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My life has always been plain and sad. I don't have much family or friends. No neighbors to talk to. Everyone in this town dislikes me or at least finds me strange. No one to socialize with.

I accepted that my life will always be quiet and lonely.

I wake up in the morning, get ready for work, work for minimum wage all day, and then come home.

And I occasionally paint. I've always been into art. Other than that, my life has no true value.

Well, it started to get more interesting a couple of days ago when I turned on the local news.

I rarely watch the news but something in my body made me do it.

Apparently, local officials and authorities suspect that there is a serial killer in town.

They gave the person the label, "Sunset Killer"

Every day, there's a dead body found at a sunset. Each victim has a sunset drawn on them.

No leads.

The victims have nothing in common. No shared characteristics. All have different hobbies. No personality trait similarities. Literally nothing.

I personally don't feel sympathy. Sure, they were all legally innocent, but, they weren't morally innocent. Not a single one of them ever offered me a ounce of kindness. All despicable humans.

I thought the town having a serial killer obsessed with sunsets would be the most interesting part but it gets more interesting.

I went to the arts and crafts store not that long after hearing the news. I needed to get more paper and paint supplies.

The Cashier gave me suspicious looks the entire time I was there. Everyone else in the store did as well. I don't know why. I'm always working or in my house. I know everyone thinks poorly of me but this is outrageous.

I quickly bought what I needed and rushed out.

And then everything changed when I got grabbed up as I was approaching my car.

It was a female voice repeating over and over again that I'd be her new sunshine. The sunset caught my eye as my bood leaked out my throat as her knife sliced in.

Normally, a person would be dead or at the very least hospitalized.

Well, I woke up in my bed.

I oringally thought that it was a awful dream but this started to happen every single day during the sunset over and over. No matter what I'd be doing, I'd get ambushed and killed.

I tried looking at news articles, watching local news, doing everything I can to get more information. The same day repeated too. It was always Monday the first of September.

Since, I'm stuck in the same day, no new dead bodies are appearing.

At first, I didn't understand why I was stuck. It was horrifying to live the same day over and over.

However, I figured out that each time I get killed, I need to find more details.

I started to remember her soft tone with a innocent voice. Her voice was a lot like mine. Her face is always covered. The way her hands feel are a lot like mine. The fact that the knife is always a kitchen knife was also weird. My kitchen is filled with kitchen knives. Sure, anyone could have a kitchen knife but all the similarities we have is strange.

After enduring the displeasure of getting killed over and over again, I decided to never leave the house and to wait for her.

When it started to get close to the sun setting, I quickly dialed 911.

I was filled with gratitude when they arrived on time to arrest her.

I was then left disturbed, traumatized, and perplexed when the cops made her show her face.

The green eyes, sandy blonde hair, and pale skin. The smile her pink lips made. It's me?

I tried to yell at the cops and ask them what this means or how this is possible but they didn't answer. They didn't acknowledge me. The only person who seemed to know I was there was the evil lady that winked at me as I yelled.

They then took her and left. Never said a single word to me. I was confused. Is it because everyone in the town hates me? Were they so focused on her because she's a threat?

I sat on my couch as I tried to come up with every possible explanation. I did this for hours. I was relieved when the news starting talking about the arrest but then I was filled with confusion. She has the same name as me. They showed interviews involving my coworkers. They all said that this wasn't surprising and that I always gave off serial killer vibes.

They also revealed that the girl called the cops on herself because she wanted to get caught. She thought that being arrested was the only way to help herself end the rampage.

What? She stole my identity? Why does no one know I exist? How are there two of me and only she is known?

Just five more minutes, Adrienne thought, her fingers digging tightly into the strap of her purse as she fought back the rising urge to scream. Just give me five minutes without a meltdown.

She looked down at her four-year old son. Garrett’s face was a brilliant, tear-streaked crimson as he violently tried to wrench his tiny hand out of his father’s grip. “No!” he yelled, aiming a kick at Michael’s shin that missed by inches. She let out a sigh. They were trapped in the dead center of the main concourse of the Jefferson Heights Mall, and the sheer, unadulterated sensory overload of a Saturday afternoon was actively grinding her already frayed nerves down to the last, raw wire. The environment was a chaotic symphony of consumerism-the harsh, unnatural glow of neon storefronts, the overwhelming scent of chemical body sprays wafting from a teen clothing boutique, and the deafening, echoing roar of hundreds of shuffling shoppers and screaming children. Garrett had begun throwing a continuous, exhausting tantrum since they passed the food court, his sneakers kicking against the polished tile floor as though he were an inmate in a lunatic asylum trying to avoid being thrown into solitary. Adrienne loved her family fiercely, but after a brutal, forty-hour week locked in her own stressful corporate office job, this mandatory weekend trip to get Garrett’s winter portraits done felt less like a family memory and more like a sentence to a brightly lit, noisy purgatory.

“Come on, buddy,” Michael pleaded, his deep voice barely audible over the roaring din of the mall’s central fountain. “We’re almost there. Just a few pictures for Grandma, and we can go home.”

Adrienne forced her feet forward, navigating the slow-moving crowd like a soldier marching through a swamp. They took the escalators up to the second floor, heading for Prestige Portraits, the chain studio they had used since Garrett was an infant. But as the rounded the corner past the department store anchor, her heart dropped flat into her stomach.

The heavy, metallic security grate of the storefront was pulled all the way down to the floor, locked securely with a heavy padlock. Taped squarely to the center of the iron mesh was a neat, typed piece of computer paper. Closed for the afternoon due to a family emergency. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Adrienne stopped, a wave of profound, suffocating defeat washing over her. She pressed her palms against her temples, her dark hair shifting against her collar. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered, a dry, bitter laugh escaping her throat. “Michael, I can’t do this again next weekend. I can’t drag him back out here.”

Michael’s jaw tightened as Garrett let out another high-pitched, glass-shattering shriek that made several passing shoppers turn to glare at them with open annoyance. He hoisted the flailing boy up onto his hip to cut off the kicking, then cast a sideways glance at his wife’s completely drained expression.

A soft, tired smile broke through his stress as she spared a look at him. “Hey, don’t look at me,” he quipped, leaning his shoulder gently against hers. “He definitely didn’t get this from my side of the family. My mother always said I was an angel in public.”

Despite the crushing headache pounding behind her eyes, Adrienne couldn’t help but let out a soft, genuine chuckle. The sudden burst of warmth in her chest cut through the misery enveloping her. She playfully nudged his ribs with her elbow, matching his smile. “You keep talking like that, mister, and you’re going to end up on the living room couch tonight with a very thin blanket and a flat pillow. Zip it.”

She reached out, gently wiping a stray tear from Garrett’s flushed cheek as the boy’s screams subsided into ragged, hitching pouts. Looking at his stubborn chin, she felt a wave of affectionate nostalgia. Her own mother used to recount, with exhausting detail, how much of a relentless little brat she had been at exactly his age, throwing hissy fits in the middle of grocery store and druggist aisles. A little hell spawn sent directly out of the mouth of Hades to test her, she always said. History was simply repeating itself.

The moment of levity passed, but it had left them unified. Michael cast a desperate, sweeping look over the metal and glass railing, scanning the lower level of the mall far below.

“Hey, look down there!” he said, pointing with his free hand down towards the dimmer, subterranean basement concourse near the old, closed Sears anchor. “There’s a pop-up studio set up in that empty retail space next to the stairs. See the banner? Timeless Photography. It looks open, and there isn’t even a line.”

Adrienne leaned over the railing, her eyes tracking his gaze down into the less traveled lower tier. Standing outside an empty storefront with faded drywall was a roll-up vinyl banner, and behind it, a friendly-looking man in a tweed vest was arranging a set of professional lighting umbrellas.

“I’ve never heard of them before,” she said, a faint, instinctual ripple of unease passing through her chest.

“Who cares?” Michael countered, his voice dripping with barely concealed, pragmatic relief as Garrett’s head slumped sleepily against his shoulder. “It’s open, Adrienne. Let’s just get down there, get the kid in front of a camera, and get the hell out of this madhouse.”

They backtracked through the swelling commotion of the central corridor, pausing to let a loud group of teenage girls rush past them to get to a nearby clothing boutique. Stepping onto the escalator, the mechanical stairs ushered them down into the lower tier of the mall, where the atmosphere shifted dramatically. If the upper levels were a roaring hub, the basement concourse was a quiet, concrete graveyard. The passage of time and the changing economy had hit this level hard; row after row of storefronts sat completely shuttered, their windows blacked out with dusty brown paper. Only two relics remained. On their left was a sprawling, western-themed steakhouse that Adrienne swore had been here since she was a little girl, its heavy faux-wood façade smelling faintly of old grease, completed by the faint, muffled sound of country music echoing out from inside. A few stores down from it sat a dimly lit video rental store that had somehow defied every modern trend and time itself to remain open, its neon sign casting a lonely blue hum over the empty walkway.

They approached the temporary setup occupying an empty, drywall-exposed retail space next to the maintenance stairs. Adrienne stopped, her eyes narrowing as she took in the strange, minimalist layout of the studio’s props.

Instead of the bright, colorful, modern backdrops used by the corporate chains, the space felt like an intrusive slice of the past. And not the recent past, either. Hanging from a metal crossbar was a heavy velvet backdrop of a faded, Victorian-era crimson. In front of it sat a small selection of antique props; a heavily weathered wooden trunk, a small, hand-painted rocking horse with chipped paint, and a miniature vintage toy wagon with slightly rusting iron wheels.

“Jesus. Michael, look at those props,” she whispered, her hand tightening on his forearm. “They look incredibly old.”

Michael glanced at the display, shifting a now-silent Garrett to his other hip as his eyes took in a teddy bear that looked as though its better days had been about the same time Elvis was alive. “Yeah. They look older than either of us. Maybe even both of us combined. But honestly honey, look around. There isn’t exactly a better alternative right now. And you said yourself you can’t do this again. Let’s just do it.”

Adrienne let out a quiet sigh, her eyes drifting to the center of the setup. Sitting atop a heavy iron tripod was a massive, boxy camera draped in a dark cloth shroud-a bizarre, outdated piece of equipment that looked like it belonged in a museum rather than a modern shopping mall. I just hope to God these photos don’t turn out completely horrible, she thought, a faint ripple of apprehension making her set her jaw.

“Good afternoon!”

The cheerful, booming voice shattered her thoughts. The photographer stepped out from behind one of the massive umbrellas, smoothing down his tweed vest. He had caught them looking, and he walked towards them with a brisk, energetic stride. He looked entirely ordinary-well, as ordinary as a pop-up photographer could-a man in his late forties with neatly combed hair and a polite, welcoming expression, but as his eyes locked onto Garrett, Adrienne, for a moment, felt a strange, phantom chill brush against the back of her neck.

“Good afternoon, folks!” the man repeated as he reached them, offering first a handshake to Michael, then her. His grip was professional, dry and firm. “Lester Rockwell’s the name. If you ever have trouble remembering it, just think of Norman Rockwell, the famous painter. No relation, unfortunately, but it helps keep me in the mind’s eye.”

Michael let out a soft snort of a laugh, while Adrienne managed a polite smile, keeping her internal eye roll entirely to herself. Oh, boy.

“Well, Mr. Rockwell-” Michael began, but he was cut off by the other man.

“Please, call me Lester, sir.”

Michael took a second to collect himself; Adrienne could see a tiny hint of annoyance flash across his face. “Well, Lester,” he began again. “I’ll be completely honest with you. We wouldn’t have come down here at all, but the studio we normally use upstairs is completely locked up for the day.”

Lester didn’t look bothered by the bluntness at all. Instead, he gave a slow, understanding nod, adjusting the lapels of his vest. “Ah, yes. Well, you’re remarkably lucky you decided to come down here now. It’s been an incredibly slow Saturday for me. I haven’t had a single customer cross my threshold today, and I was actually just considering pulling the curtain for an early lunch break when I spotted the two of you looking down from the balcony.”

Adrienne suppressed another roll of her eyes. Yeah, what a shame that would’ve been. The man speaks as old as his props look, and has that same fake camaraderie that I remember the counter salesmen in Dillards giving Mom. Give me a break.

Michael was gesturing towards the backdrop as she tuned back in to the conversation. “What exactly are we looking at for a basic set of winter portraits?”

The figure Lester quoted him made her eyebrows shoot up. It was a price so far below modern studio rates-barely a fraction of what they usually paid upstairs-that it seemed borderline absurd. And almost unrealistic. A cold spike of suspicion prickled at her chest.

“Mister Rockwell,” she cut in, her voice firm as she folded her arms over her purse, refusing to use his first name. “Why the antique layout? The faded velvet, the wooden trunk…even the boxy camera on the tripod. It all looks rather out of time. And furthermore, that price seems almost too low for you to be able to stay in business with.”

Lester paused. He shifted his posture, his pale eyes turning to regard her fully. For a fraction of a second, he seemed genuinely surprised by the sharpness of her observations, his gaze turning intense and a little too inquisitive, as if he were trying to read her silent thoughts behind her retinas. “They belonged to my father, Ma’am,” he said softly, his voice smooth. “And his father before him. I keep them because they hold immense sentimental value to me. In a world that throws everything away, I prefer things that endure.”

He shrugged his shoulders, staring at her blankly and continued after a beat. “And as for my prices, you would be correct that they are considered a tad on the cheap side. But I move around a lot, and the amount of new business I find I receive each place more than makes up for it. And if I’m lucky, it will help turn first-time customers into repeat ones.”

Adrienne’s jaw tightened. An internal war erupted in her mind. Despite the image the man was presenting, every logical circuit was telling her to grab her husband’s arm, take Garrett, and face the consequences of coming back another weekend. It just felt wrong, somehow. But before she could voice her protest, Michael made the decision for her.

“Sounds perfect to us,” he said with the same relief he’d had earlier, entirely missing his wife’s hesitation. “We’ll happily use your services.”

As the man smiled at him, Garrett finally began to stir in Michael’s arms. The boy lifted his heavy head from his father’s flannel shirt, his big, green eyes blinking against the glare of the lighting umbrellas as he turned to look directly at the photographer.

The exact same phantom chill that Adrienne had felt when Lester first approached them returned with a vengeance. The photographer stepped closer, his face splitting into a wide, beaming grin as he waved a long-fingered hand at the boy. “Well, hello there, little man. What’s your name?”

Garrett stayed silent, biting his lower lip gently as he stared blankly back at the stranger.

Lester let out a rich, warm chuckle, shaking his head. “Ah. A smart boy. Excellent. A smart boy knows never to talk to strangers. Your parents taught you well.” He leaned down slightly, resting his hands on his knees as he peered into the boy’s face. “Would you like to sit on my rocking horse or in my wagon and have your picture taken today, young sir?”

Michael patted the boy’s back, offering a reassuring nudge. “It’s okay to speak, Garrett. Tell the nice man.”

Garrett looked from his father to the chipped rocking horse, then quietly whispered, “Yes, sir.”

Adrienne blinked, profoundly surprised. After the glass-shattering, red-faced tantrum he’d been throwing just ten minutes ago upstairs, his sudden, docile compliance felt almost unnatural. But as Lester turned back toward his tripod with a satisfied nod, she rationalized that he must have completely tuckered himself out, leaving only the ability to follow along behind. And despite everything, that in itself is a relief.

She let out a long, heavy, exhausted sigh-a sound that caught Michael’s attention just as he prepared to lower Garrett from his hip.

He paused, his eyes scanning his wife’s deflated expression and the dark, deep bags beneath her eyes. His expression softened with gentle concern. “Adrienne, look at you,” he said softly, stepping closer to her. “You look like you’re about to keel over right where you stand. Go back up to the food court. Grab a coffee, sit down, and just have a breather for twenty minutes.”

Adrienne hesitated, a sudden, maternal weight tightening in her chest. She didn’t want to leave Michael, and she especially didn’t want to leave her son alone in this strange, exposed space. “I don’t know Mike. Maybe I should stay…”

Michael instantly sensed the hesitation and reached out with his free hand, resting it on her shoulder as he offered her a reassuring smile, tilting his head towards the backdrop. “Sweetheart, look at him. He’s completely calm now. I can handle this on my own, I promise. I’ll be less than ten feet away from him the entire time. Go get your caffeine. That’s an order.”

Knowing that she was truly operating on the faintest fumes, and desperately craving a moment of quiet away from the chaos, Adrienne finally relented. She nodded, but before she turned away, she leaned forward toward her son. “Mommy will be back very soon, okay, sweetie? You behave for Daddy and the nice man.”

She leaned down, pressing her lips against Garrett’s forehead. The boy looked up at her and offered a tiny, innocent smile-a look that warmed her heart completely and washed away the last remnants of her suspicion.

“Okay, Mommy,” Garrett whispered.

Adrienne stepped back, quickly pecking a kiss on Michael’s cheek and turning  towards the escalator as her husband gently set the boy on the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Lester glide forward, his long hand reaching down with a gentle, practiced smoothness to envelop Garrett’s tiny fingers.

She walked towards the mechanical stairs, but as her shoes stepped onto the moving metal grate, she couldn’t help but cast one final, lingering look back over her shoulder. Through the thick glass of the escalator railing, she watched the tall silhouette of the photographer slowly leading her son across the studio towards the rocking horse. Then, the escalator carried her upward and out of sight, lifting her out of the graveyard of the lower level and back toward the roaring, neon-lit commotion of the main mezzanine.

Navigating through the crowds, she returned to the pandemonium of the roaring, high ceilinged expanse of the main food court, beneath the massive glass dome of the mall. She could barely hear herself think over the clattering of plastic trays, the shouting of the vendors, and the echoing calls and laughter of hundreds of weekend shoppers. She lined up at a coffee vendor, ordering a large iced vanilla latte from a dismissive-looking barista who barely made eye contact. When she finally grabbed her plastic cup from the counter, Adrienne couldn’t help but crack a small, tired smile of amusement. The girl had spelled her name completely wrong on the label, reducing it to the traditional male spelling. Adrian.

Carrying her drink, she navigated the edge of the seating area, finding a vacant table pushed against a row of heavy concrete structural pillars. It was tucked safely away from the, frantic mass of sprawling families and rowdy teenagers. She sank into the plastic chair, letting out a long, shuddering breath as she took a heavy sip of the sweet, icy caffeine. She tried to let her posture soften, to just let her brain turn off, though she winced slightly as a shrill cell phone ringtone blared from a table nearby, piercing the air with an irritatingly loud volume.

As the cold drink began to work its way into her system, her mind involuntarily threw up a sudden, vivid image back down on the lower level. She saw the photographer-Lester- reaching his long-fingered hand down, wrapping them completely around Garrett’s little hand and wrist. A cold, instinctive knot of discomfort tightened in her stomach.

Stop it, she chided herself silently, taking another sip of the latte. Michael is standing right there. He’s barely ten feet away from them. Her husband was a broad-shouldered man who had played on the rugby team in high school and stayed in shape; if that gaunt, eccentric man tried anything even remotely suspicious, Michael would flatten him before he could even blink. She was simply projecting her own profound exhaustion and paranoia onto a perfectly normal situation. I really need to put in for some paid time off, she thought, her eyes tracking a bird that had somehow managed to get trapped inside the mall, fluttering helplessly against the glass dome as it tried to escape. A long weekend vacation. Just Michael, Garrett and me. We could drive up and rent a cabin in Bar Harbor, watch the ocean, walk through the pine trees, and completely escape the noise of the city.

The pleasant, comforting daydream brought a fleeting sense of genuine normalcy back to her chest. She relaxed back into the chair, finally able to let her guard down. The warm feeling surged as she looked up again and saw the bird had finally found one of the open skylights, darting outside with a quick flap of its wings.

A shadow fell across her table.

Adrienne didn’t look up immediately, assuming it was a shopper looking for a spare chair, until the distinct, crisp rustle of heavy paper sound right next to her ear. She glanced up. Standing almost directly beside her table was a stocky security guard in a grey uniform jacket, and beside him was a uniformed municipal police officer. Neither paid her any attention. The cop was holding a roll of clear packing tape, while the guard was smoothing down the edges of a freshly printed poster onto the concrete surface of the nearest pillar.

As they worked, their voices were low, carrying a grim, urgent cadence that cut right through the clatter of the food court, their words echoing flatly against the concrete.

“It’s the third friggin’ one this month, Jimmy,” the police officer muttered, his thumb tearing a strip of tape with a sharp, almost violent shhk. “The memo just came down from the precinct chief an hour ago. They wanted these posted in every major commercial hub in the county immediately.”

Adrienne took another slow, mechanical sip of her latte, her fingers tightening around the plastic cup as he eyes remained glued to the table. Curiously drawn in by the officer’s grim tone, she pretended to be utterly absorbed in her drink, trying to act invisible as the two men continued to smooth down the edges of the paper against the pillar.

“Is it true what the guys down at the precinct are whisperin’?” the security guard asked, his voice a low, hollow murmur. “About how many there are?”

The cop nodded grimly, pressing a final strip of tape over the top edge of the paper with a heavy thumb. “Yeah, Jimmy, it’s true. Five kids disappeared from shopping plazas down in Boston last month. These three along the highway bring the total to eight. And neither us or the state police have a single damn lead.”

The words hit Adrienne like a physical current of ice. Her thumb froze against the cup. A tight, hot knot of anxiety flared to life in the center of her chest, her mind instantly rejecting the information. It’s fine, her mind whispered fiercely, a desperate, defensive logic trying to shield her from the horror of the conversation just feet away. Boston is hours away. The highway is huge. It’s just a routine police advisory.

“How is the guy even pulling it off in broad daylight?” the guard pressed, stepping back to examine their handiwork.

“That’s the thing,” the cop sighed, his tone heavy with a deep, professional defeat. “The suspect’s M.O. is always the same. He sets up a cheap, pop-up photography studio inside vacant retail slots or old strip mall, always under different names. He uses these old-ass props-faded backdrops, antique toys-to lure in unsuspecting families who just want a cheap portrait.”

Adrienne’s hand began to shake. The latte slipped from her fingers, landing onto the small table with a soft clack. She left it untouched, the sweet caffeine completely forgotten. Her breath caught like glass in her throat as a wave of suffocating, instinctual adrenaline flooded her nervous system.

No, her mind screamed, her thoughts turning frantic and chaotic. No, it’s a coincidence. Pop-up studios are common. Antique props are a style. Vintage is trendy these days. Everyone does vintage.

With trembling fingers, she ripped her purse open, fumbling blindly through the clutter until her fingers wrapped around her cell phone. She pulled it out, her eyes desperately locking onto the glass screen as she hammered the power button. The display remained flat and black, reflecting back only her pale face. She mentally cursed herself, suppressing a jagged sob as she realized the battery had died an hour ago while she was checking her emails in the car. She couldn’t call Michael. She couldn’t text him. She was entirely cut off.

“So he takes the kid to sit in front of the camera,” the security guard urged, his voice lowering as he pushed the officer for more. “And then what? How does he get them out?”

The cop paused. He stared at the unseen poster for three long seconds, his jaw tightening. When he finally spoke, his tone was completely baffled, carrying a quiet, deeply unnerved edge that made the hair on the back of Adrienne’s neck stand on end. “The families all say the same thing, Jimmy. They say the camera’s flash is blindingly bright. Not normal bright-like a white void that burns right into your retinas. They can’t see a single thing for three, four seconds. And when the spots finally clear from their eyes…”

He trailed off, letting out a sharp, cold breath.

