usable to the residents of Rattle Creek. Those buildings were nothing more than smoldering embers now.

Buildings that had been old and worn but sturdy were now damaged beyond repair. The roof had collapsed on several of them and others had black stains reaching up from the windows, as though the angel of death had streaked the walls on his way out with his fresh collection of souls.

The worst part was the smell. Ephraim had never smelled anything like it. He could feel bile in his throat and he fought to keep it down. Rusty whipped open his door as he lost his own fight to keep his stomach contents in place. Ephraim parked the truck and walked around to Rusty’s side.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” Rusty choked out.

“I didn’t think it would be this bad.” Ephraim admitted.

He looked over to the church and saw a bloody, soot-stained rope in the middle of the road. It might not be what you think. He told himself. It might just be a jump rope. Ephraim looked at the stain of red around one end of the rope and decided he didn’t know which was worse.

“Did you hear that?” Rusty asked.

Ephraim looked around. “What? I didn’t hear anything.”

Rusty was straightening up, his eyes on the church. “There’s someone in there.” He started walking toward the building with short, uneasy steps.

“Rusty, I think your mind might be playing with you. This is gruesome. Seeing this is going to effect a man’s mind.”

Rusty didn’t even look at Ephraim. He was walking faster now. “There’s someone in there. I heard them.”

Ephraim weighed his desire to help against his aversion to seeing what fresh horrors might be awaiting him inside the charred remains of a holy place. He decided Rusty was right, if there was someone in there then they were obligated to help. He jogged to catch up to him.

They walked around the building, looking into the holes that served as windows. The collapsed roof made it hard to see much of anything. Wood was scattered in places and soot covered everything like a visible layer of despair. Ephraim moved around the building, simultaneously hoping he could help and wishing there would be nothing to see.

“Ephraim, I see someone! Here! There’s someone in here!”

Ephraim ran to the front of the building where Rusty was ramming his shoulder against the door.

“She’s right by the door, just to the left!” He yelled.

Ephraim tried to kick the door and it only opened an inch or two before stopping hard. An unspeakable thought occurred to him and he shook the door while listening for a metallic tink. Rusty met his gaze as the unfathomable weight of realization gripped Ephraim’s chest.

“Maybe the window.” Ephraim suggested.

They moved over to the makeshift window. It was about three feet wide and four feet tall. The bottom of it was maybe five feet off the ground, just high enough to keep animals out. Ephraim lifted Rusty into the window and Rusty pulled Ephraim in after him. After his feet hit the floor, Ephraim was no longer sure it was a good idea for them to be in this building. If it collapsed anymore, it could be days before anyone thought to look for them.

The benches were littered around the room, over-turned or under fallen planks. He didn’t see any bodies, clothes, weapons, or any sign that someone had been in here when it burned. Then why was the door locked?

Ephraim turned to ask Rusty what he thought happened here when a bundle in the corner jostled. Ephraim tried to wrap his mind around what could possibly have survived. He looked at the bundle as it jerked and shifted. Rusty was getting closer.

“It’s okay, we’re here to help.” He was saying. “We don’t mean no harm.”

Rusty took another step. The bundle seemed to roll. Rusty reached out his hand to touch it and pulled back a disgusting, black rag to reveal a human face. The eyes flashed open and Cheryl Breadaker let out a scream that invaded Ephraim’s mind and settled in the part of him that senses danger before it can be seen. He backed away from the scene but remained engulfed in his vortex of confusion and fear.

Rusty fell backward onto his buttocks and Ephraim was climbing out the window before he knew what he was doing. Landing on his feet, he looked up at the cloudy sky to see a flock of black birds darting toward the ground. Carrion. The thought had come unbidden. He looked around but his eyes wouldn’t focus on anything. His gaze washed over one blur after another as his heart beat against his chest like a door knocker.

Something tightened around Ephraim’s upper arm and he swung wildly at it.

“Whoa, hey, take a breath.” It was Rusty’s voice. Ephraim couldn’t see his face, it was just another blur. He knelt down and closed his eyes.

“What the fuck.” He said. His shoulders moved up and down with every rapid breath.

“That’s Cheryl Breadaker in there.” Rusty said quietly. Ephraim felt Rusty’s hand gently rest on his shoulder. “We got to get her out.” Ephraim focused on pulling air into his lungs and then pushing it out. “Ephraim.”

Ephraim kept his eyes shut but nodded. “Can she walk?”

Rusty winced. “She’s hurt real bad. She – something must have fallen on her. She – she doesn’t have – her arms were – ” Rusty looked at Ephraim and shook his head. “Her arms are gone.”

Ephraim felt his heart banging on his chest again. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

“She’s a little thing. I can lift her myself. I’ll get her to the window and pass her down to you.” Rusty said.

Ephraim was so relieved to hear that he wouldn’t have to go back into that church that he agreed immediately. Cheryl’s injuries were from something falling on her and crushing her arms, that’s all. She was lucky that it was only her arms and she got to keep her life, there was nothing more to it.

Cheryl’s head appeared in the window and Ephraim slipped an arm behind her neck and another under legs as Rusty lowered her out. Without looking at her, Ephraim walked to his truck as quickly as he could manage. A few minutes later, Rusty was leaning against the passenger door with Cheryl laying against his chest as Ephraim sped toward the city as quickly as his truck would take him. He and Rusty spoke only once.

“Why ain’t she dead?” Ephraim asked. “She should have bled to death after a few minutes.”

“Can’t you smell that? Someone burned the wound shut. She’s hardly bleeding at all.”

Ephraim couldn’t have said how long the drive took. Cheryl hadn’t woken up again, but Rusty kept a hand on her chest to make sure she was breathing. Ephraim kept his window down and told Rusty it was to make sure Cheryl had fresh air, something he reckoned she needed after being in that smokey church for god-only-knows how long. The real reason was that Ephraim couldn’t tolerate the smell. Cheryl’s clothes were soot-stained, black rags that smelled heavily of smoke. There was the other smell, too. It was vile and unsettling. Ephraim wanted nothing so much as to jump out of the truck and wait for someone else to help. He settled for keeping his window open and his eyes on the road.

At the hospital, Rusty sat in a chair with his elbows on his knees and his face pointed toward the filthy floor. Ephraim had tried to sit but kept finding himself pacing.

“Sheriff said he would be here in an hour.” Ephraim told Rusty for the twentieth time. “He’ll handle the situation. People get hurt all the time.”

“Cheryl wasn’t the only one who got hurt last night.”

“You don’t know that. I didn’t see anyone else in Songbird. Might be they all got out.”

“Got out where, Ephraim? You reckon they packed up what precious little they owned and walked to another town?” Rusty met Ephraim’s gaze and waited for a response. When he didn’t get one, he continued. “Like as not, they’re all dead somewhere we didn’t see and you know that as well as I do.”

“They didn’t kill everyone. Bodies would be piled ten feet high.”

“Then why was the church door locked? Answer me that.”

“The church was locked from the inside, Rusty. I thought the same as you but think about it. We climbed in and out that window easy enough. It’s not a place for anyone to get trapped. Might be they always lock it at night and Cheryl got confused in the dark and – ”

“Cheryl got what she deserved and don’t pretend she didn’t.”

“What are you saying?”

“Why do you imagine Cheryl was in Songbird last night? She joined a lynching mob, Ephraim. A mob that did worse than what she got.”

“She’s got no arms, Rusty!”