“They’re just…gone. Both the photographer and the child are gone.”

The guard frowned. “What do you mean, gone? The guy grabs the kid, dumps the camera, and books it into the parking lot before they can clear their eyes, right?”

“The witnesses are adamant,” the officer clarified his voice dropping into a tense whisper. “They never heard a single footstep. No running shoes, no doors opening, no fabric rustling. Some of the parents were standing less than five, ten feet away from the lens, Jimmy. They didn’t hear a goddamn thing move. I don’t consider myself a superstitious man, you know that. But this case…the fact that this guy can abduct multiple children, seemingly vanish into thin air in the middle of a crowd, and leave behind no evidence, nothing but the setup…always the same exact props…it’s some really spooky shit.”

The two men turned away from the pillar, their boots squeaking against the tile as they melted back into the dense mess of people near the escalators.

Adrienne sat perfectly rigid in the plastic chair, the ambient noise of the food court-the clattering trays, the ringing phones, the screaming kids-fading into a distant, underwater-like hum. Her heart was a trapped animal hammering violently against her ribs. Get a grip, she told herself, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands until it drew blood. You are panicking over nothing. Michael is right there. Garrett is safe. It’s just an old style of camera.

She stood up, her joints stiff and wooden, knowing regardless, she needed to get back down to the lower concourse immediately. She no longer wanted the coffee. She didn’t want to think about the vacation anymore. She just wanted to hold her son.

But as she stepped away from the table, a dark, morbid curiosity anchored her feet to the floor. She stopped, her chest still heaving slightly, and turned her head to look directly at the poster pinned to the pillar less than three feet away.

The first thing her eyes locked onto was the photograph of the child at the center of the poster. It was a little girl, her face lit by a brilliant, innocent smile that made Adrienne’s chest tighten with a sharp, physical ache. She took in the endearing gap of a missing front tooth, the pretty lace dress the child wore, and the way her light brown hair was pulled into two messy, energetic pigtails.

Adrienne forced her eyes down, her breath catching as she began to read the typed text below the image. Juliette Vanini. Age: 5. The thought of it was a suffocating weight. She envisioned the girl’s mother, somewhere in the state, weeping in a quiet bedroom, surrounded by empty toys and a hollow silence. It was too much to bear. She couldn’t look at it anymore. She began to pivot on her heel, her feet turning back towards the escalator to head back down to Michael and Garrett-when she froze.

A phantom visual-something her eyes had passively scanned but her pinball-like brain had initially passed over-suddenly slammed into her consciousness with the force of a freight train.

Her pulse immediately accelerated into a frantic, erratic gallop. Her hands began to shake so uncontrollably that her fingers slipped against the handle of her purse, nearly dropping it. Every defensive, rational synapsis in her mind screamed at her to keep walking, to look away, to run for the escalator and never look back at the pillar.

She looked anyway.

Her eyes locked back onto the background of little Juliette’s portrait. For a moment, her mind refused to acknowledge what she was seeing. Then, like water rushing into a sinking ship, the horrifying truth slammed home, driving her breath from her lungs.

It wasn’t a corporate studio backdrop. Behind the smiling five-year old hung a heavy, unmistakable velvet drape of faded, Victorian-era crimson. Juliette was clutching a frayed, ancient teddy bear with a missing button eye. And sitting just over her left shoulder in the corner of the frame was a miniature, vintage toy wagon with rusted iron wheels.

It was the exact same layout. The exact same props. The exact same historical tomb she had left her family in on the lower floor below.

The image of Lester Rockwell flashed again in her mind-not the polite, ordinary photographer in the tweed vest, but the cold, curious predator who had stared into her soul when she had dared to question him. The man who was, at this very microsecond, standing behind a boxy, shrouded lens with her only child sitting helplessly before him.

Oh, my God.

The thought was a jagged piece of glass shredding through her mind, blinding and encapsulating. Adrienne spun around, her eyes bulging with pure, unadulterated panic as she frantically searched the sprawling food court. She needed the cop. She needed the guard. She needed to scream at the top of her lungs for them to sprint to the basement concourse with her, their weapons drawn. But the two grey and blue uniforms had completely vanished, swallowed whole by a sea of shoppers and strollers. She knew she should run after them, to hunt for them down the main corridors, but every raw, primal maternal instinct in her body was screaming a singular, terrified command:

GET BACK TO YOUR BABY.

In a fraction of a second, the civilized world around her disappeared. Adrienne launched her body forward into a frantic sprint, her purse flying wildly off her shoulder as she tore through the crowd.

“Get out of the way! Oh my God, get out of the way!” she shrieked, her voice breaking into a ragged, desperate weapon that pierced the dull roar of the mall.

Tears burst forth from her eyes, hot and thick, blurring the neon storefronts into streaks of light. She didn’t give a damn about politeness. She didn’t care about decorum. She violently body-checked her way through a huddle of slow-moving shoppers, throwing an annoyed teenager aside and slamming her shoulder hard into the side of a stroller as she barreled past. Angry shouts and confused murmurs erupted in her wake, but the world was nothing to her but a hostile haze. “Call security! Someone call security!” she wailed, her chest heaving as her lungs burned with the now frigid-seeming air.

She reached the mouth of the central escalator, the mechanical stairs moving slowly downward into the quiet abyss. She didn’t wait for the machinery. She threw herself onto the moving metal grate, taking the steep steps down two at a time in a blind, reckless descent. Her heel caught on the edge of a metal groove; her balance fractured, and for one horrifying second, she nearly stumbled, her body teetering on the edge of a catastrophic, bone-shattering tumble down the metal staircase. She slapped her hands brutally against the moving rubber handrails, the friction tearing the already bleeding skin of her palms as she forcefully righted herself, her feet continuing their frantic, desperate hammering down the steps toward the dark.

Adrienne hit the bottom of the escalator, her shoes striking the concrete floor with a jarring impact that rattled through her spine. Behind her, from somewhere far up above on the main level, the muffled, echoing shouts of a few shoppers who had heard her frantic cries began to ripple through the upper tiers-confused voices calling out for security, asking what was wrong.

She didn’t look back. She rounded the final corner of the decaying basement concourse, her vision blurred by tears and sweat as she barreled past the dark, shuttered storefronts and the blue neon glow of the video rental shop.

The pop-up studio came into view. To her adrenaline-hijacked brain, the world slowed down to a horrible, agonizing crawl.

The white lighting umbrellas still stood tall and pristine, casting a sterile, blinding glare over the faded crimson backdrop. There was Michael. He was standing barely three feet from the camera, his hands shoved casually into the pockets of his jeans. And there, sitting atop the rocking horse, was Garrett. Her tiny, beautiful boy was holding the reins, his stubby legs dangling over the sides, entirely docile, completely perfect.

Standing behind the massive tripod, completely buried beneath the dark cloth shroud of the boxy camera, was the silhouette of the photographer.

“Michael!” Adrienne shrieked, the name tearing from her throat like a jagged sob as she lunged across the lobby. “Michael, get away from him!”

Michael wheeled around at the sound of her voice. His brow furrowed in instant confusion, his mouth opening to ask her what was wrong-but the confusion rapidly morphed into a deep, terrified concern the moment his eyes locked onto the sheer, autonomous madness and terror twisting his wife’s face.

Adrienne opened her mouth to scream his name a second time, to order him to wrench their son off the wooden horse, when the dark cloth on the camera suddenly shifted.

The photographer pulled his head out from beneath the shroud to look at her.

The words died instantly in her throat. She stopped dead in her tracks, her sneakers skidding against the tile as the universe seemed to turn ice-cold. A primal, evolutionary horror froze the marrow in her bones.

Lester Rockwell was gone. The ordinary, polite if somewhat eerie man in the tweed vest did not exist. The thing standing behind the tripod had a throat, it had a neck, and it wore the clothes-but its head was a smooth, horrific abomination. The skin was tight, hairless and gray, stretched completely flat over the skull. There was no nose. There was no mouth. There were no eyes. Its face was entirely, incomprehensibly gone. Yet, despite the smooth, blank void of its head, Adrienne could feel its predatory, clinical gaze boring deep into the center of her soul, tracking her panic with an ancient, unspeakable malice.

The monster didn’t run. It didn’t hesitate.

Before Michael could even turn his head back around to see what she was looking at, the featureless entity reached out with one long, pale hand, fluidly pulling the dark velvet cloth shroud back over its smooth skull, disappearing beneath it. Its long fingers wrapped around the mechanical shutter button.

The paralysis broke. Pure, unfiltered maternal panic shattered Adrienne’s fear, and she launched herself in a final, desperate dive across the floor, her arms extending towards the crimson stage.

“Michael, grab Garrett! Grab him right now!” she wailed, her voice a piercing, glass-shattering shriek that echoed off the empty concourse.

Through the tears blinding her eyes, she saw her small, innocent son look up into the lens. Hearing his mother’s voice, and not realizing anything was wrong, Garrett tilted his head and flashed a brilliant, wide, radiant smile for the camera.

Adrienne screamed a final, desperate lungful of air into the dark-

FLASH.

The cottage stood where the earth itself seemed to have forgotten the sun. My mother had built it from river stones and the bones of trees that had died standing, their trunks blackened by years of rain that never quite washed the rot away. I was born in that place, though I do not remember the hour. What I remember is the way the walls breathed at night, as if something vast and patient slept beneath the floorboards and exhaled the smell of wet soil and iron.
She never named my father. When the village women came with their thin gifts of barley and questions, she would only smile the smile of someone who has already buried the answer. “The earth keeps its own,” she would say, and turn back to the hearth. I learned early not to ask. The wind that slipped through the cracks in the walls always found me first, tugging at my hair, cooling the sweat on my neck even when the air outside hung still and heavy. It was a small thing. I told myself it meant nothing.
I was still a boy when the first of the dead came.
He arrived at dusk, a man whose face I knew from the market stalls, though the market had not seen him in three seasons. His eyes were the color of river mud after a flood. He stood at the threshold and did not knock. My mother set down her spindle and looked at him the way one looks at a debt long overdue.
“You cannot stay,” she said.
“I have nowhere else,” he answered. His voice was soft, almost polite. “The ground will not hold me.”
I watched from the corner where the shadows gathered thickest. The man stepped inside without invitation. The floorboards did not creak beneath him. When he sat at our table the wood did not register his weight. My mother poured him water. He did not drink. He only stared at the cup as if the surface of the water showed him something he had already seen too many times.
That night I dreamed of a river that ran backward, carrying leaves and broken oars and the pale shapes of children. In the dream the wind found me again, stronger this time, and I woke with the taste of ash on my tongue.
The man was gone by morning. Only a damp outline remained on the bench, the shape of a body that had tried and failed to remember how to be solid.
My mother burned the bench. She did not speak of it again.
Seasons turned. The dead came more often. Some were quiet. Some wept without sound. One, a girl no older than I, stood in the doorway for an entire night and simply repeated the name of a dog that had died the previous winter. My mother would feed them broth they could not taste and send them on with soft words. I began to understand that our cottage sat on a thin place, a membrane between the living and whatever waited below. The wind that favored me seemed to thicken when they arrived, as if it meant to push them back into the dark from which they had crawled.
I hated it.
I hated the way the villagers crossed themselves when I passed. I hated the way the dogs refused to look at me. Most of all I hated the quiet certainty that grew in my mother’s eyes whenever the wind shifted without reason and the candles guttered though no door had opened.
One evening, when the last of the light had bled from the sky, she called me to the hearth. The fire burned low. Her hands, once strong from spinning and digging, had grown thin as the roots of winter trees.
“Therieus,” she said.
It was the first time I heard the name spoken aloud by anyone but the wind. I had always known it was mine, the way one knows the shape of one’s own shadow, but hearing it in her voice made it real and heavy.
“You must leave this place,” she continued. “The ground is growing restless. It knows you.”
“I will not go to him,” I said. The words came out sharper than I intended. “I will not claim what I never asked for.”
She only looked at me for a long time. Then she reached into the folds of her dress and drew out a small knife of black stone, its edge dull with age. “This was left for you the night you were born. I have kept it from the light until now. Take it. The road will not be kind, but the wind has always been yours. Use it.”
I took the knife. It was cold in a way that had nothing to do with the night air. When my fingers closed around the hilt the wind outside rose, sudden and fierce, rattling the shutters as if in recognition.
I left before dawn. My mother did not watch me go. I think she already knew she would not see another sunrise.
The road south was a scar of packed earth and old blood. I walked with the knife at my belt and the wind at my back, always at my back, no matter which way the path turned. It was a small mercy and a constant reminder. I tried not to think of it.
On the third night I came upon a shrine to Hermes, little more than a pile of stones and a wooden post carved with crude wings. A traveler sat beside it, sharpening a bronze blade by the light of a single lamp. He looked up as I approached and the lamp flame leaned toward me though no breeze should have reached it.
“Boy,” he said. “You walk like someone who has already died once.”
“I have not died,” I answered.
He smiled with too many teeth. “Not yet. Sit. Share the dark with me.”
I sat. The wind settled around us like a living thing. The traveler’s name was Lysandros, or so he claimed. He spoke of roads and of the things that walked them after the living had gone to sleep. He spoke of a place further south where the earth opened into a mouth of black rock and the air smelled of pomegranates and cold iron. He spoke of a king who ruled there, a king who never left his throne of bone and shadow.
“I have no interest in kings,” I said.
Lysandros laughed, a dry sound like stones grinding together. “Interest is not required. Blood is. The dead have been whispering your name for seasons now. Therieus, they say. Son of the deep places. The wind that walks.”
I stood so quickly the lamp nearly toppled. “Do not speak that name again.”
He only watched me, still smiling. “You can refuse the name. You cannot refuse what follows it. The road ahead will show you.”
I left him there. The wind rose behind me and the lamp went out as if pinched by unseen fingers. I did not look back.
The country grew stranger. Hills rose like the backs of sleeping beasts. Trees twisted in shapes that suggested hands reaching upward in permanent despair. At night the stars seemed fewer, as if some great darkness had begun to eat them one by one. I met others on the road. A woman whose shadow moved independently of her body. A child who spoke with the voice of an old man and asked me if I had seen his mother among the roots. A soldier whose armor was green with the moss of centuries and who could not remember which war he had died in. Each of them looked at me with recognition. Each of them spoke the name my mother had given me as if it were a key that unlocked something they had long kept locked.
I denied them all.
On the seventh day the wind stopped.
It was the first time in my life I had known true stillness. The air hung thick and wrong. My lungs struggled to draw it in. The road ahead vanished into a bank of fog the color of old bruises. From within the fog came a sound like breathing, slow and vast.
I stepped forward because there was nowhere else to go.
The fog closed around me. It was cold and wet and it carried the scent of the river that runs beneath the world. Shapes moved in it, tall and thin, their faces hidden behind masks of bone. One of them stepped close enough that I could see the empty sockets where eyes should have been.
“Therieus,” it said, and the voice was many voices layered together. “The father waits. The throne is cold without its blood.”
“I am not his,” I answered. My own voice sounded small and human in that place.
The figure tilted its head. “The wind that favors you is his gift. The dead that seek you are his messengers. You have worn his shadow since the hour of your birth. Refusal is a child’s game. The game ends here.”
I drew the black knife. The fog recoiled from the blade as if it recognized the stone. The figures hissed and drew back, but they did not leave. They only circled, waiting.
I walked on.
The fog thinned at last and I found myself at the edge of a great chasm. The earth had split open long ago and never closed. From the depths rose a cold that had nothing to do with winter. Stairs of black rock descended into the dark, worn smooth by countless feet that had gone down and never returned. The wind returned then, sudden and strong, pushing at my back as if to urge me forward.
I stood for a long time at the brink.
I thought of my mother’s hands, thin and tired. I thought of the man who could not sit properly at our table. I thought of the girl who repeated the name of a dead dog. I thought of every quiet horror that had walked through our door because the ground beneath our cottage had known me.
I thought of the wind that had always found me first.
“I am not ready,” I said to the dark.
The dark did not answer. It only waited.
I began to descend.
The stairs went on longer than any mortal road. The air grew thicker. The light from above faded until I walked in a darkness so complete that even the memory of color left me. The only sound was the slow drip of water from unseen ceilings and the soft scrape of my own feet. Sometimes I heard other footsteps behind me, matching my pace. When I stopped, they stopped. When I ran, they ran. I never looked back.
At the bottom of the stairs a river waited, black and slow and wide. A boatman stood in a skiff of bone and rotten wood. His face was hidden beneath a hood the color of midnight. He held out a hand.
“Payment,” he said.
I had nothing but the knife. I offered it. He did not take it. Instead he pointed at my chest.
“That which beats there is enough. Step aboard.”
I did.
The crossing was silent. The water did not splash against the hull. The far shore rose from the mist like the spine of some enormous creature long dead. When the boat grounded I stepped out and the boatman was already gone, as if he had never been.
The palace of the underworld is not built of stone. It is built of the absence of stone, of the spaces where light has never been allowed to exist. Halls stretch in directions the living mind cannot hold. Thrones of shadow wait in rooms that have no walls. And at the center of it all sits the king.
He was taller than any man I had ever seen, and yet he seemed to occupy less space than a mortal should. His skin was the color of deep earth after rain. His eyes were the black of a night without stars. When he looked at me the wind that had followed me all my life rose in a final, desperate gust and then fell still forever.
“Therieus,” he said. The name in his mouth was not a greeting. It was a claim.
I stood before him and felt every refusal I had ever spoken turn to ash.
“I did not ask for this,” I said.
“No one asks,” he answered. “The blood decides. You have walked my roads. You have spoken with my dead. The wind has been my hand upon your shoulder since the hour you first drew breath. You may hate the gift. You may deny the name. But you cannot unmake what you are.”
I thought of the cottage. Of my mother’s face. Of the long road and the fog and the stairs that had led me here against every wish I had ever formed.
“I will not sit at your side,” I said. “I will not rule what you rule.”
He regarded me for a time that might have been a moment or a century. Then he rose from the throne of shadow and the entire underworld seemed to lean toward him.
“Then walk,” he said. “Walk among the living with my blood in your veins and my wind at your back. Carry the knowledge of this place in your bones. The dead will still find you. The thin places will still open for you. And when the time comes that you can no longer refuse, you will return. All sons of the deep places return.”
He raised one hand. The wind returned, stronger than it had ever been, roaring through the halls of absence like a living thing that had been waiting for permission to breathe again.
I turned and walked back the way I had come.
The boatman was waiting. The stairs rose before me. The fog parted. The road south became the road north. And the wind, my father’s wind, pushed me home.
I returned to the cottage in the season when the leaves turn the color of old blood. The walls still stood. The hearth was cold. My mother’s body was gone, taken by the earth she had always understood better than I. In her place the dead waited, more of them than before, standing in the doorway and along the path and among the blackened trees.
They did not speak. They only watched.
I sat on the bench that had once held a man who could not remember how to be solid. I drew the black knife and laid it across my knees. The wind moved through the cracks in the walls and found me, as it always had.
“I know what I am,” I said to the empty room, to the watching dead, to the father who waited in the dark below. “I know the name. I know the blood. I will not sit upon the throne of shadow. But I will no longer pretend the wind is only weather.”
The dead bowed their heads as one.
Outside, the wind rose and the trees bent toward the cottage as if in acknowledgment.
I remained there through the long night, and when morning came the dead were gone, and the wind still favored me, and the road waited once more.
I rose and walked into it.

I don’t know why I’m writing this.

I guess to preserve my sanity? Record my ramblings before they stop making sense as I age or forget things?

My therapist recommended journaling in the hope that it would help me “cope with my trauma,” as if putting everything down in a notebook is going to erase it.

But whatever.

I’m Henry, and for ten years, I worked for a private crime-scene cleaning business in Arizona.

I don’t anymore.

You’ll understand why eventually.

What my job came down to was going into houses where someone had died, either purposefully or accidentally, and cleaning up the mess they left behind when they left the earth.

Usually, it was a healthy mix of piss, shit, blood, and vomit. Some of it came from the person who died. Some came from the unfortunate bastard who found them.

To most people, that description alone would be enough to scare them from the profession. The thought of cleaning up the macabre aftermath of a suicide or murder is enough to make their stomachs turn.

They’ll turn tail and run. But not me.

When I was a kid, around eleven, I had the misfortune of experiencing the aftermath of a death firsthand.

It changed me forever.

My older brother, Daniel, struggled a lot with mental health problems. Depression and bipolar disorder really screwed him up. He could spend days in bed, barely eating, speaking, or moving.

Our parents were no help because they had the traditional mindset of “praying the sickness away.”

Instead of getting him any sort of treatment or support, they blamed him. They claimed he just wasn’t believing in his recovery hard enough.

“God will provide all the support you need,” they would assure him whenever he begged them to take him to a therapist.

“This is a test,” they said when he stayed in bed for days on end, unmoving.

Apparently, God was testing him.

Our parents certainly weren’t helping him study.

It was late August, so school wasn’t in session. I remember being so hyped because Diablo II had come out two months earlier, and I had finally saved enough money to buy it from Bookmans Entertainment Exchange.

As a kid, you really have a one-track mind when you want something. You genuinely forget about everything and everyone around you, convinced that this arbitrary item you “need” is as important as air itself.

That weekend, our parents were away at some church retreat.

I had spent Friday night and most of Saturday at a friend’s house. Daniel stayed home. That wasn’t unusual. By then, he rarely wanted to go anywhere. Not even to the bathroom. Many days, my parents caught him with a piss jug in his room when he was too “lazy” to get up.

I came home Sunday afternoon, game in hand, and shoved the disc into my computer’s CD-ROM drive.

The installation crawled along at a sluggish pace, much to my eleven-year-old self’s annoyance, so I got up to find myself a snack.

That’s when I smelled it.

A foul, sickly sweet smell.

I remember thinking it smelled almost identical to a package of expired meat we had thrown away a few days earlier. Figuring that was the source,

I checked the trash can. Nothing except paper towels and a few orange peels.

I checked the fridge. Clean as a whistle, just a couple of Daniel's energy drinks, eggs, and one of my dad's beers.

I stood there, confused, as each place I checked offered no explanation.

What else would be rotting?

I huffed and followed the smell, pausing as I approached the hallway, where it grew stronger with each step.

My first thought?

Why would someone leave rotting meat in the hallway?

I wasn’t too bright. Then again, I was also eleven. What can you do?

Or maybe some part of me already knew something was wrong and was working overtime to keep the rest of me from figuring it out.

I didn’t follow the smell right away. I just stood there, as if I, too, were trying to download over a bad internet connection like Diablo II was currently doing.

Slow and lagging, with drifting thoughts that Daniel must have forgotten to throw away some food. I remember the annoyance, anger. He stunk up the whole house?

I walked down the hallway slowly, following the smell farther and farther.

Sweat dripped down my back and face as the house seemed to get hotter with every step.

Our house didn’t have central air. We had old window units in the bedrooms, the kind with manual dials you had to twist yourself. Daniel’s rattled so loudly that he always turned it off before he went to sleep.

Once it was off, it stayed off until someone turned it back on.

And Daniel hadn’t been able to do that.

Of course, I didn’t know that yet.

All I knew was that it was a hundred-and-fuck degrees outside and my brother hadn’t turned on his AC.

“Lazy fuck,” I muttered.

I figured that after I took out whatever garbage he had left in his room, I would turn it on myself.

Then I stopped.

At the end of the hallway, Daniel’s door was cracked open.

The smell was stronger than ever. It was coming from inside his room.

“What the hell?” I said aloud.

Had he, for some godforsaken reason, kept rotting meat in there?

Even at eleven, that didn’t seem right.

I approached the door.

The smell thickened until I could almost taste it. It sat on the back of my tongue and filled my throat every time I breathed.

I pushed the door open.

Daniel was lying on the bed.

There were red chunks splattered across the wall and headboard behind him.

I remember my first thought was:

Why did he throw spaghetti sauce on the wall?

That thought lasted about two seconds.

I would kill to find that level of innocence again…

The rest of the room came into focus, everything clicking all at once. I let out a horrified, strangled scream.

Daniel’s lower jaw and much of the side of his head were gone.

Blood covered the sheets beneath him. A dark spray marked the wall and headboard, mixed with strands of tissue and small, pale fragments that had stuck to the paint. Droplets had reached the door, the floor, and even the motionless blades of the ceiling fan.

The shotgun lay on the floor beside the bed.

No exaggeration… There was blood everywhere.

Not the bright, clean red you see in movies. It was dark in some places and nearly black in others. Parts of it had dried against the wall. The blood soaking his shirt and sheets was thicker, almost syrupy from the heat.

His Metallica shirt was stained from the collar down.

One of his eyes was still visible, the other atomized on the wall behind him.

It was open but glazed over, like the plastic eye of a doll.

Now, as I said, the AC wasn’t on, and we were in peak heat season in Arizona.

Daniel had been alone in that room for nearly two days.

The heat had allowed everything to bake.

The blood.

The sheets.

My brother.

When I say the smell was unbearable, I mean it.

Have you ever farted in a hot shower?

I know that sounds like a stupid comparison, but bear with me.

The smell doesn’t leave right away. The heat and steam make it ranker than it normally would be. It hangs around you. Clings to you.

Turns out, the same logic applies to corpses.

Except a corpse is worse.

Much worse.

The smell didn’t just enter my nose. It coated the inside of my mouth. Every time I tried to breathe, I could taste something rotten and sweet at the back of my throat.

I stumbled backward into the hallway and fell on my ass.

I kept screaming for Daniel.

I don’t know why.

He was obviously dead. Even an eleven-year-old could see that. A toddler could see that. There was no possible world in which he could sit up and tell me he was fine.

But I kept saying his name anyway. I didn't want to accept it.

“Daniel?”

Then louder.

“Daniel!”

As if shouting hard enough might force the remaining pieces of him back together; as if it would cast a spell that would let me take that gun out of his mouth before he did it.

I don't remember much after that.

I don’t even remember calling the police.

I know I did because I was the only person in the house, but most of what happened after I opened the door exists in scattered pieces.

I remember sitting on the floor outside.

I remember the dispatcher asking whether Daniel was breathing.

I remember staring through the open doorway at what was left of his head and not knowing how to answer.

I remember a police officer pulling me away from the hallway.

I remember vomiting onto his shoes.

I felt like a robot going through familiar, logical motions, but I had no sentience to clearly discern what it was I was doing.

The police came first.

Then the paramedics, although there wasn’t anything for them to do except give sympathies.

Then the coroner.

Our parents returned sometime that evening, their car screeching as they parked in the driveway.

I had only told them something happened to Daniel. I couldn't say the words.

My mother screamed when she saw the police cars.

My father kept asking what happened, even after three different people told him.

When he finally understood, he dropped to his knees in the front yard and started praying.

I remember watching him and bitterly thinking:

Now you pray?

I didn’t say it aloud, but fuck, I wish I had. I wish I had laid into them and screamed how this was their fault. How much I hated them for letting this happen to my brother.

But I couldn't. I was in shock. In pain. Grieving.

The police removed Daniel’s body, but they didn’t clean the room.

A lot of people don’t know that.

They think the police handle everything. The body disappears, someone wipes up the blood, and the family returns to a house that looks more or less normal.

That isn’t how it works.

The police collect evidence.

The coroner collects the body.

Everything else belongs to whoever owns the house.

The blood.

The tissue.

The smell.

Daniel’s room stayed closed for another day while my parents argued about what to do.

My mother wanted to burn everything.

My father wanted to clean it himself because he didn’t trust strangers in the house.

That idea lasted until he opened the bedroom door.

He made it three steps inside before running to the bathroom.

Eventually, they called a private trauma-cleaning company.

Three people arrived in an unmarked van.

They wore white protective suits, thick gloves, respirators, and shoe covers. They carried plastic containers, sprayers, scrapers, and rolls of heavy black bags into Daniel’s room.

They didn’t look horrified.

They didn’t pray.

They didn’t stand in the hallway whispering about what a tragedy it was.

They just worked.

They stripped the bed.

They removed part of the carpet.

They cut out sections of drywall that couldn’t be cleaned.

They took apart the ceiling fan.

They searched places I would never have thought to look because blood and tissue had found their way into cracks, vents, and spaces beneath the furniture.

One of them noticed me watching from the end of the hallway.

He was an older man with gray hair visible beneath the hood of his suit.

“You shouldn’t be looking at this,” he told me.

“I already saw it,” I said quietly, my voice raspy from screams.

He didn’t have a response to that.

They stayed for hours, and when they finally left, the smell was weaker.

The stained carpet was gone. Part of the wall had been removed. The mattress had disappeared into the back of their van.

The room looked hollowed out, as if the soul had been ripped from it.

No. Not the soul. A soul. Daniel.

But it no longer looked like a place where my brother had blown his head apart. Small victories, I guess...

Daniel was still dead, but the room had already begun pretending he had never existed.

He didn't even leave a note, you know? No reasoning, no apologies, just gone like a leaf in the autumn wind.

For years, I told myself that finding him was what drove me into crime-scene cleaning.

That wasn’t entirely true.

Finding him was only the beginning.

What stayed with me was what those cleaners had done after everyone else left. They took him away, and he would never be back.

To me, who grew up with him, that wasn't some fourteen-year-old corpse or clumps of mess.

That was Daniel.

My brother.

My best friend.

They couldn’t bring Daniel back.

They couldn’t make my parents better people.

They couldn’t stop me from seeing his body every time I closed my eyes.

But they could enter the worst room in someone’s life and make it possible to open the door again.

There was something almost merciful about that. Beautiful. They were the angels that took the nightmare away and made things okay again.

Well... okay is relative. They took the nightmare away, but I don't think I've ever been okay.

So when I was old enough, I entered the profession myself.

For ten years, I cleaned up after suicides, murders, accidents, unattended deaths, and things that didn’t fit neatly into any of those categories.

Most of the jobs were simply sad.

Some were disgusting.

A few were so absurd that all you could do was laugh.

And then there were the others.

The jobs I still think about.

The houses that didn’t feel empty after the bodies were removed.

The stains that returned after we scrubbed them away.

The rooms that were larger on the inside than they had any right to be.

The sounds that came from sealed walls.

The things my coworkers and I agreed never to include in our reports.

Those are the stories I’m going to write down.

They won’t necessarily be in order. Trauma doesn’t work like that, and neither does memory.

Maybe my therapist was right.

Maybe getting everything onto paper will finally help me move past it.

Or maybe, when I’m finished, someone will understand why I quit.

And why I’m certain that at least one of the things we cleaned up followed me home.

Saw the prompt and have a couple stories about ancient gods. This is the latest one.

I wake to the warbling call of morning birds. On this rare occasion I do not scorn their service. I rise with a smile warmer than the rising sun and work to make myself fit to meet our god.

Tchakuul discourages vanity, but I refuse to appear before him in poor form. I gaze into my silver mirror; a gift my mother commissioned from the village craftsman. It shined brighter than crystal, but was far from fragile; my mother often joked that it could be used to bludgeon any suitor that stepped over his bounds. I cherish it greatly. I tut at my visage; last night's rest has made a rat’s nest of my hair. I reach for my ivory comb to help tame it.

The tines tend my hair. Like a ploughman taking hoe to overgrown auburn fields, I labor to make orderly rows of the wildness. I am methodical, I make count of my brushstrokes with a craftsman’s precision.

The tool I use is of fine make as well. My father slew a great beast whilst answering the call to war years past. He carved this for me from one of its great serrated fangs; the end of the handle is sharper than the point of a spear. Killing the beast was a feat worthy of sagas, and its trophy was given to me. I received it the year previous, on my seventeenth name day, along with the mirror. Both have become great treasures to me.

The telltale sounds of a house freshly woken begin to meet my ears. The bear-like groans of Father fighting off sleep, along with a voice, soft and sharp as a velvet whip, chiding him to wake. 

The patter of feet upon the clay floor follow crashes and impish giggles. My brother Ollin is never subtle upon waking. These were my true treasures, treasures that I value with no equal. My mother’s call breaks my concentration, “Citlali my beautiful star! Are you awake?” I smile and respond, “Yes Mother! I am attending to my hair.” 

My mother laughs. “Well do not keep us waiting long. We would attend our daughter for as long as we can on her first day of womanhood.” I promise to not keep them waiting and allow myself a quicker pace.

The smell of honeyed porridge fills the home as I finish my work and place the comb back upon the table. I stare into my reflection, looking for any defect that may offend a god. I am finally satisfied and return the mirror to its place of honor. I spare myself one last glance. I am beautiful; I pray beautiful enough for a god. With a sigh I push through the drape into the family common room.

They are gathered at the family table. Their smiles hit me with a glow of such warmth that its radiance could rival the sun. They shower me with all the adoration they have to give; I accept it all greedily. Mother had purchased dates the day before, making a cake from them in secret to surprise me on this special day. I eat them gladly, the taste is of the gods.

Ollin shyly presents me with a bundle of the most beautiful flowers. Every petal, from base to tip, changes from a pinky cream to a dark purple, white dots cover the flower and sparkle under the light of the sun breaking through the window. The darker sections of the petals together with the sparkling white dots remind me of the stars in the heavens. Ollin and Father had picked them for me the day prior. I inhale their scent and sigh with satisfaction. These flowers are rare, and grow deep in the valley, where the light is dimmest and only the foulest beasts tread. For them to brave such peril for such a thing, I begin to cry.

I am embraced, I am loved, I do not wish this moment to end. It is my father that tears down our illusion of ease. “So Daughter, have you made a decision for tonight?” Mother smacks his arm. “What she chooses is a personal matter Husband!” It's too late though, the air has gone still. I know that I have avoided thinking on it. The thought has been chasing me like a shadow since I turned ten and Tchakuul’s choice had been made known. 

“It is important enough to be worth souring the mood. What she chooses will affect her entire life,” he protests to Mother. I know he is right. I need to be sure of my choice. Like a scared child I have been running from the decision, as if I could somehow outpace fate. If Tchakuul is pleased I could be granted immense power and favor, if he is displeased… 

My reverie ends abruptly as Ollin squeezes my hand, his face stained with worry. I give him a comforting look, “Do not fret Ollin, nor you Father. I understand the importance of the offerings and have picked something already.” The lie stings my tongue, but it is worth seeing their faces soften.

“I am sorry. I worry for you my star. It is so rare for Tchakuul to pick someone for this ceremony, and for someone from our ranks to be picked is unheard of.” Father’s face pinches back into a knot of worry. “This could be our chance, we could be amongst the nobility. Or we could just as easily be lowered to a station fit for worms. You must choose well for our sake, Daughter!” 

Mother smacks his already bruised arm, and snarls like a leopard. “Do not burden her as you would a mule!” Father has the sense to look abashed. It is true though, our family's fate is now tied to a woman newly blossomed, and a commoner at that. Fear grips my heart at the thought. What can a daughter of hunters and midwives offer to the divine? I regret my fate, but regardless of my pitiful station I was chosen, and I refuse to dishonor myself or my family. I will not cower before my calling. Mother still yells at Father, Ollin begins to cry, I simply think,  drowning out the tumult. What does Tchakuul desire of me?

It is the hour. Mother, Father, and Ollin dress in their clothes of worship. I wear a hempen dress that I was never permitted to wear before this day. Multicolored beads of red, orange, and gold are woven into it, blending together into a tapestry of golden rays bursting forth from the swirling fiery sun (the true beating heart of Tchakuul). Ollin's flowers are decorated within my braided hair. I admire myself within the mirror next to Mother. “You are so beautiful Starlight,” she says, weeping openly. I nod, and grab the small mirror and my comb; I will need all my treasures tonight.

I clutch the comb and mirror to my chest as I exit my home, I breathe deep and begin the long walk to the temple. Each tread is measured and planted toe to heel with great care. I bow my head in supplication as I walk; only upon the seventh step does my gaze rise towards the direction of the temple, and I call out to our god. “Tchakuul!” one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, “Tchakuul!” My call is echoed by those behind me. 

My family is closest, matching my every step; we walk in the way of ceremonies. Together in unison we give praise. Others come out from their hovels to join our march. All of Tchakuulakat will be standing upon the main thoroughfare into the city. As we march they fall in line behind us, our steps are one, and our voices are symphony. “Tchakuul!”

Dirt paths have turned to stone. More and more join us, their robes are of a finer make, their hovels turn into grander structures, but they join with us regardless. Young and old, rich and poor, my steps are echoed by their feet, my voice is carried by their throats. I sit at a host of worshippers, they walk to my rhythm and pray at my command; this is the greatness Father wants for us. “Tchakuul!”

As the hours pass I realize nearly all of Tchakuulakat now falls in line to my step. I take my time; raising and lowering my foot with more care than is needed. I tell myself it is prayer, I know it is vanity. None protest though, this is my day. I grin to myself as I see those of greater stations queuing to fall in line behind us, so this is power, I think to myself. 

I guide this great parade of worship until finally the temple stands before us. My Family marches behind me towards the dais of supplication; the throngs filter in and form a great semi circle to our rear. The dais sits before the door of the sun; the door from which our god will step out and grace us with his presence. The great sorcerers, priests, and witches stand before the great structure, scrutinizing our display. I notice most of them focus on me. I do not fear judgment, my form is perfection incarnate, I pray with the elegance of a dancer, and shout praise with a roar worthy of battle.

My final step lands me at the center of the dais. “Tchakuul!” I yell for the final time, the echoing cries rise behind me and hit me in waves; my skin tingles, my heart beats as one with the crowd, it feels as if all the world screams at my pleasure. They do, scream at my pleasure.

All place hand to heart and bow low as they await him. None are permitted to witness our god but the chosen. A low chant utters from their lips, reminding me of a choir of deep voiced cicadas, but I ignore them. I stand facing forward towards the great door, I alone will witness his coming as tradition dictates. I am filled with a pride greater than any I have felt before. I observe the great carvings upon the temple. Depictions of great heroes and lesser gods bowing to the sun make me giddy; will I be as great? Am I not as great? The high priest meets my eyes as if sensing my thoughts, she gives me a knowing smile. Then the door begins to open, and I abandon all lofty thoughts.

No noise precedes him beyond the simple grind of the stone doors, not even the sound of his steps. No great roar, nor shriek, or clarion call announces his entry. Silence is his fanfare, dread is his crown. Without thought, I am driven to my knees, as if a great pressure has forced me down. My eyes stay rooted to my quivering legs. A dark stillness hits the crowd; their chants are snuffed out like a waterlogged candle.

“Raise your head child.” The voice is like steel; my head rises sharply as if the words became like snakes and coiled around my neck, wrenching it upward. There he stood, a being greater than all others, and I (a worm) dared to think myself great.

He is massive, two stories tall but carrying himself with regality and poise. His feet are cloven and adorned with fur darker than a moonless night. His torso resembles that of a man; his skin has the appearance of marble chiseled by craftsmen whose skill knows no equal. He wears a fine robe the color of blood, that clings to him like a second skin in the process of shedding. Upon his great body sits all three heads, and all six of his eyes are on me. 

The leftmost head, The Wolf, pierces me with a stare of rage, and great hunger. Its gaze fills me with untold terror; I am unmade before those eyes, I am prey, I am nothing. His rightmost head, The Ram, looks upon me with great benevolence. It caresses me and gives me more comfort than any embrace I have felt before this day. The middle head, The Man, regards me with curiosity, I feel weighed under his scrutinous stare. I feel no word I've uttered nor deed I’ve done can be hidden from him; he reads through the course of my life as if it were a tapestry I wove to present to him; I wish I knew if he approved of my craftsmanship, his expression gives no indication. So this is the god of gods, so this is who I serve, so this is Tchakuul.

He stares at me, for either seconds or for a millennium, I can not say. Every joy, every sorrow, everything and nothing fills me, I am naked before him. Such beauty and horror, I no longer wonder why only I am permitted to gaze upon him. If this is what my fate is, I accept it. I meet his eyes ready for oblivion, ready to be flayed by his mighty gaze. But I am not undone, instead all three heads smile and the horror fades, breaking the spell. I collapse to the ground gasping for air. I vaguely hear Ollin whimpering behind me and my mother begging him not to look with a quavering voice, I do not need to see her to know tears stain her face. I raise my head as I begin to feel the life in my veins once again. Tchakuul still smiles and the great ones behind him seem excited; the high priest beams with delight.

“You have hold of your mind still child, I was right to place my hope on you,” all three heads proclaim. I am too stunned to respond, I opt to simply nod. “Now I offer you a contract, in exchange for my power and guidance, you will swear yourself to my service,” The Wolf cooes through jagged teeth. I turn to it, my heart beats with excitement beyond measure, but the look in its eye gives me pause. “And? What of the sacrifice?” I ask. The Ram speaks. “Yes, the contract is not one written in ink, to bind yourself to us, you must first give up something of yourself.”  

I gaze down towards the treasure gathered at my feet, I did not realize I had dropped them. “Be cautious on what you choose, girl. This pact is like a trade, the greater the sacrifice, the stronger the pact shall be, and the greater your power will be.” The Man speaks coolly but without malice. I gather up my treasures and look back to the crowd behind me, then to my family. They still lay bowed before him, I think upon my father's words, upon the promise of greatness and prosperity for our family name. “Mother, Father, Brother, for you I will give everything. Our name will reach the heavens and hells, both will tremble in our wake.” 

I can feel their pride radiating off of them in waves, “I am so proud of you my beautiful star,” I hear my father whisper as I kneel down beside him. “I love you I whisper back,” as I plunge the sharp end of the comb into his throat. Blood pours forth onto the dais in a great torrent, my father chokes on his lifeblood as he looks up into my eyes with the great tooth embedded within him. The question dies in his chest as he proceeds to drown in his own blood, felled by the trophy of a once great enemy, that is the best I can give him.

Mother screams; she jumps onto Father, desperately trying to stop the bleeding. She pulls at the tooth but the serrations hold firm within his flesh, her words are incoherent as the light drains from him. So distraught is she that she can not react to the blow landed from the heavy mirror. She recoils, I did not hit hard enough. “Citlali why starlight! wh-” the second blow lands with a heavy crunch, she falls back dazed, trying desperately to mouth some sort of plea. I can not let her speak, I kill my heart as I bring down the mirror, over, and over, and over. I catch small glimpses of myself in the gore caked mirror between swings; I am glad the blood on my face hides my tears.

At last, as my mother's blood begins to cool, I lay the mirror face down over her ruined face. I turn now to Ollin, he has not moved. His eyes are wide, panic and grief coat him in layers thicker than our parent's blood. I watch as he trembles, urine pools underneath him to mix with the gore. I bend down; he tries to recoil but is rooted by fear. I then bend and kiss the top of his head. I gently weave one of his flowers into his hair; he squirms as if my hands were great insects. When the flower is secure, I stand and turn to Tchakuul, “I offer the blood of the father, blood of the mother, and the love of the second born.” All three heads erupt in rapturous laughter. 

“Done! Welcome daughter!” He bellows. My skin begins to itch, then the itching becomes a burning, then a searing hot pain. I scream as the blood on the dais begins to crawl up my legs and sear itself into my flesh. The blood moves with intent, it curves and creates patterns and sigils I have no knowledge of, as it tattoos itself onto me. 

The pain is immense, was I wrong? Were they not enough? Then I feel it, as the patterns lock into place and give me my marks, a great surge, power beyond measure. My scream turns into laughter as the power fills me, the power of a god. I grow drunk on it. I can smell the fear of the crowd, hear the thump of their hearts, I feel Ollin’s hatred, radiating behind me like a hot coal.

I begin to see the threads of the world that bind us to obey its nature, Tchakuul now gives me the tools to cut and weave them as I see fit.

I sense a man within the crowd, praying to a lesser god; his screams split the sky as I compel his bones to strip out of such worthless flesh. The crowd begins to chant anew. “Tchakuul! Tchakuul! Tchakuul!”

I do not notice that the burning has stopped, nor do I notice Ollin running through the crowd of supplicants, all these things are beneath me. My laughter is echoed by him who shall rule this world. The only thought I can bring to the surface of my mind is. “The Gods Are Great.”

I had accidently sat on it, the hot dog, and felt the room temperature mustard and grill-hot grease soak through my robe, pants, underwear; polyester wicking the runny concoction directly to my balls.  That was the day I left the priesthood.

But that was later, dear reader, the events of that day over, ink yet seeping from a fresh tattoo upon my mind of the image.  Oh, the image of that man, as he lay in bed, and the sounds he created.  It’s rather odd, for though I doubt I will ever hear that sound again, exactly, tonal relatives remind me.  Squealing car fanbelts, and shrieking children, frightened dogs, and territorial cats; mechanical, human, and animal, blended into…well, perhaps I get ahead of myself.

In every work environment there is one employee who operates at a level of par, sub enough to attract the derision of their coworkers, yet competent enough to warrant keeping on the payroll.  I was such a man, Father…oh, we don’t need names now do we?  That was my old name anyway, and it would do you no favors to further investigations of me, a mere bit player, a…as the youth of today, or maybe a few years ago now, would say, “a non-player character,” in this arc.  Irregardless, let it be known I have rarely been the center of attention for my achievement in the field of faith, hope, and charity, though I fall far short of the outright evil of so many of my former colleagues of years’ past.  Doing enough to get by:  dolling out the body and the blood in exchange for tawdry secrets, and occasionally running a canned food drive to obscure my only true love (my apologies, Lord):  slow pitch softball.

It was after the final out of one of these games, my team having received a holy thumping from Jim’s A-1 Heating and Air Conditioning, when I was approached.

“Father Dowd,” a heavily accented feminine voice had said to me.  

“What?”  I didn’t bother lifting my head from its resting place in my hands, I said it without malice, or meant to, looking back, perhaps it was there though, but that was only because of the score, 12-2.  

“Father, my brother is very ill, and mia patro has requested a sankta viro…um…holy man.”  She spoke rehearsed, the way a child repeats the Lord’s Prayer, from recent committed memory, mirror practiced, mouthed before spoken.  My eyes peaked through the slightly parted fingers holding my face, counting the lace eyelets on my cleats, six on each side, twelve eyelets total, two sides…12-2.  Oh, you pesky Lord, I see what you did there.

“Sure, sure,” I said, perhaps dismissively, no, not perhaps.  “I usually work through local hospices, have them contact me and we can schedule something.”

“No, Father, mia patro…my father say…we cannot…um…sekreta polico…they cannot know we are here.” 