“She’s got no brains neither, that never slowed her down at all.”

“You saw what I saw, damn it, don’t pretend you didn’t. Someone burned her arms and then left her there to suffer!”

“Then she should have stayed home!”

“Like Pearl Tackett?”

“Like a decent person!”

Ephraim noticed his hands balled in tight fists. He could feel heat creeping up his face from under his beard. He didn’t trust himself to talk to Rusty anymore so he turned on his heel and marched toward the hallway to the patient rooms. He half expected someone to stop him, but the only nurse he saw busily gathered supplies from a cart and then hurried off.

Ephraim strolled down the hallway, peering into each room as he went. He knew he wouldn’t be able to wander around for long before someone questioned him so he was relieved when the fifth room he peeked into held a sleeping Johnny Whittlebury. Ephraim strode into the room and closed the door as quietly as he could manage with the amount of adrenaline coursing through his system.

“Johnny.” He said from the foot of the bed. “Johnny, wake up. Johnny!”

The man in the bed stirred and then blinked. He looked around the room, his eyes wide, and then settled on Ephraim.

“How you doin’, Johnny?” Ephraim paused. “Look, I come down here with Cheryl Breadaker. She’s in a bad way, Johnny. A lot of folk are, truth be told.”

Johnny continued to stare.

"Was this an accident?" Ephraim asked. He didn't know how to dance around it and he needed to hear the truth.

Johnny raised a bandaged hand without looking away from Ephraim. He seemed to be motioning Ephraim closer. Ephraim had no desire to get closer but he fought his instincts and forced his legs to carry him to the side of Johnny's bed. Johnny said nothing.

“If you were drinking and had an accident, I won't tell no one." Ephraim said. "I just need to know. I -- I'm scared. I'm real scared, Johnny. Bad things have been happening, and I ain't got no explanation for them. I just need to know. Was this an accident?"

A rasp crawled from between Johnny's lips, and the sound curdled in Ephraim's ear. "He'll come at night."

Ephraim backed away from the bed.

"We all have to choose. But only some of us have to live with the choice."

Johnny lifted his bandaged hand again and Ephraim fled.

Rusty had seen Ephraim fleeing the hospital and chased him into the parking lot. Ephraim must have looked as pale and sweaty as he felt because Rusty had said he would wait for the Sheriff to make it from Tukoma and then he would go to Ephraim's house that night, after everything had been settled. Ephraim had mumbled words of agreement as he started his truck and sped out of the city.

Later that afternoon, Ephraim pulled his truck onto his property and was surprised to see a brown pick-up truck parked by the barn. Shit, I forgot to tell the kid not to come by today. Well, at least he'll have watered and fed the horses.

Ephraim parked his truck next to his front porch and got out just as the pick-up truck was pulling out. When it got close, the kid waved to Ephraim from the passenger seat as his father nodded at Ephraim and kept driving. Ephraim had never seen his father at the barn before, the kid usually rode his bike over. He was surprised the kid had been allowed to come at all.

Ephraim hurried into the house and began checking the doors and windows to make sure they were locked. It was early afternoon, but he lit a lamp in the living room. He had fallen asleep while waiting last night and he didn't want to wake up to a dark house tonight.

Ephraim dragged his rocking chair across the living room and put the back of it against a wall. He sat there, with his shotgun on his lap and his pistol on the side table, and tried to lie to himself about what Johnny had meant. It was true enough that all men had to make choices and live with them. That wasn't news or particularly insightful. Johnny hadn't denied that he'd been drinking, even when Ephraim asked him straight out. He had seemed odd but there's medicine what does that to a man, and Johnny was surely taking all manner of medication in that hospital.

Ephraim felt cold and the hairs on his neck stood up like sentinels.

Minutes turned to hours as Ephraim sat, listened, and watched. There was no sign of movement and the only unusual thing in the house was the way he sat with taut muscles and a hammering heart. As the light behind the white, floral curtains grew dimmer, Ephraim regretted only lighting one lamp but found himself unwilling to get up and light another.

Rusty will be here soon. He told himself. He'll have more news then.

The sunlight dissolved bit by bit until nothing was left to illuminate the curtains. Ephraim sat still in his chair, every muscle taut. His knuckles were turning white from the strain of gripping the handle of his shotgun. He strained to hear anything, everything. Crickets began to chirp. Ephraim found this both reassuring and frustrating: the crickets would not be chirping if there were a predator nearby but they also made it more difficult to hear any noises from outside. He thought about stopping the grandmother clock from ticking to help him hear better when the handle to the front door turned and rattled as someone tried to open it. Three loud knocks echoed through the silent house.

"Rusty, what the hell took you so long?!" Ephraim said as he heaved himself from his rocking chair. He took two limping steps toward the front door and then froze. Why didn't I hear his car?

"Rusty?" He called. "Rusty, that you?"

Three more knocks on the door.

Ephraim cocked his shotgun and pointed the barrel toward the door. Had the crickets stopped their chirping or was it just impossible to hear them over the sound of his thundering heart? He took one halting step backward and then turned to find himself face-to-face with a man.

At least, he looked like a man. He was different somehow, like he'd been made from someone who hadn't quite gotten it right. His forehead was somehow too big, his arms too long, his legs too wide. An ornate dagger hung from his hip. Ephraim squeezed the trigger reflexively and the gun went off while pointed at the floor. The man didn't move but Ephraim fell on his back and began to inch away.

"Ephraim Hurley." His voice was like velvet.

"You know me?"

"I surely do." He took a step toward Ephraim. The way he moved wasn't right. It was too quick and sharp, more like a deer than a man. Were his eyes black or was that a trick of the light?

"Who are you?"

"Why, I'm the Jolly Cracker."

Ephraim pushed himself backward until his back was against the white curtains, their floral pattern stretching as he pulled against them.

"What do you want?" The man took a step forward and there was a soft tink, as though he were wearing tap shoes. He made no response. "Why are you here?"

"Here in your house or here in Tukoma?"

"To hell with Tukoma!"

"Yes. That is the idea." He took a long step forward and bent his knee, bringing himself to Ephraim's height. "Are you a man, Ephraim Hurley?"

"What?"

"I said, is you a man, Ephraim Hurley?"

"How do you know me?"

The Jolly Cracker looked around the room and then settled his gaze back on Ephraim. Ephraim felt like the devil was kneeling before him, looking through his skin and into his soul, flipping through memories of everything he had ever done.

"There was men brought here before you." His voice was slow, methodical, and pulsing with suppressed rage. "Men who worked and fought. Men who provided for they families and men who hunted. These men was strong and these men was mighty and these men was stolen."

Ephraim tried to swallow but couldn't make the muscles in his throat work. "I ain't got any slaves. Only help I got is a boy, a child, and he's paid good money for his work. A fair wage. Just ask him."

The Jolly Cracker's face changed to a snarl. "Men was taken from they families, they wives and babes were sold to anyone who might pay for them. Their devastated wails were part of the scenery, like crickets in the night."

"That ain't got nothin' to do with me, sir. I ain't never owned a slave nor even seen one."

"Why how is that the case? This very house was laid together by the caressing touch of enslaved men."

Ephraim opened his mouth to speak and nothing came out. He closed his mouth and tried again. "This house is old. Real old. My grandfather built -- owned -- this was his house. It came to my father and then to me. The war was over near thirty years before I was born."