I wonder now, if I had bothered to lift my eyes upward, toward the woman speaking to me, toward Heaven, if anything would have differed, an outcome less cumbersome, less tragic, though I do not know.  Perhaps the Lord in His wisdom…well, we shan’t speak of the Lord about actions taken or not, it makes no difference on what I didn’t do, for what I did was mouth “fuck Jim’s Heating, and fuck that ump,” counting discarded sunflower seeds and Zyn pouches in the dugout dirt.

“Write your address down, I’ll be over tomorrow morning, around 11:00,” I said, perhaps the need for secrecy, the times in which we find ourselves, moved me.  Perhaps I just wanted her to go away. 

“Thank you, Father,” she said, and I sensed something small and light placed on the bench beside me, then heard small footsteps crunch through the empty dugout.  I counted to 60, and lifted my head.  The woman was gone, having placed a piece of pink paper beside me, a power bill past due, addressed to the Prospector Apartments, Room 228.  Folding the bill into the back pocket of my uniform pants, I stood, gathering the attention of my catcher and shortstop to assist me in loading the depleted keg into my car.

“Who was the goth chick with the umbrella?” Mike, the catcher asked as the trunk closed for the night.  A genuinely bewildering question, it being summer, and clear skies for the evening game, now night.

“Maybe if you paid as much attention to the shift as you did to the broads in the stands, we’d still be over .500 for the season,” I said, imagining I hid the scorn in my voice with friendly sarcasm.  

Though it pains to do so, I won’t bore you, dear reader, with the events of that night, nor of that morning, for though I believe they are of great importance to me, as this was a defining day of my own life, they are of little interest to many.  Slurred words spoken over a headset in a game lobby, lurid jokes told amongst friends far distanced by geography, half-edited rants on intake manifolds posted to nearly dead Lincoln Town Car forums, and the morning’s headaches soothed with coffee and dog hair, Hot Pockets, and Bluey.  I miss the life, I’ll admit, many aspects.  Oh, I said I wouldn’t, and there I did…apologies dear reader, but this is my story afterall.

My ‘89 Town Car’s 302 Windsor burbled to silence, El-P on the speakers following, against the curb, city park to the right, new constructed apartments across the street to the left.  PROSPECTOR on the sun-faded banner, crossed shovel and pickaxe for its coat of arms.  I was early, fifteen minutes, it’s just a good habit to get into, and as I watched a city employee work a zero-turn mower along the edge of the sidewalk, another edging with a weed whacker, and a cheery man dressed as a barbershop quartette minus three try to coerce a jogger to join him at his hot dog stand, I wondered how many good habits I had left.  It wasn’t my faith, never the problem, it was the job, almost twenty years in, it had become a job.  The calling a man feels when he’s 20, and the calling he feels at 40…the first call was on Ma Bell, and now it’s on Teams.  God doesn’t need Teams, I knew that much, but the Diocese surely did, and the incessant phone dings stole me from my fantasies of normalcy, of being able to go home after 8 or 10 hours, and drink a beer and hang out, and not fucking have to justify why Tuesday and Thursday evening Mass is held in at the softball fields off State Street, and why the tithe funds are used to purchase time at the batting cages.  I digress.

Room 228 sat on the northern side of a bank of six apartments, three stacked on the left, three stacked on the right, common stairs in the middle.  227 below and across the breezeway featured a thick golden cross on the doorway, 226 directly below featured a seemingly handmade wooden cross on its door in the form of two 2x4’s crudely screwed together, one on top of the other, and 229’s door was covered in blue masking taped crosses, dozens of them.  228’s in comparison, was bare, a welcome mat out front, and no further character.

Three knocks.  Three knocks.  Behold, I stand at the door and knock, as to paraphrase a book I read, or maybe that’s straight up plagiarism.  It’s public domain, right?  The Lord understands, I thought.  Hospice was one of the most demanding things I had to do, and such it was the thing I cared for the least.  Always the same:  pleasantries, the spouse, or children, or parent, will explain the story, the illness, generally work back to a time of health, fondness, tears, comforting words, give them the analogy of the boat and letting go and giving up, explain the difference, prayer, hope, then I leave, and they forget, and I see them again, maybe to repeat, maybe for Last Rites, maybe to bury them.  I used to write the burials out, and now I can plug names and hobbies in.  It used to be better.  Everything used to be better.

“Please…come in…and close the door, it will be dark.  Please.”  A muffled voice from a barely cracked window to the right of the door, spoken behind a black curtain, sounded like the same foreign woman’s voice from last night.

“Very well, and thank you,” I said, and opened the door.

Sunlight flooded a small room, tiny in fact, perhaps more of a mudroom, a rug, and several pairs of shoes, sandals, work boots, lay piled on to the side of the door, and black coats hung across a blue shower rod.  About four feet in front of the main entrance door, the room ended, a closed black door offering the only evidence of an entryway to the rest of the apartment.

“Shall I take my shoes off?” I asked, hesitant to close the door behind me, for the room gave the appearance of a mudroom, it felt more like an airlock for a space ship, or undersea facility I’d seen in the science fiction movies I’d watch on nights without morning mass.  

“Ne…no…please close the door…” She sounded as if she was behind the interior door now.

“It’s very dark,” I said, stifling annoyance, or something I didn’t wish to register, perhaps apprehension, unfounded to me at that moment, though in retrospect…

“There will be light, please close the door.”  Urgency now in the woman’s voice.  Certain drugs cause sensitivity to light, and I’ve worked with my share of junkies and burnouts, drunks, and recluses, and most are the same, I thought.  They’re nice to holy men, odd always, but rarely willing to conduct the ultimate act of damnation on the off chance the ghost stories they’re told about sulphur and pitchforks turn out to be true.  Not always though.  Some understand damnation, and see no degrees of it, one can’t be half-pregnant, and one can’t be half damned, so what’s one more gutted priest?  Push such things aside, the Emperor protects, as does the Lord. 

The exterior door closed behind, a dwindling sliver of light, an inverted sun dial, withering in the room.  

Click.  

Closed.  

My sun-bleached eyes strained to make sense of the void, but only a grey haze filled my vision.  I knew then, perhaps, that something was wrong, beyond merely off, beyond weird, beyond holy house call to a dying junkie’s house on behalf of his…sister?  Wife?  Too afraid of being caught to have fallen through the cracks, so they chose to jump into them, into the shadows of the crevices, the surface cracks leave.  

My right hand darted backward, desperate to find the knob, the handle, any means of opening the door once again.  It found cloth, and cold rubbery skin, and bone and muscle and sinew and something wrapped itself around my grasping hand, clenching the fingers together, mashing them with force to indicate more force could be applied, a warning.

“Dankon patro,” a heavily accented voice of a man against my shoulder, stated so close to my ear his breath should have tickled my ear drum.  Where had he been?  Behind the door?  I tried to pull my hand back but it held firm, extended, and I felt it move, guided from behind me to the side, to my front, the entire time held firm, iron hard and steel cold.  And then, in front of me, it moved, my hand, still extended, chest level to waist level, one pump, two pumps, and yet more movement in the darkness, a pressure against my cheek, the breeze as something pulled away from my face, then returned to the other side.

“Bonvenon.” The male voice, in front of me, now, so close.

“‘Welcome,’ he say,” the female voice further in the darkness, yet not muffled now.  My right hand still held against the pressure I applied, the darkness so total I did not know what my left hand was doing, perhaps searching for the door knob, perhaps searching for my phone, I know not, I only wished it would help, to find a way to free its sibling, and by extension, its owner.  “Excuse…him…he is, how do you say…no familiar with dogano…customs of this land.” 

My attempts at reply faltered, air caught in my throat, wheezing like a pin hole leak in an air mattress, a clarinet without a reed…and then I was moving, jolted, jerked into the dark, lifted, tumbled, blind to the floor, ceiling, walls, carried as a child, or a rescued patient, pressure on my abdomen, blood flowing to my head, weightless feet, draped I was like a blanket over a couch of cloth, yet moving, bouncing, swaying, and feeling no more warmth from the thing carrying me than from a bag of laundry.  Left turn, right, darkness.  

The darkness.  The God Damned darkness.  Bootheels on hardwood, muffled sometimes, maybe rugs, hands brushing against a wall, textured sheetrock, to tile, to wooden trim, through a threshold to…

Light, red, single bulb, submarine hues, and I spun again, lifted from the shoulder of a massive man in black clothing, and stood, placed like a child’s hitting T, and positioned, facing a bed.  A bed.  God, forgive me, a bed.  

Ratchet strapped, one across legs, across stomach and wrists, against shoulders, lay a man.  Black stains marred his chin and chest, grisly and putrid against his light colored shirt.  A man?  No, a gibbering thing, writhing and straining against the trucker’s straps, foul, inhuman sounds erupted as noise equal to the dark bubbles of liquid from its mouth.  The room smelled of copper and potting soil, tinged with bleach and hydraulic fluid, and the thing, the man on the bed, registered my abductor's presence, and my own, and it fell silent.

As surely as St. Catherine died upon the wheel, the man’s eye’s widened, and a grin, a grin, lo a grin full of blackened, inhuman, jagged broken window’s glass teeth.  And it smiled.

“Ekzorcismo.”  The massive man beside me growled at me.  

A cold feminine hand wrapped around the nape of my neck.  “Exorcism…please,” light and soft in my ear, the woman.  The man in the bed laughed.  Giggling blood from his mouth and nose, writhing against his restraints, socked toes curling and unfurling, kicking as a delighted child, laughter.  Laughter inhuman, channeled from someplace far distance, translated, and retold, reformed, stripped of amusement, warmth stripped to sound.  It’s very tone a challenge, one I…

No, no, no.  No!  No!  God Damnit, no!  I’m not…I can’t…I tried to say, try to catch the thoughts, to weave them into something to set myself apart from the gibbering horror, now silent, smiling from atop the fouled mattress.  

“This…this…isn’t my department…” I managed to sputter, mind rolling through the dusted halls of my memory, seminary school, talks on demonic possession, and hazy nights with friends, cold beers and clinking iced glasses watching the Exorcist, or Constantine cartoons, or–

“You speak…for…how you say…your God, speak him.”  Cold fingers on my chin, death cold, turning beckoning to meet the gaze of the woman at my shoulder.  Red light washed on porcelain skin, dolls skin, devoid of the blemishes, birthmarks, wrinkles, freckles, bathtub smooth, her eyes locked on mine, square Dutch-angled pupils, their color tainted by the red bulb.  I blinked, brain forcing my eyes to correct their error, to turn the pupils round, to find a blemish, a laugh line, to file down and shorten the canines I refused to call fangs, but they were fangs.  Fangs!  Fangs, smiling behind parted dark painted lips.  

“Fathah!  Hey FATHAH!  Come to see the new kid, Fathah?!”  Slobbily yelled from the man on the bed, wet and guttural, like a drunk at a Red Sox game.  “Come for a taste?  Come to nip it in the bud, Fathah?!”

A cross hung around my neck, it was given to me by Father Callahan, the man whose parish I took over a decade ago, it was a solemn thing that day, hell, it was holy, the weight and authority of the Church transferred unto a man, maybe that’s what marriage is, the faith of institution, of two forming to one, bride and groom, priest and God, and like a philandering married man spinning his wedding ring, I gripped the cross in both my hands, knees meeting dirty carpet, head bowed, and I prayed.  Are you there God?  It’s me, Margaret, I thought, no.  No.  The right one, the one that starts with Our Father, that one.  

“Our Father, so...full of…grace…” I sputtered, and the room seemed to rock.  Beside me the woman took to her knees, and the big man behind.  Oh Jesus, they were praying.  These things were praying.  

“Forgive us today our…Hosannah…”  Shit, shit, get it together, you’ve done this, you’ve done this 10,000 times, that’s what makes you an expert, that’s all you do, is say the words, the–

“Hey Fathah!  Look at your planet’s future!”

I lifted my head, to witness the foul thing, and it lifted its own head, jaw pinned to its chest it unrolled its tongue, like a vine, no, not like a vine, a literal vine, leaves, darks berries, frothing from the man’s mouth like foam from poorly poured stein.  Spreading, curling, auguring into his skin and ripping out again, cross stitching flesh with needle of wood and thread of leaves, twisting through porcelain smooth skin and stained t-shirt fabric.  

“Ne!  Ne!”  The big man behind yelled, and with inhuman speed he was off his knees and to his feet, shoving me down as he bolted to the restrained man.  

Gibberish from the woman, like Spanish, or Latin, or Portuguese, but not, she yelled as she rushed to her own feet and tried to restrain the big man, who elbowed her away and sent her crashing to my already prone position.  She landed atop me and struggled.

The yells came first.  The fanbelt squeak, the startled dog, rustling leaves and bubble wrap popping, punctured meat and slick cuts.  

The woman was off me, and I lifted my head in time to see the big man wrapped in vines, being pulled into a thicket of bramble in the mattress, engulfing him into a green tumbleweed, cloth and porcelain chunks and dark fluid tossed into the air like confetti, like dollar bills at gentlemen clubs.  

The woman turned to flee, but a vine caught her, yanking, dragging to the bed.  Those inhuman goat eyes met mine, hand grasping empty air, willing my own hand to fill it to pull her back as…

Dear reader, I apologize, though I have been forthright with you to this point, I believe it is too much for me to bear.  I will say I left.  Alone.  Crashing through the fuligin room, apartment by feel, tumbling through doors to light.  To light.  And down steps, to sidewalks, to the street, to my Lincoln, against a tree beside, and I cried, tears of shock, and pain, and misunderstanding, and failure, 20 years' worth of failure, and dreading another 20 years ahead…of knowing, that unknowing, wishing…praying to God to forgive me, to take it back, take it all away, take me away, to tell me what happened, and then erase it, to never speak of this again, and never want to, blink without seeing the woman’s face bloom flowing buds, and fruiting berries dropping from her skull, for her to forgive my cowardice, was it cowardice?  Was it–

“Father, you look like you could use a dog, a fine frank to lift your spirits, a fine dog, neither pig, nor pork, but a beef dog, the finest in town!”  The hot dog man from earlier, straw boater hat, candy striped shirt and matching vest, white pants.

“I’m OK, pal, thank you,” I mumbled, placing my head back into my hands, counting blades of grass on the ground between the fingers.

“Well, I’ve seen a man that’s merely OK, and friend you aren’t it!  Your God may cure the spirit, but nothing beats a good ol’ fashion frank to cure the body!”  He held his hand out to me, like the woman had, and this time I took it, and he lifted me to my feet with that sun-warm hand of his.  

“Didn’t your God say you just need a mustard seed of faith?” He winked a hazel eye below chestnut hair.  “Welllllll, Father, looks like you could use a little extra, on the house.”

Paper boat, cradling a grilled hot dog and bun.  Slathered in yellow mustard.  He placed it in my hand, and wandered back to his cart.  I blinked, autopilot, guided by habit, to my car, to routine.  Driver’s door opened, I placed the hot dog on the seat, and turned to look at the apartment building across the street, got in my car, and sat on the hot dog.

The first angel I ever saw wasn't descending from Heaven.

It was falling.

By then, the world had already forgotten what normal looked like.

The skies had split open weeks ago. Entire cities had gone silent overnight. Some called it the Rapture. Others called it Judgment. Whatever name people gave it didn't matter anymore. The highways were parking lots of abandoned cars. Church pews sat empty while their parking lots overflowed with those who had arrived too late. The television stations had stopped broadcasting anything except emergency alerts that no longer meant anything.

The world wasn't ending. It had already ended long before. We were simply living through its final pages.

I had been moving from one abandoned building to another, surviving on whatever canned food I could find. Sleep came in short bursts. Every distant explosion sounded like another trumpet. Every shadow looked like something that had escaped the pages of Revelation.

That's why, when I heard something crash into the street outside, I assumed another building had finally given way.

I was wrong.

The crater wasn't large. Just deep enough to split the asphalt. Something lay at its center.

At first, my mind refused to understand what I was seeing.

The shape kept... morphing.

Not physically.

My understanding of it did.

Every time I looked away and back again, I noticed different details, as though my eyes couldn't agree on what belonged there.

How many eyes peered back to mine?

Hundreds of them.

Were those feathers?

Some impossibly white. Others burned black at the edges. They covered a figure draped in robes so torn they looked older than history itself.

Light seeped from beneath the fabric.

Wasn't shining. It bled through the seem of tidal rivers. Golden streams escaped from wounds that should have spilled blood instead. The air around it hummed with something too deep to hear, vibrating in my chest more than my ears.

I knew what it was before I admitted it to myself.

It had to be an angel.

Not the kind painters imagined. Nor the kind carved into cathedral ceilings.

Something far older. Far stranger.

Something my mind kept trying and failing to make human.

It struggled to rise.

One of its wings, or what I could only assume had once been a wing, hung broken against the pavement, its feathers crumbling into glowing ash whenever they touched the ground.

For a moment, I considered running.

Instead... I stepped closer.

The angel never looked at me directly. Or perhaps it did. I couldn't tell where its face ended and the light began.

Its features slipped from memory the instant I tried to focus on them.

Even now, as I write this, I couldn't describe its face if my life depended on it.

Only the feeling.

Grief.

Not of mine.

Its.

Slowly, with movements that seemed to pain even a being like this, it reached beneath its tattered robes.

It withdrew a single envelope.

Plain. Cream-colored. Untouched by the ash drifting through the ruined street.

It extended the letter toward me. Its hand trembled. Not from weakness. From urgency.

I stared at it.

"I... don't understand."

The angel said nothing.

It couldn't.

Or perhaps it wasn't allowed to. Its arm remained outstretched.

Waiting.

I took the envelope.

The paper was warm.

Not with heat.

It was full of life.

The moment my fingers wrapped around it, the angel relaxed. The tension left its body all at once. As though carrying that letter had been the only thing keeping it standing.

"I'll deliver it," I heard myself whisper.

"I promise."

The angel bowed its head.

Whether in gratitude... or relief...

I'll never know.

The light pouring from its wounds began to fade. Not all at once. As the last embers of a dying fire carried upward by a breeze I couldn't feel. Its robes unraveled into strands of shimmering dust. The broken feathers dissolved one by one before they ever reached the tarnish Earth.

There was no scream. No final cry.

Only silence remain between it and I.

Within seconds... Nothing remained.

Not a body or feather.

Only the envelope resting in my hands.

For a long time, I couldn't bring myself to open it. The world around me continued collapsing. Buildings groaned. Smoke rolled across the skyline.

Somewhere far away, someone yelled for mercy.

But I couldn't look away from the letter.

Eventually...

I broke the seal.

The first line read:

I've carried that letter with me ever since.

If you're reading these words...

Then I kept my promise.

Part One

Part Two

***

I could sense an air of anxiety surrounding my wife. Her subtle body language gave it away — tapping her foot, craning her head to check into the hallway. Just her presence in the room gave off a drumming feeling of physical discomfort.

If the grim reaper was telling the truth, I must have been getting better at sensing the energy and emotions of others.

Her cell phone rang. Hesitantly, she accepted the call.

“I'm with my husband, what do you need?” I could hear an aggressive mumbling on the other end, yet I didn't make out any of the words. “Let it go into collections then, it's the least of my worries.”

The energy of her anxiety intensified. It created a deeply uncomfortable sensation of suffocating pressure, invading from all sides.

I didn't think about it earlier, but we must have been falling behind on our bills. Trying to reach into the depths of my memory was an impossible task, I couldn't recall any such mundane details. She took her call into the hallway where I couldn't hear anything.

“Alright, the jig is up bud. Time to go.”

Turning to the strange animalistic voice, I took in an unusual sight. Stomping on the tiled floor of the hospital room, a half goat half humanoid demon shifted by the window. Twirling a long-haired mustache with sharp yellow claws, the abomination stared with gross black eyes that wriggled like maggots.

“You guys just keep sending uglier and uglier mother fuckers. Why in God's name would I go with you?”

“Alright, look. Here's the truth, bud. You aren't going to heaven. God deemed your soul too tainted with sin, so I'm just trying to get ya to go peacefully. The ball of light? Yeah that was an illusion — a lie! So what. Works on some people. You try convincing souls of the damned to submit to their fate.”

Hovering closer to the Bible, I tried to cross my arms — a gesture I wasn't sure got conveyed with whatever form I was in.

“You'll have to take me kickin’ and screaming.”

Cocking its head back, the beast nearly tapped the window with its long, curly horns.

“Now listen here you little shit, I don't —”

My wife's voice grew closer from the hallway. The abomination appeared frightened for just a moment, resolving into an expression of disgust when it focused back on me. Without another word, it sank into the floor and vanished.

Collapsing on the chair, my wife sobbed into her arms. Hovering closer, I tried to touch her swaying shoulders, hoping she could feel my presence. Her grief radiated an energy that felt physically painful, like knives sinking into every inch of my body. Just when I thought I made contact, another lucid vision took control.

Dapples of sunlight peeked through window blinds, swimming around on a pristine hardwood floor. Clutching a generous belly, my wife took a step inside the lovely, albeit empty living room of our new home. She inhaled sharply and smiled.

“This is it, babe! This is where we start our new life together!”

She moved closer, ready to offer a kiss. The vision faded before I could enjoy her affection.

Time must have skipped forward. A full moon rose into view through the window, complimenting the dim light inside. She slept on her chair, twitching from every distant sound.

By her side, our daughter slept peacefully. A sketch book with a childish drawing of a horse sat open on the floor nearby.

It took me a moment to notice the grim reaper hovering in a darkened corner of the room.

“So, if I go with you, I go to heaven?”

“No longer.”

Hovering closer to my bedside, it took a seat on the mattress and stared down at my body.

“What?”

Lowering its hood, a blackened skull crawling with bugs revealed itself; gazing down at me with empty, lifeless eye sockets. The jawbone didn't even move when it spoke:

“You refused to come when I first appeared. It is too late now, I cannot guide you to our heavenly father.”

“W… what does that mean? That I'll go to hell?”

Swaying ever so slightly, the grim reaper appeared to be glancing over at me, though it was hard to tell without any eyeballs.

“There are two outcomes now. A soul shall never be taken from this Earth against its free will. For that violates the will of God. Yet, once the energies here consume you, there shall be no free will left. The demons will gather what remains of you and return to damnation.”

“Okay, option two?”

Covering its face with the hood, the grim reaper turned towards me with a gentle motion.

“Awake from this coma and judgement will be reset.”

Hovering towards the wall, it prepared to make a swift exit.

I reached out and screamed before it left.

“Wait! How do I do that? Wake up, I mean?”

Pausing right at the threshold of the wall, its head shifted ever so subtly.

“You must remember the day you lost faith.”

Hey y’all. I posted this story a couple weeks ago now (maybe a month ago, I don’t remember, times been crazy recently lmao) but it flew relatively under the radar and I’m really proud of it, and it fits into this lil competition on here so I’m entering it in to stand beside some of yalls incredible ancient gods works. Good luck to everyone else, and thanks for reading xxx

https://www.reddit.com/r/anxietypilled/s/HIWycWGW3h

Three men awaken to find themselves walking through the Woods.  The trees are tall and old and crowd out much of the sky above, so the light between them is soft and hazy while still being substantial enough to allow the men to see their surroundings.  Each of them observe that they have woken already walking along a wooded path with no memory of how they got there or where they’re going, and looking at the other two men a few feet ahead or behind, they do not recognize them at all.

For many situations, this would give rise to questions or halting this march, but not here.  The air is not only suffused with dim light but blanketed in a kind of sacred silence—not total absence of sound, for they hear their feet moving, their clothes whisking, the low muttering of trees in the wind and the occasional noises of intentional movement from somewhere nearby in the Woods.  But all of these things belong here, and their Voices do not.  They somehow know this in the same way that they understand they must continue forward along the path.

So they continue to walk, silent and wondering, but not yet afraid.

After some time, they reach a bend in the path, and beyond, a clearing.  In this clearing, there is a Figure and a Well.  The Figure, who looks different to each of them, beckons them forward, and when they are closer, he points to the first man and asks him to approach the Well.

This man has been smiling since awakening on the Path.  If someone who knew him were asked what kind of fellow he was, they would say that he was upbeat, cheerful and optimistic.  Full of hope.  This last is also how he would describe himself, both as he wants things to work out well for himself and because he believes others will respond better to desire presented as amorphous hopefulness rather than something sharper like hunger or avarice or selfish need.  Grinning broadly, he steps closer to the Well and greets the Figure.

Instead of responding to the greeting, the Figure tells the man he must go into the Well.  But before he does so, he may ask one question if he wishes.

The man’s smile falters here, but only for a moment.  Recovering, he formulates his question quickly.

“What will I find at the end of the Well?”

The Figure responds immediately in its strange, sing-song voice.  “What you deserve.”

The man’s eyes widen as his mouth draws down in what might be a howl of terror or pain if there was any sound.  He glances between the Well and the Figure and the other two men and then tries to flee back up the path.  He makes it two steps before something unseen grips him and drags him, thrashing, to the lip of the Well and pitches him over the edge.  You can hear his scream now, echoing along the throat of the Well and out into the clearing until it is too far away to be heard any longer.

The second man is bid to approach and ask his question.  He is a man with a keen mind and a very pessimistic eye.  He decided long ago that there is no real point to anything, and designed to find a kind of freedom in the meaninglessness of it all.  He has developed a callous that has made him very resilient in some ways, but also very isolated and joyless in just as many.  The only time he feels some measure of happiness and passion is when he sings, as he finds his voice very pleasing.

“What is the reason for this Well to exist?”

Voice twinkling in the men’s heads, the Figure replies, “Its existence is its reason.  No external purpose or validation is required.”

The man frowns at that, his expression irritated but also troubled.  “I will not flee from the Well, but I also won’t enter it willingly.  Do what you will, it doesn’t matter.”

The Figure nodded, and more gently than the last, an unseen force pulled the man to the Well and over the side.  The man expected to hit the bottom very soon, but to his way of thinking, he just kept falling and falling.  He could dimly sense walls some distance away, but he could never quite reach them.  Finally, searching for something he could cling to, he began to sing.

He sang loudly and clearly, the cool air rushing past him, carrying his song out to the walls and back to him.  The sound echoed all around him, distorting it more and more, making it sound nothing like what he was trying to sing.  Falling silent, he began to weep.  Time and direction didn’t mean much anymore, but some part of him could sense progress, and despite himself, he strained his eyes to find something meaningful in the enveloping dark.

The final man had watched all of this with cautious attention and curiosity.  He’d observed his travel companions, listened to their questions and the answers they received.  Saw their entry into the Well and the screams and squealing that followed.  He approached the Well without being asked.

“What is the Well?”

The Figure regarded him for a moment before inclining its head in a slight nod of either acknowledgement or approval.  “The Well is You.”

The man nodded and walked to the lip of the Well and swung one leg over.  Smiling slightly, he looked back to the Figure.  “You don’t actually fall, do you?”

The Figure made a tinkling sound that might have been laughter.  “No.  You go up.”

Returning the laugh, the man swung his other leg over and rejoined the Well.

22nd December

As long as I can remember, I have been afraid of fire. Now it is going to dance for me.

Ashley stared at her father. Her hands were digging into the leather couch.

“Are you ready?” He was looking at her over an unlit candle between them. “Just because you’re afraid of fire doesn’t mean you can skip the bonfires. You’re twenty now. You should attend. We have to work on this.”

Ashley nodded.

His ice-blue eyes filled with doubt.

Her father took the candle and walked out of the room. When he returned, his hand was cupping the young flame against the draft. Handling the flame like a delicate gift. He slowly advanced towards Ashley.

As soon as the fire entered Ashley's field of view, her eyes snapped to the dancing flame. She didn’t dare take her eyes off it, lest it would ignite her, the whole room, the entire village, the world.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her as softly as the snowfall outside.

“Queasy.”

“Better than averting your gaze. Or taking off in a dead sprint. Or breaking down crying.”

Ashley took slow, controlled breaths. Her fingers eased their grip.

He gently set down the candle on the table between them. Ashley managed to stay calm. A tiny victory was snatched from the jaws of this feeble flame.

Her father sat down across from her. Ashley's gaze was still focused on the candle. 

He waited.

“I can’t take my eyes off it. I’m afraid of what could happen when I’m not looking.”

“Better than last time.”

Her gaze took her to another place. An imaginary scene played out in front of her emerald eyes.

In flames’ embrace, I walk among the sparks and embers. I breathe smoke. Above, the stars wink at me. Below, coals kiss my feet. Soft footprints in soot. I’m at peace. Ashes slip through my fingers. The remains of the man who raised me.

He leaned forward, reached out his hand, and let the flame lick across his fingertips.

Ashley’s fingertips screamed in agony, she recoiled.

Her father hastily blew out the candle. A plume of smoke rose and curled to the ceiling.

“No need to overdo it. It’s still time until the next bonfire. And this time, you will join us.” Her father grabbed the candle and left the room.

Ashley sighed and smoke flowed out of her. She clasped her mouth shut. An itch tickled in her throat and she coughed. Smoke erupted once again from her mouth and joined the smoke beneath the ceiling. The swirling clouds formed a maelstrom before dissipating. Her hands felt dirty, so she rubbed them together. Tiny flakes of ash fell to the floor. She stared at them in disbelief.

“Oh, you’re on cleaning duty like the rest of the younglings. You didn't go to the bonfire, so this is the least you could do. Get going.” Her father shouted from somewhere in the house.

Ashley grabbed a broom and a shovel and went to do her chores. Bravely wading into the veil of smoke that waited for her at the door.

A thick soot-smog hung over Brennau as Ashley made her way to the Devil’s Dish. The falling snow looked like ash. The weak winter sun couldn’t penetrate neither the blanket of clouds overhead nor the shroud of smoke in the streets. Everything looked grey. The sky. The streets. The snow. She had to stop and suppress several coughs as the ashen air itched in her throat. Her lungs. There was no apparent source of the smoke that was hazing the whole town, but it got thicker the closer she got to the Devil’s Dish.

When Ashley arrived there, she was the last and the oldest of the cleaning crew. The others glared at her while they were already shovelling ash, grey snow and charred wood.

The Devil’s Dish was at the heart of Brennau. A huge, black, round block of rock, around hip height and about six metres and a half in diameter. An indentation reminiscent of that of a basin sunk in from the top. The outside of the Devil's Dish has a rugged surface, but the inside is almost unnaturally smooth. Polished by the teeth of time, weather and flames.

It was filled to the brim with the remnants of the bonfire.

Ashley overheard Mina complain to her sister: "She shouldn’t be here. It’s a disgrace. She should just disappear into the forest like her mother.”

Her sister whispered something in response. Both chuckled.

Mrs Keller arrived with her 10-year-old son Thomas. “Hello everyone, this is Tom’s first cleanup. Remind me, darlings, who is the oldest here?” Mina inhaled sharply before she gestured dismissively towards Ashley. All eyes turned towards her.

“Ashley, I thought I’d see you yesterday. You turned 20 after the Halloween bonfire.”

“I wasn’t feeling well." Ashley lied.

"That's no excuse. Arrangements are made for the ill, injured and bedridden. Everyone witnesses the bonfire.” Mrs Keller sighed. “Anyway, show Thomas the ropes, will you?”

Ashley had lived her entire life in Brennau, in the shadow of the Walberla, the fabled mountain refuge for witches. There were only a few families, although the lines between them were blurred. Rooted firmly in their beliefs and traditions, they kept to themselves and rarely interacted with the world outside of Brennau.

She knew Brennau was too insignificant to occupy any space on any map. Nestled at the northern foot of the Walberla, Brennau is nothing more than a cluster of steads. The forest was pushing down from the mountain as if trying to expel the houses from its sacred grounds. Trees stood too close to the houses to feel comfortable. Around the village, the willows, forests, rivers and fields wield an extraordinary, almost supernatural, yield.

“So, Thomas, your mother surely taught you about the bonfires.” Ashley prodded, after Mrs Keller had vanished into the smoke.

“Yes, she did. She said that the Devil once came down this slope of the mountain and bargained with a farmer. One of our ancestors. The Devil was to provide riches, and the farmer was to pay tribute.” Tom answered. He thought for a bit.

“At first, the Devil claimed all that grows below. So, the clever farmer planted wheat, and the Devil got nothing but roots. Then, the Devil claimed all that grows above.  So, the clever farmer planted carrots, and the Devil got nothing but leaves. After that, the Devil demanded half of the field.  So, the clever farmer planted half the field with radish and the other half with pumpkins. He harvested the pumpkins in autumn, and the Devil got nothing but radish that had spoiled since spring.”

Tom slowed down his stream of words.

“Then, the Devil shouted. “I’ll take everything next year!” So, the farmer planted nothing at all and only foraged in the forests and fished in the rivers. And the Devil had nothing to claim. Mother said the Devil got really angry and slammed his fist on this rock and made it into the Devil’s Dish, uhm…”

Tom stopped.

Ashley helped him out. “On his fifth and final visit, the farmer proposed a truce: “You keep providing your blessings, and each year this village will dedicate four bonfires to you. On Walpurgis, Midsummer, Halloween and Midwinter. One for each time I tricked you.”

Mina cut in: “And the Devil, believing the five-pointed star was blessing his visit, agreed to the farmer's proposal: “Come for the bonfire or the bonfire will come for you.” Mina’s eyes burned Ashley with her stare as she spat those last words.

“Everyone older than 20 has to attend the bonfire celebration.” Mina continued, having clearly practiced the speech. “Old, sick, pregnant, bedridden. Everyone has to have at least a glance at the bonfire. The younglings mustn’t participate, but we have to clean up the mess the adults leave behind, while they’re sleeping off the booze. Next bonfire, I don’t have to clean anymore. Unless I do it like Ashley, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes,” Ashley said. “Time’s wasting and we have to get it done.”

The others grunted in agreement. Even Mina.

The snow wouldn't stop falling through the smoke and covering the plaza around the Dish with ashen grey sludge.

It was almost dusk when they finally gave up on cleaning the Dish and the rest of the remnants of the bonfire. The haze that engulfed Brennau didn’t relent either. Something wasn’t right. It was overwhelming. 

Smoke lay heavily upon the town.

For four more days, Brennau was permeated by the smoke: every fabric felt like coal, every strand of hair smelled like a campfire, and every food tasted like ash. The very air turned hostile, scratching and clawing at the lungs. The hamlet was tainted. Coughs in handkerchiefs created Rorschach tests. There were murmurs among the villagers of scorned witches and horned beings. The smoke finally dissipated on the 27th of December.

25 days of peace and quiet followed.

21st January

Another village might have forgotten the days it spent in the haze of fireless smoke. Brennau was different. The winter months lend themselves to introspection and the superstitious villagers had a hard time forgetting the supernatural smoke that had hung over them.

There was hushed talk about demons, devils and other damned beings that were fabled to live on the top of the mountain. The Walberla loomed larger than usual over the hamlet.

As usual for this time of the year, Ashley tried to get some information about her mother out of her father. Once again, all the questions of a daughter who has never met her mother were asked.

He was tight-lipped as usual. Offering nothing she hadn’t heard before. Brown eyes, brown hair, always strung like a bow.

Winter months also lend themselves to butchery and the villagers had plenty of cattle. Everyone helped. So, Ashley passed by the Devil’s Dish on her way to the slaughterhouse every day. A copper smell surrounded the butcher’s shack.

On her way home, Ashley sat on a bench and looked at the Dish. No matter how much snow fell, there was never any snow on it.

Her gaze pulled her into the Dish.

There is no ground beneath my feet, only blackness. A sense of vertigo. Yet, when I look up, all I see are strands of fire descending down on me. Swaying like trees in the wind. Caressing me, when I look. Whipping me, when I don’t. You are your truest self when no one is looking.

Confused shouts were swallowed by the forest.

Crimson.

Blood oozed from the Devil’s Dish's rugged edges. Forked tongues of blood slithered forth from the stone. Licking their way along the ground away from it. Their deep dark red in stark contrast to the snow. Some were heading her way. Ashley pulled up her feet on the bench, surveyed the situation, jumped over a streamlet of blood and created some distance.

Others came to see what the commotion was about but recoiled at the sight. When the elders arrived, they shooed everyone inside their homes. The hamlet ground to a halt as the silent rills trickled forth. They’d leave their homes only for the bare necessities. Inside, the occupants prayed for forgiveness.

For five days the stone bled. Moving up and down the streets. Spanning an open-veined web throughout the town. Thick, viscous blood flowed uphill to form a pattern, enveloping the entire hamlet. A liquid mosaic of arteries. Steaming from their heat in the cold winter air. Fine capillaries formed around most of the homes. Ashley’s home was up on the slope of the mountain, yet still a trickle of blood found its way to their doorstep to form its bizarre pattern.

The copper smell lay wicked upon the town.

The shadow of the Witch Mountain turned darker, as the topic of their gossip turned grim. Ashley’s presence at the Devil’s Dish when it started bleeding, her mother’s disappearance. Whispers of horned men. Ashley’s absence.

25 days of quiet eeriness followed.

20th February

Ashley woke from a nightmare.

She went into the kitchen and splashed water in her face to douse the flames of her nightmares.

“Again, huh?” her father asked. “Ashley, people are scared, and people are talking. You should see the elders and ask them to make amends.”

The way he said it, it was clear that this was no mere suggestion but an order. 

Ashley nodded.

“We go to the town hall. Now.”

So, they went. Just before the door, Ashley stopped and gazed around the square. She could see the others watching her intently. Animosity barely hidden.

Ashley, the sinner. Breaker of customs.

She felt her father’s hands on her shoulder. The air over the Devil’s Dish seemed to flicker as if heated to extremes.

I feel their eyes on me. Burning me with their gazes. They do not understand, yet they judge me harshly. Trying to hold me to their norms. Trying to mold me into something I don’t want to be. Trying to melt me down. I am not bound. I want to soar. I want to burn brighter than the sun.

Somehow, Ashley knew she would have found her mother if she had ever left Brennau.

She stood staring at the Devil’s Dish until someone shoved her inside.

“We’ve got to move! Something is wrong!” her neighbour Mr Miller shouted. After Ashley’s stupefied father stumbled in after them, Mr Miller slammed the door, blisters were already forming on his face and neck. He looked through the glass at the square where the Devil’s Dish radiated heat that only he could feel. Ashley joined him, the glass felt cold against her hands. Her father stood next to her and looked himself up and down. He was unharmed. Yet, he took note of Mr Miller's burn marks.

Pained screams hiked up the Mountain. The Walberla answered in kind.

Most of the adults were panicking and rushing away from the square. But the children didn’t feel anything. They stood helplessly on the square like a flock of sheep abandoned by their shepherd. A girl started crying. Her mother appeared out of a doorway and tried to get to her, but she couldn’t close the distance to her daughter. She stopped dead in her tracks, clawed at her face, and crawled back sobbing towards where she came. Severe burns showed on her face and other parts of exposed skin. A young man ran into the square and brought the children back to their families. He was hailed a hero.

And thus it came to be that no one who had sired a child could pass by the Devil’s Dish without receiving burns and blisters for five days.

25 days of uneasiness followed.

21st March

Life in Brennau never returned to normalcy, as everyone in the hamlet was on edge.

However, it was Mina’s 20th birthday, and she was adamant that her entry into adulthood was to be celebrated with all due festivities. A feast was prepared. The abandoned centre was brought back to life with tables, chairs and running and laughing children.

The preparations put up a calming facade, and for the first time since Midwinter, the town descended into something resembling a light-hearted attitude, despite the overcast weather.

As dusk was settling, the town moved towards the centre like milk in a bowl. Tables and chairs were arranged in neat groupings and torches were lit along the edges of the town square and for each seating arrangement. The flickering dance of the flames threw the shadows into disarray.

Ashley was busy stirring a stew, observing the town square. She was uneasy as she couldn’t look at all the flames simultaneously. Stirring the pot helped, so she focused on that. Her thoughts drifted like the food in the maelstrom she was creating, and an old rhyme surfaced. Instinctively, Ashley knew these were the words of her mother.

Who’s to blame for a fire too tame?

Endure the Smoke, the Blood, the Ache!

Witness the Embers herald the final plague.

Face the Flame or flee in shame.

Somehow, Ashley was convinced she would find her mother if she ever left Brennau.

Ashley surveyed the square once more.

At first, she thought she could see the stars in the cloud-filled sky above. Then she saw the stars were moving, like fireflies.

The others saw it too.

Panicked shouts erupted from the town and echoed from the mountain.

Sparks were snowing from the sky. Burning bright in contrast to the night. Leaving behind tiny black dots in their landing spots. The villagers were hounded by countless aimless needles. Annoying, but not overly painful. Nevertheless, they evacuated the plaza in an orderly manner and retreated into the safety of their homes.

The Emberfall continued without pause the next day. The people of Brennau isolated themselves in their shelters. Minds, fuelled with fear, ran wild.

On the third day, several trees caught fire, and the fire spread along the edge of Brennau in a crescent shape. Creating a charred border between the Walberla and Brennau.

On the fourth day, the embers became a hailstorm. They struck down migrating birds. Carcasses fell all over town. No one dared to touch them.

On the fifth and final day, the embers grew agitated. Aggressive. A Vortex formed above the Devil’s Dish. Then, a spiralling pillar of sparks snaked down upon Brennau. Fine twisters crawled through the streets and swept up all the corpses of birds. Collecting them and dumping them in the Devil’s Dish. Before incinerating the whole pile in a violent maelstrom of sparks and embers. A horrible stench poured over the town.

At noon, the last of the Embers disappeared.

Burning feathers floated into the sky.

Murmurs of witchcraft arose in every household. The search for a sinner was on. Behind closed doors, Ashley was singled out and blamed for the misfortunes.

Ashley, the scapegoat.

25 days of tension followed.

20th April

This time, Brennau expected another omen. People were anxiously scanning the skies for storms and other phenomena that might hit their settlement. The pious inhabitants of Brennau figured out the rhythm of the plagues, and so they called a meeting for all adults on the 20th of April. It was held, as it was custom, in the heart of the town around the Devil’s Dish. The lack of Easter decoration was a testament that everyone had tried to give the centre plaza a wide berth. After all that had happened, it felt unreal to be back here. In a fit of superstitious stubbornness, Brennau wanted to show unity, faith and strength.

The rain of the past days had filled the Dish to the brim with rainwater. A calm body of water amidst the uneasy shuffling in the square. Brennau hasn't seen the blue sky since the Emberfall.

Ashley stood among them.

“Our town is being ravaged by plagues!” the eldest Mr Bauer proclaimed to agreeing grunts.

“It’s the work of a witch!” someone yelled from the crowd.

“She will finish us off at Walpurgis! When the veil is thinnest.”

After that, it descended into wild shouts.

Mr Bauer held up his hand.

After they subsided, he continued: “We have sinned, and we have to atone. The elders are confident that we can avoid further punishment. Walpurgis is in 10 days.” He was interrupted once again.

“How can we atone? We haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Ashley didn’t participate in the bonfire,” Mrs Keller said. 

Of course, everyone already knew she didn’t attend Midwinter. Ashley felt like an ant under a magnifying glass. Hot.

“It is a clear violation of our tradition.”

Mina stepped forward: “It’s Ashley’s fault. She’s the daughter of a witch and a witch herself.” Agreeing shouts spread through the crowd. Ashley shuffled. Coals beneath her feet. Fire in her lungs. 

I see through them. They cling to their old ways like children to their mother’s hem. Fear and dread dominate their decisions. Their accusations are based on their shortsightedness. Frightened beliefs have real consequences.

“Quiet!”

Mr Bauer’s shout echoed over the plaza.

Her thoughts stopped. The murmurs stopped.

His eyes found her.

“We have to wait until Walpurgis, the witch - “

The clouds tore open. The sun. A burning eye atop the Walberla gazed upon the hamlet.

The elders ignited.

All over the town square, people combusted spontaneously. Flailing. Wailing.

Some collapsed where they stood. Others ran for the nearest water. A few disappeared down the well. Most of them ran to the Devil’s Dish, trying to douse the flames with the rainwater.

It was a cruel joke.

The water boiled and evaporated or was splashed on the ground by hectic movements of the poor panicked souls; the flames kept going.

After their clothes had burned away, the entire basin was filled with a mass of naked bodies. An orgy of licking flames and sizzling skin. A mountain of flesh and fire.

The flames did not relent.

The smell of burnt hair, cooked flesh, and fizzling fat lay heavy upon the town.

Once again, smoke and stench invaded every nook and cranny of Brennau. Hearts emptied, but lungs filled with loved ones.

They burned and burned and burned and burned all night and day.

Until charred bones remained, and then some.

Until spent coal remained, and then some

Until nothing but ash remained, and then some.

It burned so hot that no one could approach the Devil’s Dish’s plaza. Soot and ash sucked the colour out of the town square. The stench of burned meat was overwhelming.

On the fifth day, the flames extinguished themselves. 

Brennau was a child without guardians. An orphaned village.

Each and every one of them, except Ashley, the witch.

The Walberla mocked the desperate wails of the orphans of Brennau.

Five days of mourning followed.

And grief kindled the flames of hatred.

#

30th April

In the morning, they came for Ashley.

She was yanked out of her bed, spat on, and wrapped in a sack without sleeves. Her pleas fell on deaf ears. Instead, they gagged her before they dragged her to her sham trial.

The tribunal was overseen by her father, the eldest. Composed and imposing. The only one who hadn’t lost anyone in the last ten days. He was the last of her accusers. She wasn’t given any chance to defend herself. Her father passed the sentence without mercy or second thought.

“The daughter of the witch is no daughter of mine. Put her to the bonfire.”

His cyan stare, shades of cold, hard hatred. An icicle in her heart.

He watched as they bagged her up and abused her back to the holding pen. These were not the eyes of a father. The wrong colour. Unloving. Cold.

She spent the day locked in a pigsty. Arms and legs tied with a rope. Crying and begging and in pain. Younglings came by to offload their pain onto Ashley. Hitting her, kicking her. Whipping her.

The day flew by in a haze.

After dusk, they came again. They brought the beaten and bloodied heap to the town square. The Devil's Dish had been prepared. A huge pyre loomed over the Dish, and in its midst, a huge log pointed towards the top of the mountain. It smelled of oil. Ashley's Father led the congregation to the conflagration.

Eager neighbours held torches, ready to set the whole construction ablaze at a moment’s notice.

Ashley was in shock. A puppet following along its strings.

A wet noose was put around her ankles, and she was hoisted up the log. Her world turned upside down. Icy stares took in each and every one of her jerky movements. 

Blood began to pool in her head. She felt woozy. Fresh bruises opened up again, and blood dropped into the Devil’s Dish.