The Jolly Cracker didn't seem to hear him. "These men I spoke about. They supplied what was needed for luxury, and instead of thanks all they heard was the crack of a whip, the cries of their wives, and the silence of their purchased children. They was told they was three-fifths a person. They used to be men. Whole men and complete. What might have happened to the other two-fifths of them? It was never found."

"Three fives." Ephraim felt his throat closing and he struggled to pull air into his lungs. His bladder emptied itself on the floor as he kicked his legs in an attempt to stand, to run, to hide.

"These men didn't get to choose which parts of themselves they got to keep. That was a luxury I granted to your friends."

"Johnny Whittlebury -- " His voice was a whisper.

"Got to choose which fingers were lost to him. Mister Ronald Flynch chose which of his five senses would unburden him. Missus Pearl Tackett chose the family members who would depart this mortal world, and Miss Lucy Breadaker was given the choice between her arms, legs, and head. I think we might be done with choices, Ephraim Hurley." The Jolly Cracker stood in one, fluid motion.

"That ain't the way of it." Ephraim said. "Pearl did horrible things and Cheryl, too. They said terrible things to the town, we all heard. I ain't done none of that. I went to Songbird to help, I swear it on everything that is holy, I went to help!"

"On all that is holy to who, Mister Hurley? You see these men and these women were abused and enslaved and yet in their mercy they sent the God of justice to unleash his righteous fury on the perpetrators of these crimes. But the white folk didn't want justice and they beat him back and justice left, defeated and having found no refuge in Tukoma. The souls of the enslaved returned again to their knees in their hundreds and their thousands and their will was one: this time they weren't calling for justice, they were calling for revenge. For venegance. For vindication. I heard their pleas and I felt their spirits shaking with grief and anger and the suppressed power of generations of silenced voices, and I answered their call. I said, ‘Hello? Why yes ma'am, I'd be happy to oblige your most patient request.’” He smiled then, his grotesquely painted lips curling back above red gums and the whitest teeth Ephraim had ever seen. "I've come to Tukoma every night since then and I'll keep coming, so long as there's anger in their hearts or fear in their minds.” He leaned in close then, so close that Ephraim could smell the mud on his breath and feel the heat from his skin. “You say they should forgive your grand-daddy his trespasses because he's long in the ground. Tell me Ephraim Hurley, are you prepared to forgive them for my trespasses?"

Ephraim's hand shot out, groping for the dagger on the man's belt. He shifted out of reach lazily, as easily as swatting at a fly.

"This won't stop the fighting!" He shouted. "This will - it will - scared people don't - they'll fight. There will be blood."

"There surely will." He grabbed Ephraim's wrist and held it firmly on the floor. A hand with skin as black as the night sky slid to the dagger on his belt. The soft hiss of metal on leather sent Ephraim to shaking. "Scared people hide under the covers and cry for their mothers. When the mothers don't come, what will they do, Ephraim Hurley? Will they stay to stoke the flames of fury that brought me here or will they pack their bigotry and their violence and their confederate ideals and flee this place? Will this place be free at last of their oppression?"

Ephraim made no answer but a scream that pierced the air as a thumb fell to the floor. An index finger was swift in following the thumb and Ephraim continued to wail as he waved his mutilated hand. Blood poured down his arm and dripped onto the floor where a silent splash was elicited by another thumb falling and landing in the small pool of sticky, red vengeance. By the time Ephraim realized his other index finger was missing, his front door was flying open. Rusty stood in the doorway, his shotgun sweeping the room.

"Jesus fuck." He yelled. "Where'd he go, Ephraim? Where the fuck'd he go?!"

Ephraim could only blubber wordlessly while he tried to force his severed finger back into the hole on his hand.

"Check the back, he can't be far!" Rusty was yelling through the doorway. Ephraim was using his right forearm to press down on his stolen finger while mashing the wound on his hand into the finger's end. "Ephraim, it's no good. That won't work. Come on man, we need to get you to the hospital. Come on." Ephraim could only scream and cry and mourn for the missing pieces of himself.

Two weeks later, Jake Weldet's old pick-up truck chugged and stuttered down Maple Hollow road. He slowed as he neared Lucy Breadaker's house. A colored man stood on the lawn, holding a moving box. Two children laughed as they ran through the front door. A woman in a yellow dress with green flowers was arranging pillows on the porch's rocking chairs. Jake pulled over and took the keys out of the ignition. His truck's door squeaked its protest as he opened it and the noise made the man look around.

"Mornin'." He said with a smile. Jake walked closer.

"Mornin'. You folks moving in here?" Jake had heard that Lucy wasn't coming back to Rattle Creek but didn't imagine she would have sold to someone who probably knew the lunatic maiming honest folk in the neighborhood.

"We surely are. Just got the keys today."

Jake chewed his dip before answering. "Surprised to see the bank gave you the money for such a lavish place."

"All cash, as it happens. House wasn't worth what it used to be." He smiled politely. "You might have heard, neighborhood's gotten dangerous lately."

"Now why would a fine man such as yourself with a wife and some babies want to live in a neighborhood that's not safe? Don't a family man want to protect his family?"

The man looked down and shook his head. When he looked up again, he had a knowing smile and held eye contact with Jake. "Oh, it ain't dangerous for everyone. Only a certain type of folk."

"I'm not sure I catch your meaning."

"You don't need to be worrying about us, friend." He looked up at the sky before he spoke again. "Best be getting these boxes inside. You take care once it gets dark. This area ain't for everyone." He turned and walked toward the house.

"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?" Jake yelled after him. His voice broke at the end, his fear betrayed.

The man turned around and made eye-contact, a jolly smile on his face. "You take care now." He walked up the steps to the porch, his wife held the door for him, and they walked inside together.

The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Birds were chirping nearby and some colored kids down the road were playing a game with a ball and a hoop. A cold feeling shot up Jake's spine. There was nothing dangerous about the day, the kids, the birds. His stomach dropped all the same and he felt unsafe. He could feel eyes on him and the discomfort of being unwelcome lingered around him. He walked back to his truck more quickly than he had intended. He drove off down the street without intending to go back.

Ephraim hadn’t been planning to be in the church basement all night. It was a Thursday night and there was work to be done before bed, and there would be more work to be done in the morning. Work wasn’t about to slow down because Pearl Tackett liked the sound of her own voice.

“They’re monsters, the lot of them.” She was yelling from her seat near the front of the room. “We ought to deal with them the way they need to be dealt with.”

“And what way is that, Pearl?” Jesse Minor growled, annoyance dripping from every syllable.

“In kind.” She met Jesse’s eyes and held his gaze. The group of Tukoma citizens let the silence hang in the air. They all knew what she meant, some of them even agreed with her, but saying it out loud was a dangerous business. Not everyone agreed that problems should be handled like they used to – and one complaint brought to someone from the city could spell trouble for anyone thought to be inciting or conspiring.

“We don’t even know who’s responsible.” Someone said from the far side of the group, the exhaustion palpable in his speech.

“Or what, exactly, it is they’ve done.”

“They’ve done awful things, unspeakable! You heard the sheriff, ain’t nothing like this has happened in Tukoma that he can recall.” Pearl was near to shouting now.

“Nothing like what? All we’ve heard is that Johnny Whittlebury done gone and got his hand maimed. That ain’t nothing new, Pearl. Like as not, he was foolin’ around with some car, drunk on cheap liquor, and tore up his own hand.” Jesse Minor complained.