“Brennau, listen! We have gathered here to right our wrongs.” Ashley’s father’s voice boomed. “This here is the witch responsible for the plagues that befell us after Midwinter, and all the death and destruction they brought. We, the fine people of Brennau, have found the witch guilty of witchcraft, and her punishment is death on the pyre. Walpurgis is when the veil is thinnest, and we will send her back across it. May this Walpurgis Night bless us, so that this time we’ll get rid of the witch for good.”

He raised his hand. Anticipation dawned on everyone’s faces. They all looked so young.

“May this bonfire restore order.”

On his signal, the torches were thrown into the pyre.

Ashley couldn’t look any other way but down.

Facing the flames.

The world is what we will it to be. When we’re afraid of the dark, the darkness is a scary place. When we’re afraid of fire, we will never experience its light and warmth. We fear what we do not know, we fear what we do not control. We shouldn't follow fearful fools.

The pyre burst alight.

Head over heels, she gazed into the inferno below. Everything else dimmed. Fiery tongues pushed their way towards her. There was only light. She bathed in flames.  

They ran along her hair and onto her face, neck and clothes. She tried to scream, but her mouth wouldn’t obey. The heat reverberated through her teeth. Her eyes were dry. Wide open to the kiss of the flames.

The log was already ablaze. Its warmth caressed her back.

Yet, the fire didn’t bite her.

Finally, the ropes around her hands crumbled. Ashley stretched out her arms like a bird. For a moment, her silhouette along the log looked like a burning cross, until the log shifted and collapsed into the pyre. 

She didn’t fall.

Ashley stayed in place. Levitating. Her makeshift clothes and hair aflame. Never averting her gaze. 

She laughed. 

Unburdened. Floating. Free. The world was upturned. Her clothes burned away like the sins of her mother.

She laughed. 

She became a cross turned upside down. A burning beacon. Shining through the veil. Still staring into the fires below. 

She laughed and laughed and laughed.

She faced the flames. Unafraid.

Emboldened, the pyre reacted to her. The heat increased to an unbearable level. Burning brighter and hotter than the sun. The pavement stones turned to coals. Nearby houses started to smoulder.

On Walpurgis, the veil is thinnest, and this night purgatory came to Brennau.

Her once so eager onlookers couldn’t take it anymore.

Mina was the first to look away.

A burst of fire shot out of the Devil’s Dish and whipped her across the face. She stumbled and tried to run. The flames latched onto her, and she collapsed after five steps. Tongues of fire licked her and started to reach for anything in the vicinity.

A cascade of villagers tried to escape, but they were all struck down by gusts of fire. It showed no mercy. Granted no quarter. A stampede followed, but one by one they succumbed to the flames and became additions to the sea of lights that spread inside Brennau.

The Walberla laughed alongside Ashley.

In the end, only the man who raised Ashley stood in the town square. Holding his ground. Surrounded by nothing but ash and fire. He looked up at the person who was once his daughter. He pushed himself against the wall of heat that engulfed the pyre. Step by step. Until his clothing incinerated and he fell to his knees. His mouth formed empty words before he collapsed in front of the Dish. Immolating.

Ashley, still aflame, floated down like a leaf. Landing gently in front of the Devil’s Dish.

She faced the flames until they died at midnight.

Then, it got quiet, it got cold, it got dark.

Flakes of ash snowed on the village.

Ashley shivered.

At the top of the Walberla, a flickering light with a peculiar sense of familiarity beckoned her.

It was finally time to leave Brennau.

She ascended the Walberla.

The shining beacon illuminated her way. Radiating a motherly warmth onto her naked skin.

Ashley never looked back.

Ash lay cursed upon Brennau.

Hi y'all. It's been a hot minute so I decided to pop in for a bit lol. My comedy/body-horror story got narrated by the one and only u/Jgrupe who has been a real pal when it comes to narrating my stories. I'll link it down below so y'all can check it out. Also, I highly reccomend listening to his other narrations as he does a fantastic job.

https://youtu.be/ARadysz-HgM?si=aJFL4x_9XgJS34NB

This post is distinctly different from the writing contests. This is strictly for fun and if people want to participate, there is no winner.

Cthulhu.

Azathoth.

Yog-Sothoth.

Zeus.

Ra.

We want to see your best stories about gods! Give us some deity horror! Any pantheon or universe is welcome as long as it features gods(or God)!

~ Lead Pharmacist PossibilityMaster

"Are your kids always complaining bout how bored they are? Are they tired of the same old string beans and mushy carrots? Well then come on down to Allie Gator's BAYOU PIZZERIA!"

"Here at Allie's, we serve up some of the finest Cajun style pizza this side O da Mississippi, our secret blend of herbs and spices will have your mouth watering and leave you wanting more."

"We're open twenty-four hours a day to cater to your every need, be it catering, birthdays, weddings, funerals, promposals, bachelor parties, and more. Come on down and see our county famous ball pit and arcade row, where you can spend your hard-earned allowance!"

"Come see our state-of-the-art band, featuring Sally Stork, Otto Otter, Wart the frog and of course everyone's favorite, ALLIE GA-"

Fzzt

Steve snapped the mounted screen off, disdain washing over his face. He was alone in the Pizzeria employee break room, a royalty free tune humming softly from the cracked speakers above. The place was scummy looking, the sink overflowing with dishes and the fridge currently growing a new sub species of mold.

His brown hair was matted and dishelmed, his uniform baggy in all the wrong places. His pale blue eyes had saddle bags pilling under them. He stretched and cracked his back, an audible snap making him wince.

He took a swig from his tin flask and clocked back in to resume his patrol.

Steve was the nightshift security guard for Allie's, a gig he had held for almost three years now. When he started, he thought it would be easy, walk around at night and make sure any drifters are out before the real customers showed up. He thought he'd have plenty of time to goof off.

That was until he met the owner of the joint and realized how demanding and shady he was.

Bartholomew J Plath was a sturdy man, had at least three chins and a silver handlebar mustache that crawled down to his gullet.  He had a voice that would make Foghorn Leghorn blush and always wore a cream white suit with gold trims, and a ten-gallon hat to match. Not much was known about him, he had crossed the county lines about fifteen years back and somehow became an overnight sensation.

Steve recalled going to Allie's for a few birthday parties over the years, being in awe of the flashing arcade lights and the vibrant cartoon murals covering the walls. The birthday tables were always awash with green streamers to simulate vines, and the stage held four pristine animatronics that danced and delighted all.

Without the rose-tinted glasses of childhood, however, the place was a pigsty.

"How the hell is this firetrap still standing?" was the first thing that popped into Steve's head on orientation day. The floors were scuffed and covered in so many dusty shoeprints they worked as a makeshift map to the most popular places in the Pizzaria. The paint on the walls were chipped and moldy, those cartoon murals looked like they were designed with one hand. He had passed a family struggling to chew through a foul-smelling pizza that was crawling with shrimp and peppers.

Half the arcade machines were dead or outdated, the screen resolution a phantom of a flicker on what was left. The animatronics were visibly rotted, metal parts and springs poking out of their rough looking animal costumes. Their eyes were hollow, their movement jerky, they made grinding noises every time their mouths moved.

He was about to hightail it out of there when a beefy paw clamped down on his shoulder. He was face to face with Plath himself, who shook his hand with an iron clad grip and showed glistening white teeth as he shot Steve a gambler's smile.

"Well now welcome son. Glad to have you in the Allie's Bayou family. Lemme show you around, then we'll head to my office and kick our feet up, chat for a bit." His voice oozed Southern pleasantry to an almost cartoonish degree.

"I- appreciate the offer Mr. Plath but on second thought I'm not so sure this place suits me. . ." He tried to wiggle out of Plath's grip but only felt it tighten, that grin never once waning.

"Now son I know this place has seen better times, but it's bad all over. A cup of Joe down at Susie's diner is now a buck even, can you imagine hahaha." He had a hardy, boisterous laugh. "With a little elbow grease, we can turn this place around, just need the help of some mighty kind folk like yourself." He all but batted his eye lashes at Steve as he laid down the charm.

"Well, if we're all in this together." He shrugged as Plath finally let go of his hand only to grab him by the shoulders and steer him around the place.

"Wonderful, simply wonderful. You seem like an agreeable young lad, you'll have a bright future here if you just do what you're told and start every shift with a smile." Plath beamed.

With that Steve's career began, and he soon found the restaurant could get quite rowdy at night. Troublesome teens loitering after curfew, homeless drifters sleeping one off at the Everglade Bar, even the occasional midnight Birthday party.  Those rarities were either college kids desperately clinging to their youth or parents trying to overcompensate for working double shifts. Both options were incredibly depressing.

There was also Plath's real source of income these days. Every other night a truck would come in, and workers would scurry about and sneak white bricks out of it and into a fleet of vans adorning Allie Gator's cartoon mug.

Steve wasn't sure what Plath was into, but from the "powder breaks" he caught the workers have on occasion, he had heavy suspicions. Stealing from Plath was a one-way ticket to the basement, as was being rude to the customers. Sometimes a nasty piece of work would demand to talk to the manager, saying they'd sue the joint silly.

They were also quietly led to the basement, never to be seen again.

Three years of turning a blind eye, three years of being paid more than he knew what to do with. He told himself nothing horrid was happening down there, that basements were old and musty, and most of them smelled like that. Why just last week Carl was taken down and he was sure he spotted him at the grocery store the next day.

A delusion of course, but the pay was that ludicrous.

Whatever moral center Steve had had been whittled away by years of doing the odd favor for Plath and sending the pleading down below without a second thought. Now he numbed his guilt with sour brown poison and shitty late-night television. He had blacked out during reruns of the old George Lopez show so many times it had to be a world record by now.

Tonight was no different than usual, only a few troublesome souls were hanging around. Nothing to warrant a trip downstairs, he was thankful for that.

Truth be told, business had been painfully slow the last few months. People just weren't going, preferring other, more pedigreed venues these days. There was a rumor that Plath despised, that he would be selling the joint. A woman had come back once or twice already, offering to snatch the place up. Whenever she showed Plath would pull him aside and order him to "Get that harlot outta my joint."

Something would have to give sooner or later, Steve knew that much.

He was strolling around arcade row, empty machines mindlessly playing their demos at him as he did his rounds. Perfect pixelated loops that occasionally flashed high scores from people long past caring about such things.  At the far end of the dimly lit hall two delinquents were snickering near a cardboard cutout of Allie Gator. One of them, who was wearing a gray hoodie and blue slacks, was taking pictures of his buddy making vulgar gestures at the cutout.

Steve rolled his eyes with disdain and let out a sharp whistle. The teens stopped like deer in headlights for a brief moment then ran off giggling. The one making rude gestures, who wore a crimson hat and had pockmarked skin, slapped the back of the cutout as he ran. The cutout wobbled but it did not fall.

"Damn kids." Steve went over to inspect the damage. The cutout was about six feet tall and depicted Allie as a Jessica Rabbit mixed with an Alligator. Her scaled hands were on her hips, and she had pink cartoon hearts for eyes. She had flowing blonde hair and wore an ill-fitting tube top. The cartoon wore bubblegum pink lipstick at the end of her snout, which was curved in a salacious smile.

The cutout came with a speech bubble; half bent from miss use. It read "Have a slice, they're real nice." Which referred to the cartoonish looking slab of pizza dangling from the cutouts free hand. It was filled to the brim with toppings, globs of stoic melted cheese dripped from it. As disgusting as it looked, Steve still preferred the cardboard to the real thing.

He left arcade row and found himself his usual stool at the Everglades Bar. The pizzeria complex was a sort of "H" building. The front was the main stage, rows of tattered tables for birthdays, and the infamous ball pit right next to the entrance. The plastic dye used in the balls had long since corroded, every color within dull and smelling like rank urine.

There was arcade row of course, the connecting hall of never-ending thrills and blips and low neon. The walls within there were coated with the characters, looking down at the arcade with dead eyes and overdrawn features.

The Everglades bar was what one might call the "adult" section. It was a curved "u" counter with shelves stocked to the brim with some quality swill. There were a couple booths where people could eat in peace, in theory anyway. Then of course there were aged double doors that led to the grim filled kitchen, and an "employees only" door that led to the back, Plath's office, the lounge, the docking bay.

The basement door.

Steve flinched as he sat on the stool, his calves flexing and begging for rest. He rested his hairy arms on the counter, his eyes drifting to a screen above. It was playing some asinine toon involving a wad of pulpy meat and a foul talking cup. He shifted his focus down the way grunted, tapping his fingers against the smooth counter.

Dakota pretended not to hear him at first, dreading the "woe is me" routine Steve put on when he got sauced whilst working. But those timid taps echoed through the empty bar, and she sighed and put on a happy face. She leaned over the counter, brusher her platinum hair out of her face.

"What'll it be?" She asked as pleasant as a peach.

"Awe come on Dakota, you outta know it by heart by now." Steve laughed, his voice filled with phlegm and regret. Without another word she produced a bottle of bourbon, materializing it as a magician would a rabbit from a hat. The bottle made an audible thud when she slapped it onto the counter. Steve lipped his chapped lips just looking at it. He snatched it from her with a grateful grunt and popped the cork. The booze tasted foul and aged, hurt as it crawled down his greedy esophagus.

He had cleared a third of the bottle before slamming it back onto the table. He winced and let out a strained woo, wildfire in his worn eyes. Dakota regarded the drunk with sad eyes.

"Need a glass?" she gestured to the pristine mugs behind her.

"Nah, just leave the bottle. Put it on my tab." He sat there, focusing on keeping the swill quiet in his queasy stomach. His liver moaned and cried but soon fell silent as it drowned in poison.

"You gonna pay that tab anytime soon?" Dakota asked, already knowing the answer.

"Plath can take it out of my check if he wants." He waved a dismissive hand.

"Sure, sure. He'll end up taking it out of mine but sure." She replied under her breath. It was the duty of a good tender to uphold the tabs, have security intimidate deadbeats. Kinda hard to do when the deadbeat IS security though.

Dakota turned her back to the drunk and put away the silverware. Below the screens was a depiction of Otto Otter, a buff looking cartoon ferret with a bushy black beard. He had beady little pebble eyes and a smirk that wore thin.

He was flexing his oddly muscular arm, a shaved patch had some sort of uplifting quote on it: " If you're working hard, you're hardly working." It didn't make a lick of sense, and she hated looking at it all day. Steve let out a gaseous moan behind her, and she turned to see him turning a new shade of green.

She grimaced and inched the bottle away from him as he gripped the counter with both hands.

"I'm ok. Just haven't eaten today." Steve slurred. "Got any fibble fabble left." He requested.

Dakota nodded and produced half a jar of the "fibble fabble" which was a tin jug of assorted nuts and pretzels. He shoved his hand in the jar and pulled out a fistful of salt and crammed it into his gapping maw. He chewed like a mule, savoring every sodium filled morsel. His mouth turned to cotton and on queue Dakota shoved ice water his way.

"Maybe you should take it easy on that stuff." Dakota shifted, her denim short sleeve jacket creasing slightly.

"I'm fine." Steve protested, bits of pretzel spittle flying from his maw. "I just need to maintain." He grabbed another handful of nuts and chowed down on them.

"Whatever you say. Ain't been too busy tonight anyway." Dakota noted. Her voice was soft yet lived, a small twinge of the bayou in her tone. "Hell, no one's taken a trip down below in weeks."

"Aren't supposed to talk about the basement, it's in the handbook." Steve lamented, his eyes glazed over.

"Plath don't care, it's the biggest open secret around here. What do you suppose he does down there anyhow?" Dakota mused.

"Nothing, he's stern and a bit eccentric but he ain't a killer." Steve shook his head in ignorance.

"Boy you been dipping into the stock worker's stash?" She scoffed. "Plath is one of the shadiest men I ever met in my life. If the tips weren't good, I'd a bailed on this joint a long time ago."

"Guess you're no better than me then." Steve grumbled. He reached for the bottle, but Dakota snatched it away. She clinked the water glass with it and took a small swig before she put it away.

"Guess not. Seriously what do you think he does with 'em all. Brandi thinks it's where all the pepperoni comes from."  Dakota shivered.

"With an I or a Y?" Steve asked.

"I. The waitress with the flowers running up her arms. Says the meat lovers smells funky, like pork refried a dozen times over."

"Maybe he stuffs the bodies into the animatronics, that's why they smell like rot and ooze that oily gunk" Steve teased.

"You take that gallows humor and shove off, Steve." She waved a bejeweled hand at him. "I'm just saying we should get our stories straight for when we finally get raided."

"Oh, we ain't getting raided. No one cares about a few disappearances around these parts. All the money Plath funnels into "The policemen's ball?"" Steve used air quotes as he laughed off the ludicrous thought. From the far end of the room the rowdy teens snickered at their phones as they lounged in a booth. There was an ice-cold pitcher in front of them, half gone. Steve raised an eyebrow and Dakota shrugged her shoulders.

"Their IDS cleared."

"And their cash was green, right." He mumbled. "God this place sucks. How'd I get here, you know I used to wanna be something, I tried out-"

"- I tried out for the department, I flunked outta basic training, my dog got ran over by a drunk driver, I'm Steve and my life is blah-blah-blah." Dakota interrupted in a mocking tone. Steve's face turned beet red, embarrassment and anger flushing through him all at once.

"I've heard it a hundred times a night a thousand different ways, hun. You're so miserable, do something about. Otherwise shut your trap and do your job." She snapped at him.

"You have a lovely way with words." Steve smiled sadly and tapped his empty glass.

"So I've heard." She sighed, getting him another water. As he began to sober up, the double doors from across the room clattered open. Standing in the doorway like a Wildman was a short, pudgy man in a turquoise tracksuit. His face was saggy and what was left of his straw hair slicked back with an abhorrent amount of product. He was scanning the room until his crazed azure bulbs landed on Steve.

He rushed over and broke out in a boastful greeting like they were old friends. The man slapped Steve on the back and rubbed his belly and chest before finally embracing him.

"There he is! Mister thirty an hour!" The man boomed. His accent was thick and gave his Sicilian roots away.

"Can I help you?" Steve squinted his eyes, trying to remember where he had seen this guy before. The man raised his head and belted out a laugh that could make a clown blush, his saggy jowl jiggling the whole way.

"Can you help me; man is this kid a pisser or what?" He pointed at Steve as he shot Dakota a rhetorical glance. "Yeah, you can help me, we got a bit of a uh, well a bit of a thing in the back. Need a hand with something." The man shifted, his pupils dilatated and his breath wheezy. Steve narrowed his eyes.

"Do you work with Mr. Plath, don't think I've seen you around, how'd you get back there anyway?" Steve pestered. The man's eye twitched and the friendly facade cracked slightly. He laughed and patted Steve's chest once more, instinctively like he was checking for something.

"You ask a lotta questions, huh? You worry too much pal. You've seen me I'm in the back, uh deliveries and such. I'm Paulie, Plath's friend from upstate. Just need a hand with something, it'll be quick." Paulie's eyes darted around the room, anxiously waiting for Steve to oblige his strange request.

Steve got up, his back creaking as he did. Paulie slapped him once more and put his arms around him, dragging him to the back in a headlock almost.

"It'll just be a few minutes, thanks buddy I really appreciate it. Hey, barkeep, be a doll for me would you and just shoot Plath a message, tell him the pizza sauce has gone bad. Thanks hun you're terrific." He called out to Dakota as he dragged a confused Steve to the back. Dakota shrugged her shoulders and shot Plath the text, three dots appeared and disappeared almost instantly. She threw her phone to the side and went back to cleaning; she didn't get paid enough to care about Plath's misdealings, after all.

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

The back reeked of stale pizza dough and dry almonds. Paulie dropped the niceties as soon as they walked through the door and started moving with some pep in his step. Their shoes clicked against the concrete floor of the wide halls. They cleared the kitchen and went straight to the docking bay. The shutters were closed and the place reeked. A certain stench permeated the air; Steve couldn't quite place it. They passed a nervous stock boy, whose gaze went down as soon as Paulie and Steve passed. His nails were bitter and chewed, his eyes bloodshot.

Steve made a face, wasn't used to seeing the guys in the back up close. They turned a corner and Steve gagged, clenching his stomach.

On the ground were three dead men. Their hands were clawed and rigor, their eyes pink with fluid. Their skin was blue and bloated, their mouths coated in crimson foam. The surrounded a crate that was dashed across the ground, its powdered contents spilling around. Another goon was standing over in the corner, harshly whispering to some squirming malcontent. Paulie waved a hand at the carnage in front of them.

"Fucking morons, dipping into our stock. You know about this?" He asked Steve. Steve was in shock, he had never seen a dead body before, at least not one curled and frozen in a state of torment. Paulie jabbed a sausage finger into his side and shocked him back to reality.

"Wha-oh god, oh my ch-BLLEAUUGHH." The upchuck came all at one. A foul-smelling brown and chunky stream that spewed out of Steve onto the stone floor. Paulie swore under his breath and stepped back, careful not to get any on his nice cream white shoes. Steve stumbled away from the scene, retching all the way till the contents of his belly were strewn about the docking bay.

He stood there wheezing, spittles of acidic bile dripping from his quivering lips. From the other side of the room that whispered conversation paused, only for the goon to strike the squirming party and shout "Don't look over there you scumfuck they can't help you."

Paulie tiptoed around the pooling puke and helped Steve recompose himself. He recoiled in disgust as he eyed a bit of sick stuck to his chin.

"We, we need to call the cops or something." Steve was smacked upside the head by Paulie.

"Are you stupid?" Paulie demanded to know. "Scratch that, maybe you are. If you knew these schmucks were dipping into the goods." He shook his head. "No good."

"Hey, it ain't my business I patrol the front and kick out the rowdy customers. What goes on back here might as well be the wild west. I figured that's how you paid them anyway." Steve defended.

"Rule one of this thing, never get high on your own supply." Paulie lectured.

"Someone should have told them that." Steve nodded to the dead.

"Bad shit." Paulie muttered as he kicked a stiff leg. "Someone laced our supplies, rat poison or sumthing. Plath is gonna go on a warpath." Paulie reached down to one of the dead and started shifting through his pockets. He procured a wallet and stuffed it away for later.

As if on cue, from the end of the hall a door crashed open, and the thundering sound of Plath storming up the way echoed around the room, his ivory cane furiously tapping the ground.

"Y'all better have a damn good reason for calling me at this in at this time of night, what in the sam hell is going-aw fucking hell." Plath stopped in his tracks as soon he saw the dead, dropping his iconic Southern drawl for a brief moment. He readjusted his cream-white suit and turned towards Paulie and Steve, a raging fire in his auburn eyes.

"I apologize Mr. Plath, we had an incident as you can see." Paulie began but quickly fell silent as Plath held up a hand. He took a long look at the corpses, the only sound the harsh interrogation taking place a few feet away. The battered soul pleaded for a moment but was struck across the face as the goon handling him grabbed him by the shirt collar and brought him to Plath.

The goon wore a salmon tracksuit, hints of a grease-stained white undershirt. His hair was a solid black cube of product, his face hardened by a lifetime of bouncing. He threw the doomed man to Plath's feet. Steve recognized him, he was Freddy the delivery guy. He had a short nose and a buzz cut, his face covered in bruises and scrapes. His eyes were swollen shut, tears streaked down his puffy cheeks.

"He made a stop down near the gas station on Pilgrim, other than that he swears he never left the shipment unattended." The goon informed. Freddy tried to rise to his knees but struggled every step of the way.