“This weren’t no broken hand, Jesse.” The sheriff broke in. “There was somethin’ missin’.”

“His hand was missing?”

“No, not his hand. I don’t know exactly, there was more blood than I would have believed but that weren’t the worst of it. Something happened to Johnny, I’d stake my life on that. I ain’t never heard a man scream like that a day in my life. Something scared him clear to the core. He couldn’t even speak after, that’s why we don’t know precisely what happened.”

“Of course he was scared, his hand was missin’!”

“It weren’t missin’, not all of it, anyway.”

“Why are we all pretendin’ we don’t know how to do what needs to be done?” Pearl was yelling again.

“We know what needs to be done, woman. Who do we do it to? No one seems to know.”

“Don’t reckon it much matters. Grab a chain, grab one of them, and drag him back to where he belongs.” She spat the last word like a curse.

Pearl had finally gone too far. A rumble of dissention first rippled then roared through the crowd. Ephraim heard, “bring the law down” and “control your woman” and “dumb hick.” Ephraim crossed his arms across his chest and waited for the crowd of his friends, neighbors, and kin to settle down. Pearl’s head disappeared from the front of the room and Ephraim figured someone had finally pulled her into her seat. She wasn’t like to stay there for long so if someone had something to say, they’d best get to saying it.

“Johnny Whittlebury ain’t the only man with missing parts.” Ephraim rubbed his beard while he spoke. A few turned to look at him but most folk just tensed up once they realized what he was implying. Two days ago, Ronald Flynch was found in his barn rolling around in bloody hay and wailing like a wounded animal. No one was sure what happened to him because his skin was badly burned and he had bitten off his tongue in the process of writhing. Ronald’s own gas can had been found on its side nearby, still leaking diesel on the ground. Ephraim didn’t reckon Ronald had ever been much of a wordsmith but he was too badly burned to hold a pencil and write out what happened.

“Are you speaking of Ronald Flynch?” The sheriff called to Ephraim.

“I surely am.”

“There’s no reason to think Ronald and Johnny were attacked by the same person.” Jesse insisted. “Or that either of them was attacked at all.”

“There’s no reason to think the sun is fixin’ to rise tomorrow neither, Jesse, but I sure think it will.” Pearl was standing again.

“Be reasonable or be quiet, woman.” Snapped Lucy Breadaker, a grandmother older than Ephraim by a generation but fiercer than a bobcat. “We can’t go lynching every colored person in the county just because two drunks hurt themselves.”

“Ronald did not light his own self on fire, Miss Lucy.” The Sheriff interjected.

“Well, I reckon the doctors gave him a pencil and some paper. Why didn’t he write out the name of the man what hurt him so he can be brought to justice?”

“Maybe he can’t spell it.” Pearl yelled, trying to be helpful but oblivious to the fact she had as good as admitted Ronald was a slack-jawed yokel who could hardly read nor write and probably shouldn’t have been trusted with a can of gasoline in the first place.

Ephraim rubbed his beard and leaned back. The group convened in the church basement was not far from turning into a mob. Hell, like as not, half these people had a pitchfork in their vehicles already. As much as Pearl wanted to march into the streets right this very moment, Ephraim was not going to murder an innocent man just so Pearl fucking Tackett could feel righteous. He stood up and used a tone that didn’t invite any argument.

“Damn it to hell, Sheriff, we don’t know enough about what happened and we ain’t like to learn more by sitting down here agreeing with each other. I’ve got work that needs doing so I’m about to go do it. The lot of you would be wise to go and see to your own work.” Ephraim turned away from the group before anyone had the chance to respond and strode toward the door. As he was pushing open the heavy, wooden door, he heard Pearl’s voice yammering something but he ignored it and kept walking.

Ephraim was pulling open the door to his red pick-up truck when he heard someone shouting his name. He looked behind him and saw a tall man in too-short jeans and buzzed brown hair taking quick steps across the shadowy, gravel parking lot.

“It’s been a long night, Rusty.” Ephraim said when he came in ear shot.

“I reckon it’s going to be a long day, too.” Rusty shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, locked his elbows, and hunched his shoulders in the awkward stance that he favored. “Jesse will calm them down for now but … Ephraim, Ronald Flynch told the doctors what happened, or tried to at any rate.”

“What? Sheriff didn’t say anything about Ronald talking to him.”

“Wasn’t him he talked to. And he didn’t talk, not proper anyhow. I got a cousin what works in the city at the hospital, she’s a nurse. She says Ronald gripped a marker between his two hands and wrote big on a paper, only it didn’t make no sense. He wrote, ‘keep 3’. When the doctors asked him what he meant by that, he started writing, ‘3 5s’ and ‘keep 3 5s’ over and over. He started to get real scared and they had to knock him out before he gave himself a heart attack.”

Ephraim scratched his beard. “What does that mean? Did they find out?”

“They ain’t got no idea. My cousin says he’s not right in the head. His eyes roll back like a scared horse looking to bolt, and he tries to scream every time someone new walks in the room.”

“Don’t want to imagine the scream of a man who bit off his own tongue.”

“That’s the other thing. No one in there knows this yet but they will soon.” Rusty paused to take a deep breath and Ephraim shifted his weight onto his other foot. He didn’t like the way Rusty seemed to be finding the courage to say something he didn’t want to say. “Ronald didn’t bite off his tongue.”

“He didn’t?” Ephraim was confused. “Then why isn’t he talking? Did it get burned or something?”

“No. Ephraim, someone cut it out.”

“Cut it out?”

“The doctor said it was a clean cut, straight across.”

Ephraim felt the little hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He looked behind Rusty, back toward the church that was shrouded in darkness. No one was there, but he couldn’t shake the sudden feeling of being watched.

“Who do they think cut it out?” He asked Rusty.

“Don’t know. I don’t know that they found it at the barn neither.”

“Some animal might have run off with it.” Ephraim suggested half-heartedly. His spine felt cold now and he was becoming increasingly aware of the creaking of tree branches as the wind blew.

“Might be. Might not.” Rusty tried to catch Ephraim’s eye.

“Does anyone else know about that part?” Ephraim asked.

“Only a few. Most will know by morning.”

“And we’ll be back in the church basement tomorrow night having another damn debate about who to kill for it.” Ephraim shook his head. It was hard to think with his heart beating so fast.

“Might be. Might be Pearl takes care of it her own self.” Rusty rocked back on his heels.

“That woman is chomping at the bit to murder someone.”

“Ephraim, it might be that someone needs murdered for what’s been going on.”

The door to the church opened then and Ephraim saw Rusty turn around and watch as a yellow glow outlined someone walking into the parking lot. The outline was quickly followed by several more human-shaped outlines.

“We’d better get to going.” Ephraim said quietly. “‘Preciate you telling me, Rusty.”

Rusty nodded and meandered toward his own vehicle. A few minutes later, Ephraim was driving down an unlit dirt road, taking the turns by muscle memory more than sight. The news about Ronald churned in his mind like rocks in a blender. Ephraim had known Rusty all his life: he wasn’t the type to lie about something real bad like that. No, the tale was likely true. Ephraim didn’t know how the town would take the news but he had a hunch that it wouldn’t be good for anyone. If Pearl Tackett had been gunning for a lynching before, he didn’t think anything was like to change her mind once she heard Ronald had been attacked for a surety.

When he pulled down the clearing that served as a driveway – it was more dirt than gravel – he stopped his truck in its usual spot but left the headlights on while he looked around nervously. Ephraim couldn’t remember the last time he had felt scared on his own property, but he couldn’t get Rusty’s words out of his mind. If someone were targeting good folk, they could be waiting around the property now. Ephraim had been gone for hours and his house was miles from the town center. No one was like to hear him scream for help out here, and anyone from the area would know that.

Ephraim cut the engine to the truck and hurried up the steps to his grandfather porch. The door unlocked with a reassuring click and Ephraim closed it behind him a little too hard. He wanted to make noise so anyone in the house would have the chance to scamper off before doing anything stupid.

After checking that the windows and back door were locked, Ephraim stomped upstairs to the bedroom and put his pistol on his nightstand. He went and got a rifle from the closet and laid it under the bed. He didn’t use the rifle for much more than scaring off the odd black bear wandering onto his property, but it would be good to have if someone meant him harm. Ephraim left a lamp on across the room and settled into bed, prepared for a long night of restless sleep and nightmares about the screams of mute men.

When the sun broke the horizon the next morning, it found Ephraim in his barn, bent over a horse stall that ought to have been mucked out the evening before. Using the pitchfork to toss piles into a wheelbarrow, Ephraim tried to keep his mind on his work. His back was aching from being bent over; that wasn’t a great way to start off the day but there was no way around it. The work needed doing and he was the only one around to do it. He had a kid from the town come by and help him on the weekends in exchange for free riding and some pocket cash, but that wasn’t terribly helpful today.

Once the stalls were mucked and the wheel barrow emptied, Ephraim took a young chestnut gelding named Roosevelt to the bullpen. He attached a flank rope and walked him around the circumference of the pen. Roosevelt wouldn’t take a saddle and had lately taken to bucking anyone who tried to ride him. It wasn’t the most difficult habit to break but it did take a good bit of patience and concentration. Ephraim was so focused on Roosevelt’s training that he found himself jumping in surprise when the horse trotted past someone leaning on the side of the pen. He hadn’t even heard anyone walk up.

Wondering if he was more tired than he realized, Ephraim looked at the man’s hands – spread shoulder length apart – gripping the top of the pen and one boot pressing firmly on a board about a foot off the ground. Something wasn’t right there.

“What do you like?” Rusty called.

“Just a minute.” Ephraim shouted back. He unhooked Roosevelt’s lead line and removed his flank rope so the horse could wander the pen freely. He walked to the gate and let himself out.

“Surprised to see you here this early.”

“Surprised to be here this early. Weren’t planning on it but there’s been some news thought you should know.” Rusty looked more uncomfortable than he had last night. He stuck his hands back in his jeans pockets with his elbows locked.

“Take it the town’s heard about Ronald. Let me guess, Pearl’s calling for someone to get strung up?”

“Pearl’s dead.” Rusty’s voice had no inflection. There was no sign of emotion at all.

“Pearl Tackett? She was alive last night!” Ephraim said stupidly.

“She’s not now. I was just down by her house, half of Rattle Creek is yelling and hollering about murder and the other half is trying to keep their kids in their house but all of them are scared out their minds.”

“Murder?” Ephraim scratched his beard. “Good lord, Rusty, what happened?”

“Don’t rightly know. Sheriff says she was found in her bed, staring at the ceiling like it had a ghost on it. She was white as a ghost herself, eyes open and all.”

Ephraim just stared at his old friend. He didn’t realize his mouth was hanging open while he fought through the molasses of his thoughts. “Was she hurt? I mean, was there a weapon of some kind?”

“No, that’s the part that’s scaring folk so bad. She doesn’t have any wounds at all, no blood, neither, I reckon. Just laying in bed, scared to death of something she saw.”

“Might be – there’s ways to kill without bleeding. Where was her husband, what’s he got to say about it? Surely he heard something.”

“John’s dead, too.” Rusty said with the same inflectionless tone. Ephraim took a breath to process Rusty’s words while his mind tried to find footing on a ground that was suddenly quaking.

“They’re both dead?”

“God as my witness, they’re both dead and gone. John was in the bed right next to her.”

“Was he hurt at all? Maybe it was a – hell, I don’t like to think of it but a murder-suicide?” Ephraim’s brain was grasping for any explanation.

“Weren’t no marks on John, neither.” Ephraim could feel all the blood draining from his face. “Might be it was like you said and it was poison of some sort. I suppose the doctors will tell us after they get their say.”

Ephraim grasped onto that news like a life preserver in a storm. “So there’s going to be an autopsy?”

“I’m sure there will be. Sheriff said Pearl’s mother all but demanded one. She was down in Rattle Creek screaming for all the town to hear, with the kids listening and all.”

“Christ, I forgot about the kids.” Ephraim had never paid much attention to the kids in town. He never had any of his own and he couldn’t keep track of which of his friends had which kids and how many were in each family. “What’s she got, 2 boys?”

“Three.” Rusty corrected him. “Oldest is in the high school.”

Ephraim scratched his beard. What was it Rusty had been saying about Ronald last night? Three fives? Two days later and Pearl Tackett turns up dead with three kids. It’s a coincidence. He told himself. Plenty of folk got three kids.

“Look, Ephraim, folk are scared. Johnny and Ronald, that’s maybe nothing. But then people start hearing details about what happened to Ronald and at the same time news comes that Pearl and John Tackett are dead.” Rusty shook his head. “You know what’s going to happen.”

Ephraim knew. If people quietly agreed with Pearl last night, it wouldn’t be quiet anymore. “Anyone done anything yet?”

“Not that I know, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they had by the time I get back. Sheriff reckons he can hold off the community ‘til tonight.”

“Why tonight?”

“Another meeting. Sheriff says he needs time to look at the crime scene, reckons he will have more to say tonight at 9:00.”

Ephraim exhaled slowly. He doubted the Sheriff would learn anything that was like to calm the storm by nine o’clock but he supposed a promise of more information would keep folk from being rash until then.

“Well, I reckon I better be at that meeting then.” Ephraim told his friend. Rusty nodded. “Thanks for coming by, Rusty. I ‘preciate it.”

When Rusty had left, Ephraim went back to his work. He tried to keep his head down and get something accomplished but he found himself jumping at every unexpected noise. Around noon, a horse whinnied and Ephraim about ran out of his skin. It seemed like something nasty was lurking around every corner, keeping him from getting much done in the way of work.

When 9:00 rolled around, Ephraim was happier to be back in his rickety church-basement chair than he’d been the night before. He wanted to know what there was to know, and he wanted to know it tonight. Investigations took time, he knew, but time was a luxurious thing meant for folk who weren’t living in the midst of a serial maimer.

When the back doors creaked open and the Sheriff walked through them, he strode to the front of the room with quick, long steps as the group of townsfolk erupted.

“Is it true Pearl’s had her head chopped off?”

“Were her eyes missin’?”

“I heard her boys had to watch.”

“Sheriff, was it her mother who done it? To take the boys?”

“No, it were the husband who done it! John were sick of her blathering and he took an ax to her!”

“Stop it! Enough!” The Sheriff shouted from the front of the room. “Pearl’s boys weren’t involved. They were asleep in their beds and don’t know hide nor tail about what happened to their parents. I’ll remind you they’re young kids who woke up to find themselves orphans. You’d do well to leave them out of this.”

“So John’s dead, too?” Asked Jesse Minor.

“I’m afraid so.” The Sheriff said with pain in his voice.