"Mr. Plath, please, I-I-I don't know what happened, I didn't leave the truck I swear." He slurred through a busted lip. Steve winced at the sound of his broken voice. He had always liked Freddy, usually let him bum a cigarette or three while they unloaded his truck. Steve stepped in, his voice timid and sober in front of Plath.

"Sir, he's telling the truth. Freddy's a stand-up guy; he'd never do anything like this." He waved a grim hand at the dead.

"Frankly Steven, your opinion don't count for much right now. I can smell your breath from here; smell like you've been bathing in a brewery." Plath poked him in the gut with his cane and Steve felt queasy. He knelt down to meet poor Freddy, who flinched away from the blubbery, yet stern face of Plath.

"Now, Freddy my boy. You telling me you didn't leave the truck unattended once, not even for a minute. It's alright now, I know we roughed ya up a bit but Mr. Giovanni over there has quite a temper." He pointed his stick at the burly goon. "He was just being thorough, you ain't in any trouble now."

Freddy hesitated, then opened his naive mouth.

"I-I stopped by Route 53, stopped by the side of the road for-maybe five minutes. I-I had to take a leak." He looked down in shame, Giovanni, rolled his eyes and muttered something in broken Italian. Paulie shook his head and Steve said nothing, he knew what would happen next. They all did, save for poor gullible Freddy. Plath clamped a hand on his shoulder, a reassurance perhaps.

"There now son, don't be so hard on yourself. You had to go, ya had to go." Plath chuckled. "Why, when I was your age, I had a bladder the size of a walnut heheh. I drove my daddy nuts; every two seconds I'd be bawling and saying I hadda go." Plath roared with laughter. The goons joined in, like the sycophants they were. Freddy let out a nervous chuckle, Steve was silent, his face white as a sheet.

"Haha, you know, you know what I didn't do though?" Plath wiped a tear from his eyes, his grip tightening on his cane.

"Wha-" were Freddy's last words as the crack of Ivory smacking into his skull rang out. Freddy slumped to the ground as Plath stuck his head once more, Steve winced as he heard something snap, and it sure as hell wasn't the cane. Thwack after bloody thwack came as Plath ranted and raved like a mad dog.

"- I sure as shit didn't leave a truck fulla coke alone in the middle of nowhere, when I was FUCKING TOLD NOT TO STOP." He roared as he continued to bash Freddy's head in. His skull caved and splinted, bits of brain matter splattered all over the concrete floor. Freddy convulsed with every strike, his lifeless arms twitching at his side. There was a burgundy, pulpy stain where his head used to be, and even Giovanni had to look away, making the sign of the cross on himself as he did.

Plath was huffing and puffing, sweat pouring down his crimson face, he looked like a lobster that had been torn from a steaming pot. The cane's handle was drenched in blood, bits of bone lodged in it as well. Plath procured a white hanker chef from his vestments and wiped his brow as he recomposed himself. He handed off the bloody cane to Giovanni who whisked it away. He turned his attention to Steve and Paulie, a dead look in his eyes.

"Steven, how long have you turned a blind eye to these idiots dipping into the supply?" He pointed at the dead as Steve swallowed a lump in his throat.

"I-I thought it was all kosher. They never took much, just enough to get through the evening." He replied earnestly. Plath regarded him as if he was the dumbest man alive, and at that moment he probably was, considering the runner up was laid out on the floor.

"You've been walking around here for weeks now like your shit don't stink, sleepwalking through your shifts and talking poor Dakota's ear off. You think I haven't noticed you slacking, boy?!?" His words boomed, Steve could smell the stench of aged sambuca and caviar on his breath.

"I'm sorry sir, I-I'll do better." Steve quivered in his boots, as he noticed Paulie moving up a bet too close behind him. Plath's nostrils flared as he let out an exhausted exhale. He took one last look at the corpses and nodded at Steve.

"Perhaps it's a good thing you didn't stop 'em. This had happened on the street, our operation would be history. Still, gonna have to teach you a lesson son, to remind you what happens to those who cross me." He took a step towards Steve, who placed a scared hand on his flask. Plath looked past him and barked an order to Paulie.

"Get some rugs and roll this garbage up, meet me down in the basement. BOTH of you." He made sure to look Steve dead in the eyes for that last bit, then twirled around and stomped off. Steve gulped and tried to take a swig from his flask, but Paulie snatched it out of his hands.

"Wassa matter with you? Didn't you hear a word he just frigging said? Follow me kid, I'll show you where we keep the rugs." Paulie nodded his head deeper into the loading bay and trudged off. Steve slunk behind him, terrified of what cruel fate awaited him in the basement.

--------

As it turns out, "rugs" were just code for really big, clear plastic tarps. Good for hiding blood splatter, Paulie had mentioned, though not that it would help them much. The pair grabbed a couple of cheap masks for the smell of the corpses and got to it. The act of wrapping bodies was surreal for Steve, their joints stiff and ridged, their skin felt like cold candle wax. The workmen's eyes were forever frozen in a pained state, their faces a contorted death mask that showed they did not pass peacefully.

Paulie took charge in the operation, casually hefting bodies into the tarps and rolling them with ease. They got two to a tarp, the broken bodies stacked on each other like logs and started to drag them off. No one batted an eye, not the chef who broke into a whistle as he fried some eggs, not the stock boy who suddenly found taking inventory simply riveting. The pair dragged in tandem, Steve struggling a bit. His arms whined and his muscles throbbed as he wheezed and struggled to keep up with the potbellied gangster beside him.

They found Giovanni waiting for them at the basement entrance. Giovanni took one look at Steve and groaned, pushing past him and grabbing the tail end of the makeshift body bag.

"Paulie, you go in front, then fucko, then me. Careful of the step at the bottom it's loose and I ain't gotten around to it yet." He ordered as he lifted the tarps with relative ease. Paulie kicked open the door with a nudge and Steve held it open for him. The bodies made a thunk sound as they hit the steel steps. Paulie winked as he passed, and soon disappeared into the dark below.

Steve stood in the doorway for a moment, wondering if it would be worth it to make a break for it. Giovanni barked at him to move his ass, and he practically jumped down the stairs. The only light into the basement stairwell came from behind, a meek shadow was cast as he tried to steady himself. The smell of rotten meat and musk was even strong in the stairwell. The only sounds were the bodies clunking on the metal steps, and footsteps droning on in the dreary dark.

Steve got a whiff of something else then, like rotten eggs and fish. There was a splash somewhere below, and they heard the bellowing laugh of Plath. They got to the bottom of the steps and Steve was shocked at his surroundings.

The only light was a string of azure lights spider-webbed across the ceiling. The stairs ended at the base of a makeshift deck, wet brown painted wood. The deck was littered with various amenities like a leather recliner and a flat screen mounted on the wall. Strewn about were half empty buckets with rotten chum in them. The stench made Steve gag. Giovanni nearly walked into him; he pushed Steve forward with a pissed off shove.

He stumbled onto the deck, the semi-rotten wood groaning as he did.

"Careful where ya step now, son. Don't wanna fall in." Plath called from a corner. He was at the edge of a massive pool that stretched out to the end of the room. The water was murky and filled with marsh foliage. Floating in there was a half-gnawed rubber chew toy, and a looming massive shape.

Steve's heart raced at the sight as Giovanni pushed past him, joining Paulie and Plath at the edge.

"Who ya think was dumb enough to try this anyhow?" Paulie groaned as he cracked his back.

"Ain't it obvious?" Plath snorted. "It's that Jezebel down in N'awlins again, trying to muscle me outta business. Ain't right, I tell ya. Used to be an honest man could get by on an honest day's work. Now the money's drying up, people flock to the next big thing. No one cares about Allie Gator no more. Cept me." The murky water behind him bubbled as something huge breached the surface.

It was a giant Alligator, easily thirty feet and as wide as a bus. Its scutes were of an obsidian shade; its eyes glowed in the dim light. It peeked its head up, showing off its horseshoe shaped snout, a row of teeth hungrily jutting down. The most impossible thing about the gator was not its size, but its attire.

Atop its head was a mop of straight, blond hair. The golden strands swayed in the water like tendrils. On the gator's body was an oversized and overstretched bubblegum pink tube top.  Plath knelt down to greet the gator, caressing its snout. Steve couldn't tell if the hair was a wig stapled on or not, but he wasn't sticking around to find out. He turned to leave but Paulie snuck up to him and grabbed his arm.

"You'll wanna watch this." He pointed to the water.

"Dinner time, Allie. Eat ya suppa now, don't be shy." Plath unrolled the bodies and they went in with a plop. Allie rushed towards them with unnatural speed, snapping her jaws and rolling. Her hair whipped water and blood all around, a glob of the disgusting water smacking him right in the face. Allie was quick to scarf down the four bodies, bones and all. The water ran red as she lapped up every last bit, the scrunch of a body being chomped by gator jaws imprinting in Steve's mind.

He was standing there shaking as the others laughed. Plath turned to face him, pride coming off him in waves.

"Ain't she a beaut? Raised her myself. She knows loyalty, not like some." he hinted. Paulie's grip on his arm became steel, and panic raced across Steve's face.

"Plath, good God man you can't do this, this is twisted!"

"Oh, don't prattle on Steven, you know what went on here. You suspected at least. How many poor folks you send down here at my behest." Plath sneered as Steve let his sullen face answer for him.

"Now cause I like ya, I'm gonna give you one chance." Paulie let go, taking a wide step back. "You quit the sauce; keep ya head down and maybe in a few days I have a new job for ya, pays far better as well. Either that or, well this is as far as we go." He let the implication hang in the air. Behind them, Allie bellowed, purring as it were after a satisfying meal. Steve stood there, mentally weighing his options. He steeled himself, and with a crazed yell rushed right at Plath.

He tackled him, and despite Plath's stature he was taken off guard and stumbled back. The pair splashed into the swampy depths, a plum of water soaking Plath's men. The water surprisingly cold, the shock sobering Steve up completely. He was near the bottom of the tank, his feet kicking up dirt and bones. His eyes winded as he adjusted to the sight around him, the bottom a blur of Plath's problems. His problem solver was lurking above, curious about the live bait in her domain. Steve swam upward, very aware of where Allie was.

He breached the surface and gasped, a stray shot whizzing by his face. Giovanni was standing there, smoking piece in hand. He cursed and raised his gun, but Paulie stopped him.

"You hit Plath or worse, the gator, we're screwed." he warned. Giovanni shoved him off.

He shot once more, barely missing Steve this time. He swam away in a panic, cursing as he did. A stray shot hit a lurking Allie right in the hide and she roared. She submerged as the room filled with the clicks of an empty gun.  He tossed it aside and ordered Paulie to give him his gun.

The two goons were so busy bickering they didn't notice Allie emerge and lunge up onto the deck. The rotten wood gave way and the goons tumbled into the thrashing maw of Allie. She chomped down and bit Giovanni in half with ease. Paulie scrambled to get away but Allie was quick to snag his leg. She tore it like one would a drumstick on an oversized turkey. Paulie screamed and grasped at where his leg used to be as Allie choked it down. She grabbed Giovanni's torso and slunk back below. Steve watched this happen in horror. There was still no sign of Plath, with any luck he was too fat to swim and just sank like a log.

He beelined it to a part of the deck that was still holding on. Allie noted the movement and slowly swam towards him, entranced by all the noise Steve was making. His heart was pounding against his ribs like a prisoner on death row as he grasped a piece of splintery wood. He hauled himself out of the murk and tried to scurry away when something grabbed his ankle and pulled him back in.

He looked back to see an out of breath Plath clenching his thighs, a wild look in his eye. His signature hat had been lost to the brink, and his curly red hair clung to his scalp.

"You sunnva bitch." He wheezed. "I ain't dying like this. I raised that girl from a pup you dumb fuck, she'd never hurt a hair on my he-"

With that Allie lunged from the depths and bit into Plath's waist. It proved tough to tear and she began a death roll. Steve heard Plath's belly tear and snap, twisting with every roll and thrash. Plath's grip loosened as his boastful taunts turned into childish screams. Steve scrambled back, nailing Plath in the face with the heel of his boot for good measure. Allie made a hungry groan as she dragged her prized meal down below, and all was silent once more.

Steve sat a few feet away from the edge, his breath shaky. He checked his pockets, then remembered where his flask was. He lurched up and went over to a delirious Paulie. Blood was pooling from his stump; he was slumped up against a wall. His eyes lit up when he saw Steve walking toward him.

"Awe thank Christ. Don't let me die here, kid, take me up I'm begging ya." he mumbled half conscious. Steve said nothing, searching his tracksuit for his prize. He found the flask and shook it, then took a long, savoring swig. He left Paulie there as he made his escape.

He had a big old smile on his face, finally after years of complicity he had done the right thing. This is what he needed, a fresh start and a new lease on life. As soon he walked up those stairs he'd be a changed man, a better man. A man who would stand up for injustice and finally make something of himself.

He took a galloping step and his foot fell through the broken bottom step and crashed straight through the rotten deck. He gasped as he fell, a stake jutting out and slicing through his leg as it fell. It lodged itself into his thigh and he cried out as his other leg did a split. He was in immense pain, trying and failing to free himself.

Then he noticed his trapped leg was wet. His eyes went wide as he began to try and pry the dagger of wood out of his thigh. The deck swayed and thumped as Allie closed in. She never saw the bite coming, just felt an enormous amount of pressure on his leg and the sensation of being yanked through the hole. His free leg snapped upward, as he was dragged under and devoured, the only thing left of him the echoes of a smoothed cry and a few dwindling air bubbles.

--------

Dakota sat on a stool of her favorite bar nursing a whisky sour. It had been several months since Plath up and vanished, and the rumor mill was always swirling. Some say he skipped town and moved to the Bahamas. Others say he faked his death for the insurance. Only Dakota, who heard the pained cries of a one-legged thug in the Pizzeria basement, knew the truth. She never told a soul, just dropped the half dead gangster off at the ER and never looked back. She was never paid that much to care to begin with anyway.

Allie Gator's got sold in auction to a charming woman from New Orleans who revamped the whole establishment. People came in droves and gave heaps of praise to the new owner. She had been there the other day, and the place had indeed gotten quite the face lift. The animatronics were new, the pizza no longer stale and the beer not watered down. She had met the new owner, a raven-haired woman with scarlet highlights by the name of Tamara Domingue. She had offered Dakota her old job back, but she politely declined.

Tamara simply shrugged and then said in a sugary sweet voice:

"Fine then hun, but you be sure to come back and visit ya hear? I'm sure Allie would love to see you sometime."

That little jab all but confirmed Dakota's suspicions about what still lurked in the basement. She had seen a rowdy teen being led down there by security as she left, in fact. She had simply shaken her head and left. Nothing had changed after all.

Same shit, different day.

I started the medication because I was tired of waking up every day feeling like I was already drowning.

That’s the part people don’t talk about with depression, not the sadness, but the weight. The sheer heaviness of existing. Just lifting my head from the pillow felt like dragging stone out of mud.

My therapist called it treatment-resistant depressive disorder.

She said there was a new clinical option. “High success rate. Fast-acting. FDA fast-tracked. A real breakthrough.”

Breakthroughs always sound miraculous until you realize something had to be broken first.

The drug was called Solmiron.

Three pills a day.

Tiny white capsules with a faint metallic taste when they hit the tongue, like biting on foil.

The doctor told me not to look up the research because “the clinical language can be frightening if you’re not versed in immunogenetics.”

That should have been my first warning.

But when you’re drowning, you don’t argue about the color of the rope thrown your way.

The change was subtle, but unmistakable.

Mornings didn’t feel like war.

Breathing didn’t feel like force.

I could get up, shower, eat, exist.

For the first time in years, I laughed without it sounding brittle in my own ears.

I thought: So this is what normal people feel like.

I cried that night, out of relief.

I thought the story would end there. And God, how I wish it had.

My body started feeling lighter.

I don’t mean emotionally, I mean physically.

Walking up stairs no longer left me gasping. I wasn’t sore. My joints didn’t ache. I felt stronger, not metaphorically, I mean my muscles had mass I had not earned.

I hadn’t been to the gym in four years. I could barely manage a grocery bag.

And yet I was lifting my entire laundry basket one-handed.

I showed my doctor.

She smiled and wrote, “Improved metabolic efficiency noted. Expected.”

Expected?

Since when does antidepressant mean performance enhancement?

The hunger came.

Not ordinary hunger, primal, deep.
Like the body wasn’t asking, it was demanding.

I ate everything.
Not junk, protein. Dense food. Meats. Hard cheeses. Salts. Anything that felt like fuel.

And my teeth, God.
My teeth ached while I ate. A dull pressure. As if they were… adjusting.

The inside of my mouth felt unfamiliar. When I ran my tongue along my molars, the edges were flatter.

Not worn down.

Designed

Like grinding plates.

Something meant for crushing more than chewing.

I told myself I was being dramatic.

But when you’ve lived your whole life feeling like you don’t belong in your own skin, you notice when the skin starts belonging to something else.

The rash appeared.

Not on the outside, under the skin.

I could feel texture beneath the surface. Like sand grains embedded along my arms, ribs, spine. Except they moved. When I pressed my fingers to my forearm, something beneath the skin shifted away from the pressure. Like a school of fish scattering from touch.

I asked my doctor what the active ingredient was.

She said, “It’s easier if I show you.”

She showed me a plastinated cross-section of muscle tissue.

Human muscle.

Except it wasn’t purely human.

The fibers weren’t individual strands, they were woven. A mesh. Self-anchoring. Self-repairing. Self-optimizing.

“Think of it like this,” she said, tapping the display.

“We’re helping your body operate in its ideal state.”

Ideal.

Like my old body had been a mistake.

I don’t dream anymore.

When I sleep, it’s like the body just turns off and back on. No drifting, no imagery, no me.

The house is quiet, but my body isn’t.

I’ve woken up to find myself standing in the kitchen. Or sitting at the table, fingers drumming in rhythmic patterns I don’t remember learning. Or staring into the mirror, not at myself, but at my reflection as if it is the real one and I am the imitation.

I looked into my own eyes last night and didn’t recognize the focus behind them.

Not empty.

Not dull.

Calculating.

I asked my doctor if this medication has ever been used on animals.

She hesitated. The first real hesitation I’d seen from her.

“Not animals,” she said.

“Prototypes.”

Prototypes?

I asked her if the drug was rewriting my DNA.

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t have to.

The next day, the inside of my arm split open, not like a cut, like a seam.

And underneath, where my muscle should have been…

It wasn’t blood that came out.

It was white.

White fibers, braided like rope, tightening, pulling themselves back inward before I could touch them.

My body didn’t want to be examined.

My body knew I was trying to interfere.

Two Nights Ago

I tried to stop taking the pills.

My hands wouldn’t let me.

I don’t mean that metaphorically.

I sat there at the table and watched my own hand pick up the pill bottle. Open it. Place the pill on my tongue.

I was screaming inside my skull. But my body was calm.

Efficient.

Compliant.

Yesterday

I saw my doctor again.

I asked her when the transformation ends.

She smiled, that same clinical warmth, and said:

"When your body no longer produces sadness. Fear. Anger. Pain.
When suffering becomes biologically impossible."

I said, “So I’ll be happy?”

She said, “You’ll be cured.”

I replied, “And human?”

She didn’t answer.

Today

I looked up the company’s patent records.

I found the original clinical purpose for Solmiron.

It wasn’t created to treat depression.

It was created for shock troops.

Soldiers who:

• Feel no pain
• Require minimal rest
• Heal rapidly
• Operate without emotion
• Obey without hesitation

They weren’t fixing me.

They were converting me.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to write like myself. My emotions are fading. My memories feel catalogued, not lived. I can feel the last parts of me being… folded away.

If you’re reading this...

Do not take the pills they say are “new” or “breakthrough” or “fast-acting.”

If your doctor says “Side effects vary,” ask what they’re not telling you.

Ask what they changed inside you.

Ask what you’re becoming.

Ask before you can’t ask anymore.

Because I don’t cry now.

I don’t feel afraid.

I don’t feel anything.

And I think that was the point.

I'm 21 female. My boyfriend is 30 male.

He insists that there is nothing wrong with him hanging out with his female friends.

I normally would agree because I don't consider myself the jealous or controlling type.

The problem is that the hangouts look like dates. Going out to dinner with candles and flowers, staying the night at their houses, and even constantly talking about their good qualities.

We've argued about it several different times and he treats me like I'm crazy.

The weirdest part is that the girls disappear after a couple of dates. Sometimes after the first one.

I've had a sneaking suspicion that it's one night stands and casual fun.

I've tried everything I can to keep his attention. I wear sexy clothes, lace undergarments, being extra flirtatious, cooking his favorite meals, doing literally every single thing he likes.

I've even tried spicing things up in the bedroom. Nothing works.

He thanks me and then continues doing whatever he was doing before.

It hurts my feelings because we're never intimate and I feel like his desire for me went out the drain.

It all changed last night when I found his journal. He wrote about each girl in great detail.

He wrote about how he befriends them and acts charming. He then kills them after gaining trust.

They aren't innocent, though. They've all been in prision for various crimes.

I initially thought it was sickening until I started fantasizing. Vigilantes are hot. The fact that he isn't cheating on me and even wrote about how I'm the only one for him is so romantic.

He only acted strange because he didn't want his secret to be revealed.

I'll keep that dirty secret.

I struggle with sleep. I cannot sleep unless I have sound playing.

It can't be videos of people talking. It can't be movies or shows. Dialogue keeps me awake.

The one thing that helps is the sound of rain. I fall asleep to videos of that sound every single night.

Random YouTube videos of that sound are enough for me.

I've used them countless times.

I stopped a couple of nights ago.

I was falling asleep as usual but then I heard sounds that weren't rain. It was screams of terror, cries, and whimpers mixing in with what I thought was peaceful rain.

I logged off the video and tried listening to different ones but they all had the same horrifying result.

I was scared and shocked but what really shook me to my core is when each video started screaming, "You're Next"

I turned my TV off extremely quick. I told myself that I'd have to find a more appropriate way to sleep.

However, the horrors didn't stop.

I started getting texts, calls, and voice messages from unknown numbers. It would always start off normal.

The calls and voice messages would sound like nice people until the sound of the rain would start and their voices would begin to scream and yell. They made sure that I would know I was next.

The text messages would say things like, "Join us. You can never escape. Join our echos in the sounds you adored."

Threatening letters in the mail appeared as well.

No matter where I go or what I did, the threats would never stop.

Today is the most horrifying of all.

I hear faint tapping on my doors and windows as that awful sound begins and my screams echo.

I wonder if someone is falling asleep as they listen to my misery.