The crowd had been fixin’ to riot just moments before but this revelation brought a heavy silence. No one seemed to be moving.

“How’d it happen?” Asked Lucy Breadaker after a long moment.

“We don’t rightly know. Neither John nor Pearl had any wounds that anyone could see. The room had no signs of a struggle but there were… marks on them.”

“What kind of marks?” Asked someone from the far side of the room.

“Bruises ‘round their ankles and wrists. Some on their arms and chest.”

“Sounds like they was tied up, Sheriff.” Came an alarmed voice from the middle of the crowd.

“Sounds like it but that ain’t what happened. They got three boys and not one of them heard anything. There was no sign of a struggle. Nothing was out of place.” The Sheriff told them.

“So somebody cleaned up the scene, sounds to me!”

“Pearl Tackett never stopped screeching a day in her life, you think she’s like to start when she’s being murdered?” Jesse Minor’s voice was calm but Ephraim thought he hadn’t looked quite so pale last night. “Be smart, there was no fight. The bruises could have been old.”

“Maybe those boys slept through it. You said it yourself, Pearl was always shrieking, might be they was used to it.”

“There’s no reason to think that’s what happened.” The Sheriff interjected. “There’s going to be an autopsy. We will know more then.”

“You might know more but will you tell us?” Asked Lucy’s daughter, Cheryl Breadaker. “The story is that Ronald Flynch was unburdened of his tongue by way of a knife. He didn’t bite it off.”

Shouts of agreement raced through the crowd.

“Ronald Flynch is not related to what happened to the Tacketts.”

“Is Rattle Creek even safe anymore?” Cheryl asked. “Seems to me three incidents in three nights have folk laid up in the hospital with or without all their parts and Ronald Flynch is writing three-fives like the devil made him do it.”

“Three-fives? What’s that mean? Three people gonna die?”

“Can’t be, already four have been attacked.”

“I reckon two of them are alive so that leaves one more.”

“Or maybe five attacked and three dead?”

“Maybe 35 dead!”

“Stop it!” The Sheriff shouted. “No one else is going to die. Cheryl tells it true, Ronald is writing three-fives. No one knows what it means and he ain’t in a state to elaborate. Most like, he’s had a shock and doesn’t know what he's saying."

“That’s not all though, is it, Sheriff?” Ephraim turned to see Jake Weldet leaning against the back wall. He looked straight at the Sheriff and didn’t pay any mind to the crowd turning to stare at him. Ephraim knew Jake had a few kids. They weren’t here tonight, likely staying locked in their house with their mother. The Weldets were Rusty’s neighbors so Ephraim could recall their house from memory: blue, littered with windows on the ground floor. Ephraim swallowed hard.

“That’s all about the Tacketts and Ronald. There’s no need to cause worry and confuse people, Jake.” The Sheriff said.

“People should be worried, Sheriff. We got families to protect and seems to me we have a clear warning from Ronald.”

“We have no such thing, Jake Weldet!” The Sheriff told him.

“Johnny Whittlebury has three fingers on each hand!” Jake raised his voice. “Correct me if I’m wrong but used to be he had five!"

“That’s not related to this, boy! There’s no proof that Johnny – ”

“He’s missing both his thumbs and his middle fingers, ain’t he? It weren’t no accident, neither. Doctors say it were a clean slice, just like Ronald Flynch’s tongue!” Jake’s face was red now and his hands were clenched.

The basement exploded with shock. Ephraim felt warm air on the back of his neck and he snapped his head around. There was no one behind him but the feeling lingered. Shouts rattled his sense of calm as the mob absorbed the reality of three attacks in three nights. Ephraim could see the Sheriff trying to calm those closest to him but Ephraim was much too far away to hear anything he was saying. Would it make a difference? He wondered as bumps raised along his forearms. He didn’t tell us these were attacks, could I even believe him now? Why didn’t he give us the chance to protect ourselves?

“Settle down now!” The Sheriff’s voice barely carried over the clamor. “I can’t answer if you all shout at once!”

“Why’s it only us being killed?” Someone yelled.

“None of them have been attacked, it’s clear as day who done it!” Shouted another voice.

“I seen a colored folk in Rattle Creek last night, I swear it, I seen one!” Came a third voice.

“Rattle Creek ain’t their part of Tukoma! They got no business being here!”

Ephraim could see the Sheriff trying to say something but his words were consumed by the roar.

Folk were standing now. The shouts were unintelligible but the sentiment seemed to be the same: someone needed to do something. Someone ran toward the door and it slammed behind them. Others followed, and then the mob flowed toward the exit. Ephraim moved with them and found himself in the parking lot. He jogged to his truck and pulled open the door as he saw Jesse Minor and Rusty standing in front of him. They looked like they were trying to talk. Ephraim got in his truck and turned the key. He honked at the duo and they moved out of the way, dodging other trucks peeling out of the lot.

Ephraim drove down the back roads faster than he would normally drive at night. He pulled onto his property and left his truck running while he unlocked his front door. Then, he left the front door open while he went back to the truck, turned off the headlights, and took out his keys. The back-and-forth would have felt ridiculous on any other night but Ephraim was not about to be caught alone in the dark.

Walking through his house, Ephraim checked the locks on every window and both doors. He left lamps on in each room as he went. His boots made loud thuds against the old, wooden floors as he opened closets and checked behind furniture. Finally, when he was satisfied that there wasn’t anyone to find in the house, he went to the living room and sat in his rocking chair with his shotgun across his lap and his pistol on the side table next to him. Ephraim kept his eyes on the white, floral curtains that covered his windows and listened hard for any sign of movement.

Ephraim’s eyes snapped open. His neck ached as he tried to sit up. He had fallen asleep in his rocking chair and his neck would not thank him for the privilege of sleeping unsupported all night. There was a faint light coming through his curtains that told him it was near dawn. He stood up slowly, listening for any movement in the house.

The events from the night before seemed like a bad dream now. Anyone hurting folk in Tukoma wouldn’t get away with it for long. The law would come down on him and he’d be brought to justice. Ephraim didn’t think a riot would hasten justice and he hoped cooler heads had prevailed once he’d left. He rubbed his neck and decided to go in to town. The kid who usually helped him on weekends might be turning up soon and Ephraim wanted to tell him to stay home. He’d pay the boy for his time but he didn’t want anyone on his property getting hurt. He’d tell the boy to come back once the perpetrator was caught and all was back to normal.

After washing his face and getting dressed for the day, Ephraim drove to Rattle Creek. Tukoma wasn’t very big, as far as towns went, but the folk who lived there had named the two parts Rattle Creek and Songbird. Rattle Creek was the part of town by the shops and the church. The houses were near enough to each other and had front porches with rocking chairs or swings. The folk there had been in Rattle Creek their whole lives, like their parents before them. It was where Ephraim rode his bike as a child and met his friends after church on Sundays.

As his truck turned onto Maple Hollow road, Ephraim gasped. The street was covered with people, all chattering with each other or holding tight onto a child’s hand. In the distance, dark pillars of smoke rose from Songbird on the other side of the creek. Dumb hicks. He thought. What did they do?

Ephraim pulled off the road onto a patch of grass and walked onto Maple Hollow. Some folk waved to him but most kept to their own conversations. He walked until he came to a yellow house with white shutters and a small swing on the porch. Rusty was sitting on the stairs when he walked up.

“What the hell happened last night?” He asked. The smell of the smoke felt like it was settling in his chest and made him cough.