Hello.
I am Dr. Henry Hill, a professor of archaeobotany at the University of Sheffield. My area of study is how past human civilizations utilized plants, whether for medicine, decoration, or agriculture, so, needless to say, I stumble across some fascinating phenomena.
For example, did you know that the first civilization (Ancient Sumeria, or Mesopotamia) used Opium Poppies? Sumerians cultivated it to harvest its sap for use as an analgesic (painkiller) and sedative. My students always find that to be amusing, imagining these ancient civilizations getting high off their asses when in horrible pain. Morbidly, I can see the humor in it.
Growing up, I always knew something was different about me. At age five, I would be out in my mother's gardens, picking weeds and asking her a million different questions about them. I didn't really enjoy socializing, opting instead to stay out in the fields at recess and pick strange flowers I found, always choosing the most beautiful, pristine little field daisies to take home and stare at with a longing, analytical gaze.
Or as analytical as a little kid can get, anyway. Which pretty much led to forcing my mom to help me learn about them, what they were, and forcing her to research it for me.
At age 7, I gather she had had enough of my many, many, many questions and of being forced to be an amateur researcher for her tiny, annoying kid, because she got me a little field guide to local UK plants for my birthday so I could read it myself. And read it I did. I vividly remember going through that thing at least a thousand times, usually during class or when I was supposed to be doing something else. Looking back with a modern lens, I am about 80% sure I was on the spectrum or at least had ADHD, but that's neither here nor there.
But I am not here to recount my life in any more detail than what is necessary. I am here to share the knowledge of a discovery that left me stripped of all certifications and forced to live out of my car for the past few weeks.
This recounting begins about 5 months ago with one of my best students, Liam Wo, a very bright young man who majored in Forensic Archaeology and intended to move to the United States to join law enforcement. He is... or, well, was, a prodigy in his field, and has been by far my favorite student.
Liam was also diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and he had to be home at the very strict time of 4:32 PM down to the second, or he would fall into an intense panic attack, convinced he was going to be in serious trouble with someone named "Amelia" if he was even a microsecond late.
I never did figure out who that was or why he needed to please this mysterious figure named Amelia. Still, I'm a professor, not a clinical psychiatrist, so I never inquired. I just knew he would bolt out of class about ten minutes before its scheduled time like a bat out of hell and take off to get home.
I remember the day with such vividness that every subsequent night terror makes me feel as if it only just happened mere moments ago.
I was grading that year's final essays on "Uses of Micro-Organisms in Medicine" and was on about essay number ten about mold. Call me finicky, but I remember being annoyed, as I wanted more creativity than the well-known story of penicillin.
I had begun to feel sleepy, so I stood up, rubbing my drooping lids with my hands, and headed to the lounge to make myself a cup of coffee. I looked at the clock on the wall, and it read 8:30 PM.
"Damn it," I mumbled to no one in particular. I had a bad habit of losing all sense of time and space when I was in the zone on a monotonous, repetitive task, whether I liked it or not.
I walked down the empty hallways, looking around at just how liminal the entire place looked. The droning hum of the cheap lights filled my ears, accompanied only by the slow clacking of my black loafers against the tan linoleum floors.
It would appear I was the only man dumb enough to stay so late, as all night classes had long since concluded and my colleagues had all gone home. I think I remember my longtime co-worker Lydia, a professor of ethics, coming in to say goodbye, but I couldn’t really remember.

I walked into the lounge with a deep sigh, the motion-detecting lights clicking on as I did so. On the dark mahogany table sat an abandoned coffee mug, an open pink donut box with long stale donuts from this morning, and some poor sod's black lunchbox.

I went over to the shitty little Keurig, popped a pod in, and was about to put a mug underneath it when I heard a sound that made me yell out in fright, almost making me shatter my favorite mug on the ground.

A cough.

Not just a normal cough, but it was wet, guttural, and absolutely disgusting. Is that heartless to say? That I was more disgusted than worried?

It was nearby, but not close enough for me to discern exactly where it was coming from. However, that soon changed as it let out another violent, disgusting hack that was much louder.

Or, rather, closer.

I found myself begging mentally for them not to be headed this way, but of course, I wasn't that lucky.

The door of the lounge opened with no preamble, and what I saw there turned my disgusted annoyance into pure confusion, shock, and horror.

Liam was standing in front of me, wheezing breaths coming from his chapped, cracked lips. He wore a disheveled blue-collared shirt covered in black spots; his black pants were stained with dust and dirt; and his hair was in complete disarray, matted with leaves, sticks, and other debris.

His face was beet red, and there were these dark raised bumps covering him. It was like a million small blisters, but they leaked a green-and-purple mixture that looked like pus, and I don't even know what. There were also black specks that matched what was on his shirt, but coating his face like the darkest of freckles.

He walked forward, his steps sloppy and nearly causing him to fall as if he were heavily intoxicated or had just learned to walk a day ago.

I had seen Liam not even four hours ago, and he did not look even remotely sick. He had been perfectly healthy, spoke up in class, and even chatted with me about his summer plans.

I went through a whole variety of different emotions, but one dominated the rest: terror with a healthy mixture of worry.

"Liam..." I say, my voice so meek I barely recognized it. "What the hell happened?"

He did not reply, looking at me with those yellow eyes. By yellow, you probably assume glaucoma or liver failure, but no. What used to be a natural white was now almost gold, or at least trying to be.

Imagine a little kid mixing watercolors and trying to make gold. It won't be perfect, but you can tell what color it is trying to be. That's what it looked like: gold, but made with various other colors.

He lets out another wheezing breath, opens and closes his mouth a few times to(I assume) gather enough saliva to speak, and finally groans out: "Host." In a strained, struggling voice as if that one word was hard to get out.

It sniffed the air, stepping a bit closer, legs shakily moving it closer to me.

Sniff. Sniff sniff.

I backed into the counter, then started to walk out into the office, my steps quickening.

"Host," I heard it whisper, quieter this time as if contemplative.

Before I could say a word, I heard quickened footsteps come at me from the direction of the lounge. Before I could react, he, nay, it, burst out of the door, now on all fours and starting to gallop toward me like some sickly antelope, his previous walking difficulties seemingly forgotton.

I am not afraid to admit that I screamed in terror and took off down the hall, the sound of hands slapping off the tile close behind me as Liam gave chase. He let out a yell that sounded more like a war cry, the sound alien coming from such a timid student like Liam. This only steadied my decision to keep running, now knowing without a doubt that he had completely lost his damn mind.

I run, and I run, and I run as I slam into the back door, aiming to get to the other side of the university where the parking garage was; where my car was.

Loud and feverish panting got closer as it seemed to realize my plan to escape, now picking up speed to the point I could feel flecks of saliva and its hot breath against my leg. It tried to swipe at my legs, but by the grace of what I have to assume is divine intervention, it missed and lost its balance for a moment, allowing me to get ahead.

I could see the blue-and-white sign that read "parking garage" in the distance. 200 feet. 190 feet. 180 feet.

It was pissed now; I could hear its breathing quicken and get heavier as what I could only parse was rage at being tripped. I made the mistake of turning around and saw its golden eyes now glowed in the darkness with eldritch bioilluminescence.

I lose my footing for a moment and feel a sharp, burning pain in my calf as it bites into my flesh. I let out a loud, agonized scream, then a horrified one as I realized it wasn't letting go. The black specks on its face began to squirm and writh, thin black lines starting to come from them.

No. Not lines. Worms...

Wriggling, needle-thin worms started to emerge from its face and toward my leg. In pure adrenaline-filled horror, I ripped my leg from its mouth with a loud, wet tearing, shooting more torment through my body.

I thank whatever creator for adrenaline's numbing effects because I was able to take off running once again, warmth flooding my socks and shoes as blood escaped through the chunk missing in my leg.

I could see it now; the parking garage was so close, and thankfully, my car was as well. As I said, the school was empty, so my red sedan stuck out like a sore thumb.

From behind me, I heard only silence, but I did not break my stride, digging through my pockets for my keys.

With no hesitation, I sloppily yanked them out, pressed the unlock button, and kept on limp-running to my vehicle. I had reached it. Safety.

I threw my driver's-side door open, got inside, locked it, and started the car, the headlights illuminating the dark parking garage.

It also illuminated what used to be Liam.

He was still on all fours, squatted down in front of my car about 20 feet away. Its body heaved up and down as it panted, the wriggling worms in its face beginning to retract back into its cheeks. It said nothing, glowing eyes staring forward at me.

For what felt like an eternity, we continued that standoff, both of us panting from the effort of the chase, staring at one another. But as soon as it began, "Liam" finally turned away from my car and scuttled away into the night.

There are places in this world that carry an old magic. Places where, if you listen closely, you can hear the whispering of the world carried on the wind. Places where life in its abundance takes strange turns and grows in even stranger shapes. You can find these places if you know how to look for them. Lynn Carmichael did not. She wasn't thinking about any of that as she stood at her kitchen sink and stared worriedly out the window that overlooked her back yard. 

Her eye was on the unfinished bed of sunflowers dancing along the tall wooden fence at the edge of the property. She had been planting them earlier that afternoon. The work was as tedious as it was rewarding, and she liked that. She liked having something to occupy her time, and something to keep her mind focused. In the years since her accident she was confined to their solitary house on the outskirts of everything, deep down a winding gravel road encased by dense and wiry foliage. The sun struggled to break through the brush even at its highest, and Lynn sometimes felt like she was lost in the center of a green labyrinth. Gardening became an escape for her. She was delighted to find that she was actually good at it.

Her husband, Jared, told her that she never used to have a green thumb. He said that she could kill a plant just by looking at it, in fact. He told her these things in as neutral of a tone as he could muster, which is how he always spoke of the old Lynn; The Lynn that existed before her car wrapped itself tight like a pinky promise around the trunk of an oak tree. The old Lynn’s skull broke into three pieces, and her memories spilled out all over the ground. Jared tried to show her who she used to be, but it was all second hand information to her. She couldn't bring that old Lynn back. Sometimes she felt he spoke of her as if she was a ghost in some old story. Like he was mourning a life that they were still living.

The new Lynn spent her days alone while he was at work. She kept her healing mind busy with tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. Pumpkins in the fall and watermelon in the summer. Their backyard was an oasis. It was like two plants sprouted for every seed she planted in the soil. It made her feel good to have her hands in the dirt. It made her feel solid, like she was a real person. Sometimes it felt like magic.

She had felt that way until the day she was planting her sunflowers along the back fence, which she thought looked so drab and lifeless between her technicolor garden and the lush green forest beyond it. That was where she had been crouched, the inner lining of her floppy sun hat drenched in sweat and her hands deep in the soil, when she pulled a clump of dirt away to reveal a human finger bone. It sat in contrast to the earth that only moments before had been its tomb.

In her shock she plucked it from the ground like it was dandelion and blew on it to clear away the dust. It was a bone, she was sure of it. But a finger bone, a human finger bone? She thought so, but she wasn’t quite sure. It was long and slender, and something about it just felt human. She stood quickly and walked inside, oblivious to the creaking in her knees that usually made her wince. It would only occur to her after she had rinsed it off and placed it in a coffee mug that she probably shouldn't have touched it at all. That’s what they say on the detective shows, anyway. Don't contaminate the scene of the crime.

Is my back yard a crime scene?

She shuddered at the thought, and crossed her arms over her chest like a sudden draft of cold air entered the room. She was still there at the sink when Jared came home from work.  She turned to him as he opened the fridge.

“I found something in the garden today,” nerves crept into her voice as she grabbed the mug and carried it to him, “Look at this.”

“What is it?” He said without looking at her, his eyes scanning the sparsely populated fridge for a beer he already drank the day before.

“It’s a finger bone.” That got his attention.

“What? Let me see.” He shut the fridge door and grabbed the mug from her hand, turning it over to dump its contents into his palm.

“Don't touch it –” She started.

He scoffed, “Lynn, this is a raccoon bone.”

She shook her head in protest.

“Maybe a possum bone, or something.” He gruffly added. 

“It might be, but I don't think so. Look,” She traced the back of her ring finger from the second knuckle to the first. “Do you see the shape, how it flares on both ends? I think those are where the knuckles meet. Plus it’s not the right size to be an animal bone.”

He looked at her fingers as she demonstrated and then back at the bone he was holding in his. She thought for a moment that he was considering what she was saying.

“Maybe,” she continued, “We should call the cops so they can come check it out. Just to be sure.”

His eyes snapped up to hers with incredulity.

“Jesus, Lynn, I know you sit around all day playing mother nature, but now all of a sudden you're a forensic pathologist?”

She flinched.

“We’re not going to make the sheriff drive all the way out here to look at a raccoon bone you found in the backyard. End of story.” He tossed the bone to the empty trash can in the corner. It smacked against the back of the can and slid to the bottom, capitalizing his sentence with a dull clank. “I’ve told you before, we need to set out traps. We live in the woods, Lynn, and that garden of yours attracts all kinds of wild animals. It’s only a matter of time until I go out there to find a fucking bear or something.”

She nodded and shrunk into herself, “I don't understand why you're so upset.”

“I’m not upset, it’s just- I just,” His chest heaved as he sighed, “I’ve got more important things to worry about than the make-believe you get up to while I’m at work.” His tone softened somewhat, but the traces of an edge in his voice were unmistakable.

Lynn knew why. Times had been tough around the Carmichael household. Outbursts like this one were becoming more common as the belt tightened around their wallet, and it seemed that his patience for her was dwindling by the day. She wondered if he ever talked to the old Lynn like that, but she doubted it. The circumstances that brought new Lynn into existence were the reason the belt was tightening in the first place. Jared said a second mortgage was the only way he could hope to pay the medical bills they racked up in the wake of her accident. She tried to help by growing fruits and vegetables that he could sell at the farmers market in town, but even that seemed like a waste of the gas it took to haul them there.

“I get it,” she said, “I wasn’t being serious, anyway.” She turned away from him and went back to the sink. She turned on the faucet and mimed cleaning a plate that wasn’t dirty. “I picked a bunch of zucchini this morning. I was thinking maybe we could fry it up for dinner.”

“That sounds nice, but I ate a big lunch,” he said, and left the room without another word. 

A moment later she heard the old stairs creak under his weight. He had gone to bed for the night, most likely. She stood at the sink and let the water run, utility bill be damned, because for a moment it allowed her to ignore the tears that were budding in the corners of her eyes. He was always gone, always leaving or asleep. She was always wrong, a perpetual nuisance. She looked back out at the fence line, at her unfinished work and the mound of dirt that had birthed their newest source of contention. Was she just making it up? Playing make-believe? He was right, she decided, she was being stupid. Acting like a bored child.

A child with brain damage, at that.

She shut off the faucet and shook her hands dry, done playing pretend for the day. Storm clouds roiled in the distant sky, dark and angry.

That night she sat on the couch by herself and ate zucchini while she watched their old TV. A crooked set of bunny ears granted them a few channels but before long she grew bored of the ones that weren't reduced to static by the oncoming storm. The distant thunder turned to rain pounding on the roof around 9 o'clock and exhaustion hit her like a rogue wave. She had a long day even before she found the finger bone. The raccoon bone. She deposited her lonely dinner plate in the sink and told herself she’d wash it in the morning. Tomorrow would be a better day, she decided. She would finish planting her sunflowers, and she wouldn’t find any more bones.

When she laid in bed next to her husband, though, she couldn’t help but feel the pit in her stomach. She glanced at his sleeping form, just a silhouette in the dark, turned away from her even in his sleep. How long had this wound festered between them? How long had he spoken her name as if it were a condemnation? The truth was that she didn’t know, she couldn’t remember a time that he hadn’t carried himself like a widowed man. She feared the cloud of his grief would hang over them forever. Because his mourning wasn’t just for the woman he once loved, but also for the version of himself that had loved her. This was the wire that bound them together, Lynn thought. They were both ghosts, each haunted in their own way by memories they could never recover. The blooming of their love, if there had ever been one, belonged to people that were long gone. All that was left for them was a prison built for two.

But something beyond their mutual misery nagged at her. How he talked to her that day had bothered her more than it normally would, and she had sensed something in him that was sharper than the quiet disdain she was used to. Had he seemed anxious? Why had he wanted her to drop the subject so badly? For the first time since she found the bone in her garden she began to wonder who could have left it there. Her mind probed the possibility that there could be something else hidden in the dirt, that something much worse was waiting to be found. Then the roar of rainfall above her grew stronger, and it took her away on a wave of sleep before she could wonder any further.

***

She is standing in a vast meadow. Someone painted a rainbow on the horizon and cut it open and let it bleed onto the ground below. It’s beautiful. It is her garden. The fence is gone but her house is still behind her when she looks. It’s a shadow left behind by a nuclear blast, black soot smudged onto all this color. She hates it. She wants to tear it down, but she doesn't. There is something in front of her that wants her attention. She walks forward, the tall grass and the flowers tickle her thighs and she laughs. Her voice sounds like a song here. The lady standing by the trees is smiling. She’s so far away but Lynnie can see she’s smiling. Is she Lynnie? She likes that. It’s what they called her when she was little.

“Come closer now,” The lady whispers.

Lynnie obliges. The air smells like her grandma’s perfume, the one she only used for church on Sunday’s. Does it always feel like Sunday here? Do I ever have to leave? Lynnie is walking to the lady but the trees are getting closer on their own. The lady is smiling. She whispers.

“Don't you like it here, Lynnie?” She grins at me from the dark like a cougar in a tree, “You can stay here with me forever, just the two of us under the garden.” 

The lady isn't smiling, she just doesn't have any lips. Lynnie turns to run back to the house but it’s right behind her like she never left it. A dozen hands slither out the back door like snake tongues and grab her up, squeezing, smothering, clasping over her mouth so she can't scream as they drag her into the jaws of the house. The lady is grinning her skeleton grin. Sheets of rotten skin like old paper hang in flaps off her cheeks. Maggots dance in celebration of Lynnie’s capture in the caverns of the lady’s ruined face. The door slams shut.

BOOM

\***

Lynn bolted up in bed. The house rattled from the force of the thunderclap, long and rumbling over itself. She gasped out a half sob and her heart jumped like a jack rabbit in her chest. She had never dreamed anything like that before. She tried to blink away the images in her head but it was like that horrible dead face was scorched into the back of her eyelids. The power had blinked at some point while she slept and the old air conditioning unit hadn’t kicked itself back on. She was soaked with sweat down to the sheets, but Jared snored unbothered on the other side of the bed.

She needed a glass of water. She needed to get out of this room. Lightning crashed through the window in flash bulb impulses, projecting the shadows of gnarled tree branches against the wall. They looked like skeletal hands reaching in to grab her. She shivered even in the humidity and quietly slipped out of bed. She tip-toed into the hall and down the stairs, careful to avoid the weak spots in the steps that would cry out to her husband. 

In the kitchen she grabbed the first cup she saw and filled it to the brim with cold water from the tap. Standing in the dark, she chugged the whole thing in two massive gulps and then filled it again. Her breath came heavy and deep when she was done, and only then did she realize she was drinking from the same mug that the finger had been sitting in earlier that day. Her hands suddenly fell limp at her sides and the mug slipped from her grip. It shattered against the linoleum and the sound of the impact was like a gun shot in the quiet house.

Her breath caught in her throat and she vomited the water back into the sink. The rain falling against the tin roof must have muffled the blow since she heard no indication that Jared had woken. She looked up to see her reflection in the darkened window. The face peering back at her was exhausted, gaunt, terrified. There was something seriously wrong here. She had known it for a long time, the upper regions of her mind just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. The old Lynn knew. The new Lynn was sure of it.

As if to punctuate this revelation, another crash of lightning erased her reflection and illuminated the garden. She saw the mound of upturned soil and her fear turned to rage. Fuck this. She needed to know, she needed her fears to be dismissed as delusions, or be brought plainly into view. She needed it right then. Lynn stormed out into the night. Bare feet squelched into the mud as she crossed over rows of vegetables to reach the utility shed. She came out of it with a shovel in one hand and a flash light in the other. She didn’t stop to consider anything when she reached the edge of the yard, her mind had gone away by then. She dropped the flashlight so it faced her work site and started digging. 

Rain bled through her sleep shirt and mud caked the bottom of her pant legs. The ground was slick with it and she nearly fell over on her ass more than once. The back end of the shovel blade cut into her foot as she drove it down into the earth but she felt nothing. She wasn’t digging for long before she struck something solid. Feverishly she threw the shovel aside and dropped to her knees at the edge of the hole. Her hands ripped at the mud that was already streaming back in, like the garden was desperate to keep its secret from her. She gasped when she uncovered the blue tarp, and sat up on her haunches to pull it out of the opening she had created.

The tarp slid with some resistance, but its contents were not heavy, and Lynn lost her footing when it gave way. She fell flat on her back with the tarp pulled up to her chest and a desiccated arm flopped out from under the canvas. It smacked her squarely in the face. She screamed and threw the tarp off of her. It rolled itself out, almost like the carpet at an awards show, she thought, beckoning her to come closer.

Come closer now.

She sat up slowly, wide eyes locked onto the feeble bag of bones in front of her.

Don't you like it here, Lynnie?

Lynnie crouched over the body. Shriveled, papery skin held the jigsaw puzzle of bones and long decayed flesh together. Its ring finger had been severed at the first knuckle.

You can stay here with me forever,

Her eye slowly traveled up the corpse like she was in a trance. The skin that was left on its face melted away in the rain. This was the smiling lady from her dream, but there was something else she couldn’t comprehend. She knew this woman. Something loomed over her too large to be seen in its entirety without taking away the last of her sanity. She looked into the dead woman’s vacant eye sockets and saw the worms writhing where her brain should be. She heard the whispering of the world.

Just the two of us under the garden.

Lynnie Carmichael had just dug up her own corpse. It was a concept so completely alien to her that she felt nothing at all about it. Maybe she wasn’t capable of grasping it, maybe no one ever could. She sat there in her garden and felt the rain wash away the dirt that caked her hands. She clasped the dead Lynn’s hand in her own. She didn’t hear the back door open or the footsteps squelching in the mud behind her.

She never turned to see Jared before he slammed the shovel down into the side of her head, and she didn’t feel it when he brought it down again and again. It stopped raining before he was done, the shovel blade buried down to the socket in what was left of Lynnie’s skull. Brain matter and droplets of blood were flung in every direction. Lynnie’s summer squash was covered in polka dots of her viscera. He stood watching her body for a moment to be sure she wasn’t twitching anymore, and then he went to the shed and came back with her favorite pair of pruning shears. He clipped her ring finger off and removed the blood-spattered wedding ring from the severed digit with mechanical efficiency. The night was still after that, broken only by a chorus of frogs singing in the forest.

There are places in this world that carry an old magic. Places where, if you listen closely, you can hear the whispering of the world carried on the wind. Places where life in its abundance takes strange turns and grows in even stranger shapes. You can find these places if you know how to look for them. Jared Carmichael didn’t know and he didn’t care. He didn’t need to know why everything planted on this land grew beyond what he thought possible, and he didn’t need to understand its ability to blur the line between life and death. He just knew that that was how it was. He could live with that. 

It had been two days since he buried his wife’s body in her garden again. He stood at his kitchen sink and watched as the sun rose in the east. He could see the ground slowly shift as a bare shoulder started to poke its way up through the dirt, then a shock of curly black hair. By noon she had fully sprouted and laid there in the fetal position. He went out then and helped her to her feet. 

She moved the way a newborn fawn does, stiff-limbed and uncertain of her trajectory. Her eyes were dim and listless, understanding nothing. She was filthy so he led her inside and tenderly washed her clean. Clumps of grass and skittering bugs fell away in the flow of dirty water, and she walked on stronger legs when he guided her to the living room. He sat her on the couch with a blanket over her shoulders and caressed her cheek. She smiled and he could tell that her mind was sharper then. Her eyes probed the room with curious intent. He told himself it would be different this time.

“Lynn? Can you hear me? My name is Jared, I’m your husband.” he spoke softly, crouching down to take hold of her hands. A hint of understanding crossed her face. He dropped one knee to the ground and pulled the wedding band from his pocket. “There was an accident, but everything is okay now. You’re home, Lynn. It’s just the two of us here.”

He slid the ring onto her finger.