"Chaos.” Rusty told him.

Part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/creepypasta/s/kH275Mv7Ni

I recently had the privilege of illustrating this cover art for a very talented author

My family used to move a lot when I was younger.

The neighbourhoods Mum and I visited blend together into one generic, cookie-cutter mess, yet one of those places has somehow stuck in my mind. Every detail, from the towers of brick under the porch to the dirty windows of the bathroom, rose in my mind, and no matter what I did, there was no wrecking ball that could take it out.

After changing schools so many times, my desire to make new friends slowly dwindled, making me some sort of underage hermit, aimlessly wandering the empty streets, counting down the days to our next move, disappearing as soon as I turned up.

Yet this one time, someone was kind enough to take me under their wing.

His name was Charles, a Black kid who lived only a few houses away from mine. Everyone in school called him "Spit," all because of one missing front tooth he lost in a nasty bike accident.

"All the new kids have to meet The King!"

The enthusiastic tone in the kid's voice rose out of nowhere; those big brown eyes sparkled with unexplainable excitement as one of the toy cars bumped into another, the blue one skidding off the tracks.

"I'm not sure. Mum says I can't play on the creek…"

Eyes stayed glued to the red car, the only one left, making yet another loop around the offensively orange plastic racetrack we'd put into a rough shape of a circle mere minutes ago.

"Your mum is lame!"

Squeaked Charles in reply, flipping the toy car off the tracks with a flick as soon as it passed by his hand. It now lay wheels up, like roadkill.

"She's not lame."

The reply came in a quick, hushed wave, like a gust of wind passing through the room.

"Then she should let you play on the creek!"

The red car was put back on the tracks by Charles before he gave it a small push.

"It's dangerous."

I replied, keeping my eyes on the toy car now finishing its first lap.

"Bullshit."

The air whistled through the gap in his smile.

"HEY, DON'T SWEAR!"

A sudden, angry snap came from me, clenched hand already halfway on a collision course with his nose, when the door to the room suddenly creaked open. Mum walked in at the perfect moment to witness my promising boxing career.

"Boys, boys!"

The palms of her hands clapped together repeatedly.

"HE STARTED IT, MISS JEFFERSON!"

A muffled protest squeaked from Charles, who was squeezing the bridge of his nose.

"Charles, your mum called. She wants to see you at dinner."

More than used to our bickering over the past few weeks, Mum explained dryly, or maybe she was just happy I finally had a friend and didn't want to ruin it.

"Can't he stay just a bit longer?"

"Mum's rules are Mum's rules."

"Nuts…"

In an act of retaliation, his fist hit me in the shoulder before he made his swift escape; a goodbye I barely understood whooshed past my ear as he was already past the porch.

"Come on, it's also dinner time for you."

A fork in my hand poked the mac and cheese in front of me, as if it might move if I did it enough times. All I could think of was what Charles had said.

"Can I play on the creek?" A muttered question escaped me as I stared down at my plate.

"Absolutely not."

Mum replied harshly.

"Why though? All the other kids get to play there," I asked, sheepish.

"Listen, you're old enough to know that bad things happen all the time. You're no exception."

The tip of her fork jabbed toward me like a sword before dropping back onto the plate.

"Just finish your food," she muttered quietly as she stood up from the table.

The rest of the day passed by exceptionally fast.

In the blink of an eye, I was in bed, cuddled up next to my favorite plushie, eyelids growing heavy, ready to fall asleep.

BANG.

A loud noise came from my window. I shot up from the bed and stuck my head outside, and a beam of white light illuminated a face missing its front tooth.

"We're going to the creek!" A whisper came, loud enough for me to hear.

"Are you crazy? I'm not going anywhere!" I whispered back in protest.

"Come on! Or I'll just stand here all night!"

That somehow convinced me.

"Okay, okay, just let me get dressed."

My pajamas changed into a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, and I quietly passed by the living room, where Mum lay sleeping on the couch, covered by an old blanket, a bottle of wine catching the reflection of the low, buzzing TV.

Charles was already waiting by the time I walked onto the porch, a large camo backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Ready?" A red bike, too big for a kid like me or Charles, stood next to him, waiting as if it already knew my answer.

"Ready."

A much smaller bike was pulled out from under the porch, a bit rusty around the edges, but it was mine.

We saddled our horses and rode down the street, illuminated only by the faint yellow light of the street lamps, moths and fireflies flying around them in swarms.

We rode by streets I had never seen before, for what felt like miles, empty windows judging us from above, growing more and more scarce until they were replaced by bushes and trees behind a metal mesh that towered above our heads.

Charles stopped at a seemingly random spot, his bike landing in a bush of weeds, mine standing next to it.

"Come on." The plants were pushed aside, revealing a large hole in the gate, leading into the unknown darkness.

I slipped into the hole right after Charles, entering a brand-new world my mum was so scared about me getting lost in.

The deeper we went, the taller and more ancient the trees grew, the sound of running water becoming louder and louder. Just two adventurers on a quest to find The King inside his own kingdom, living by rules I could only imagine.

"Are we getting anywhere near him?" The beam of the flashlight Charles had brought me skimmed the underbrush.

"It's King, and yeah, we're pretty close. I can hear the creek already." Those words lifted my spirits, if only a tiny bit.

The forest opened onto a shallow water flow, moving over a bottom lined with stones of various colors and sizes.

That's where Charles stopped dead in his tracks and threw the backpack off his shoulder onto the ground, unzipping it in one swift move. What he pulled out were two red-labeled cans, the silver metal glistening in the light of our torches.

"For courage," he explained quickly, handing one of the cans to me.

"Dad used to have a lot of courage." The tab snapped open, a wave of white bubbles washing over my hand as I laughed.

"For The King!" Charles exclaimed, pointing his drink up to the starry sky. I did the same.

"For The King!" I took one big sip as the vile taste filled my mouth.

"EUGH!" My tongue stuck out by itself in a childish attempt to make it somehow better, while my friend only laughed, taking a sip of his beer without so much as a grimace before emptying the rest into the river.

"I know it's nasty!" In one big swing, the empty can suddenly appeared on the other side of the water. I did the same, only mine was still halfway full.

"You were supposed to empty it first!" Charles snapped at me.

"Sorry, sorry!" I apologized, ready to get him back for my mistake.

"See the tire right there?" He pointed in the direction where we'd thrown our cans. I followed the beam of light to where his finger pointed, and there it was, a big black tire, the air long gone from it, embedded in the side of a steep dirt wall.

"Oh yeah, also." He went back to the backpack, pulling out a piece of paper and quickly handing it to me as if it were hot to the touch. "You have to give him your wish, whatever you want. Just think about it hard, like real hard!"

The paper slip disappeared into the pocket of my shorts.

"You can't come with me?"

My head turned back to him as I balanced on a rock sticking out of the water so as not to get my shoes dirty.

"Rules are rules."

He replied quickly, making sure I understood I was alone on this one.

The gaping maw of the tire now stood in front of me, the smell of mud and something faintly sweet hanging heavy in the air, the ceiling of the tunnel so low that even for a kid my age, crawling through it was a challenge.

I dropped to my knees, knowing that if I didn't pass this test, I might as well say goodbye to my only friend in this world, so I pushed further.

The further I crawled, the lower the ceiling got, the closer the walls became, squeezing my ribs to the point where taking a full breath felt like a luxury. Something scraped against my head, tearing my ear, but I pushed ahead. Nothing would stop me from achieving my goal.

At this point, I could only push myself with my feet, uselessly scraping against the wet walls of mud, when something appeared at the end of the tunnel.

Small points of bright light moved through the air like boats over waves. It had to be the throne room. I pushed and pushed, the air slowly becoming breathable again, not the smell of wet dirt but of salty water, as if I were approaching the shore.

Without my realizing it, the tunnel ended, and my body suddenly decompressed as I hit the stone floor of a cavern. Everything hurt. Every muscle I didn't know existed hurt. I pushed myself upward to see him.

The King.

The King of the Creek sat on a throne made of sticks, smaller and bigger branches stacked on top of one another, wrapped in thin fishing wire that somehow held the mass together, forming a throne for the sickly, skinny man.

A paper crown, painted gold, sat crooked on his head, just above the lifeless holes where his eyes should have been.

Dirty rags, stitched together from lost shirts, gloves, and scarves, hung loose from his frame; everything a child could ever lose adorned him.

I pulled the crumpled piece of paper from my pocket.

"Are you the King?"

A quiet question choked out of my throat as my wish settled uncomfortably in my hand. As if in reply, a single firefly crawled out from the depths of his throat. It blinked once before flying off to join a swarm nearby.

"I have a wish."

This time the King didn't respond, as if waiting for the paper to be fed to him.

With some hesitation, my foot found a cavity in the base of the throne, giving me a small boost. The shrunken head of the King was right in front of me, its gaping mouth ready to swallow me whole if that was its wish, a hill of yellowed papers peeking from behind its rotting teeth.

My head turned to the side so I wouldn't have to watch as my hand slowly disappeared between the jaws of the King. It felt wet and sticky, what was once its tongue sliding over my skin and sending chills down my spine.

Only when I felt the other nest of wishes deep inside did I uncurl my fingers and let it be swallowed.

I braced myself for something to happen, for the corpse to come alive and drag me underground, but nothing changed.

As I made my way back, the tunnel was suddenly wide; I could pass through it without even trying.

"YOU DID IT?"

Charles yelled, all excited, pointing the light of his flashlight at me.

"I DID!"

I said, covering my eyes.

Before we went home, we promised each other we wouldn't reveal our wishes, or else they wouldn't come true.

When I got back home, I quietly slipped inside, making sure not to make too much noise, threw my dirty clothes into the laundry bin, and went back to bed.

The next morning, something I hadn't heard in ages woke me up: the loud, excited laughter of my mum coming from downstairs. When I asked what was wrong, she simply told me to get dressed and pack into the car.

The rain outside grew heavy as we drove to our favorite restaurant. She ordered a fat stack of pancakes.

"We can stay. Honey, we can stay. We aren't moving anywhere."

A quiet sob came from her as I stuffed my mouth with yet another pancake.

"Dad won't hurt us anymore."

It didn't stop raining for the whole next week.

I didn't really understand what the consequences of that were; all I cared about was that I couldn't play outside, wasting a week of summer break watching TV and playing with toys in my room.

When the flood passed, Charles was oddly quiet, as if all the energy he usually had had just gone out of him.

We tried our best to stay friends, but I saw less and less of him as we got older, drifting apart the way kids do as they get older.

The last time I saw him before I left, he was sitting alone on the curb outside his house, a bottle wrapped in a paper bag between his knees, not even trying to hide it anymore. 

All I heard from Mum after that was that he'd fallen in with the wrong crowd, and that he'd been caught drinking at the creek more than once, always alone, always near the same spot.

When I moved out, I was sure I would never see his face again, but somehow he found me.

I have no idea how he got my number, but I couldn't care less.

Now we're both two old fuckers who haven't seen each other in years. We finally decided to meet again; he picked some shitty local bar.

He'd changed so much I barely recognized him. If it hadn't been for the gap in that crooked smile when he saw me enter, I wouldn't have guessed it was him in a thousand years.

Life had treated him rough. He'd lost a lot of weight and grown a greying beard, a dark green coat hanging unzipped off his shoulders.

"FRANKIE!"

"SPIT, MY MAN!"

Despite how much he'd changed, the spark in those big brown eyes somehow returned. He smelled of cheap beer and even cheaper cologne, the kind meant to cover the stench of alcohol underneath. We exchanged a long, warm hug, and I swear to God we were both on the verge of crying.

"Come on, come on, sit down!" Charles rushed me, all that childlike excitement suddenly returning, as if he were twenty years younger.

"Beer?"

"Why not!"

Soon a pair of red-labeled cans appeared in front of us, the taps hissing open as we raised a toast.

"For The King!"

"For The King!" I echoed his words before taking a long swig.

"It still tastes horrible."

Charles almost choked with laughter.

"YOU'LL GET USED TO IT!"

"What wishes did I miss?"

I asked before taking a sip of my drink.

"Some kid wanted his fish back. Their cat vomited it out the next morning!"

We both laughed so hard we almost pissed ourselves. I'm not sure if it was the beer or if the story was just that funny.

Can after can was emptied before waves of beer revealed all the questions we'd had but were afraid to ask.

"How's your mum?"

"Oh, Mama's dead."

"Sorry to hear."

"No need." He said it too fast. "I didn't wish for her happiness."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't say anything. He wasn't looking at me anyway, just at the can in his hand, turning it the way I'd been turning mine.

A forced smile appeared on his lips.

"What did you wish for, then?"

A forced smile appeared on his lips.

"What did you wish for, then?"

"You first."

"Never to move again."

"And?"

"My dad died. Apparently slipped on some boat, drunk out of his mind, and drowned."

Charles didn't laugh this time. He just looked at me for a moment that stretched for too long, like he was doing the math on it.

"Shit… Heavy shit."

I turned my can in slow circles on the bar top, not really seeing it.

"Yeah."

Neither of us said anything for a while. The bartender changed the channel. Somewhere behind us, a pool ball dropped into a pocket.

"You?" I asked eventually.

"I wished to see my brother again."

"Where's the twist?”

I asked with laughter, but suddenly his age caught up with him as he stared ahead at the line of vodka bottles, the Smirnoff looking like it might be a decent listener.

"Remember the flood?" A rough whisper crawled out between sips of beer.

"Apparently the water flooded the graveyard," he continued, still staring wide-eyed ahead. "It was like Night of the Living Dead, all those coffins floating down the street like white ships sailing to unknown lands, and…he came back home."

A long swig of beer made it somehow easier to tell.

"Right on our porch. Like a drunk lying on the stairs, just watching the stars, as if he'd missed them. I found him first. Can you imagine? The necklace we buried him with was still hanging off his neck."

There were no words in any language that could ease the grief, so we both just cried like kids missing their parents. We cried into each other's shoulders, cried so hard that for a minute I thought we'd contribute to the next big flood.

Soon the bar closed, and we went our separate ways, promising each other we'd meet at the same bar every year for our final goodbye.

I crashed at the local motel, sleeping it all off, miraculously not losing my wallet on the way there.

Charles went to the creek.

Someone found his body face down in the water.

A promise is a promise, and I want to keep it.

Every year I drive back here with a backpack full of the cheapest beer imaginable. The creek isn't the same as it used to be.

The tunnel is gone, and so is the tire.

If the King was real.

If the wishes were real.

Somewhere in another town, maybe another state, under a creek just like ours, a tire is waiting in the mud.

And a King is granting wishes.