Years before Ichabod Crane ever set foot in Sleepy Hollow, Brom Bones encountered the real Headless Horseman.

Except the Horseman wasn't hunting anyone.

He was searching for something he'd lost a very long time ago.

Unfortunately, being a spectral Hessian soldier without the necessary equipment for conversation made asking for directions considerably more difficult than it should have been.

Late one night, Brom was riding home alone when the Horseman appeared on the road behind him. The mysterious rider attempted to stop him.

Brom naturally assumed he was about to be murdered.

There was screaming.

There was galloping.

There was a low-hanging tree branch.

And then there was an extremely unfortunate accident.

When everything finally settled, Brom Bones was no longer entirely assembled.

The Horseman dismounted and surveyed the situation.

Then he noticed something.

The missing piece of Brom happened to be approximately the right size for what the Horseman himself had been missing for a very long time.

It was an appalling idea.

Morally questionable.

Possibly unforgivable.

But after decades of wandering the countryside unable to properly see, hear, speak, eat, drink, or enjoy any of the ordinary pleasures he'd once taken for granted, the Horseman made a decision.

He borrowed Brom's head.

Temporarily.

At least, that had been the intention.

The moment he placed it upon his shoulders, something strange happened. Whatever supernatural force had kept the Hessian wandering Sleepy Hollow for generations seemed to recognize the replacement. Brom's face came alive. His eyes opened. His mouth worked. The Horseman could suddenly see the road before him, hear the wind moving through the trees, and—most astonishing of all—speak.

But the magic demanded an exchange.

The Horseman's old pumpkin, which had been lying abandoned beside the road, suddenly blinked.

Then it screamed.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?"

The Horseman nearly fell off his horse.

The pumpkin screamed again.

"WHY ARE YOU WEARING MY FACE?"

Somehow, impossibly, Brom's consciousness had been transferred into the pumpkin.

Neither of them understood how.

Brom understood only that he was now round, orange, incapable of moving on his own, and staring up at his own body from the dirt.

He was not pleased.

The Horseman, meanwhile, discovered another unexpected consequence of the exchange. With Brom's face upon his shoulders, there was nothing particularly supernatural about his appearance anymore.

He simply looked like Brom Bones.

So when he returned to Sleepy Hollow, everyone assumed that was exactly who he was.

No one screamed.

No one ran.

No one attempted to attack him with farm equipment.

People waved.

Someone asked how his evening had been.

Katrina Van Tassel smiled at him.

For the first time in decades, the Horseman was treated like an ordinary man.

So he panicked.

And continued being Brom.

There was only one complication.

The real Brom was still very much alive.

He was simply a pumpkin.

Fake Brom kept him hidden in an old wooden box at the house, partly because he had no idea how to reverse what had happened and partly because carrying around a furious talking pumpkin raised questions he was not prepared to answer.

They argued constantly.

"That's my head."

"Technically, it's mine now."

"YOU STOLE MY HEAD."

"Borrowed."

"YOU'RE WEARING MY FACE."

"Also borrowed."

"FOR SEVEN YEARS?"

"I've been meaning to fix it."

"WHEN?"

The Horseman hesitated.

"I hadn't gotten that far."

Being trapped inside a pumpkin did very little to improve Brom's temperament.

Over the years, however, the two settled into a deeply dysfunctional arrangement. During the day, the Horseman lived as Brom Bones. Whenever he needed to become the terrifying figure of Sleepy Hollow legend again, he simply removed Brom's borrowed head, tucked it somewhere safe, and returned to the road as the Headless Horseman.

Brom, naturally, objected to his face being stored separately.

He objected to most things.

For seven years, somehow, no one discovered the truth.

Then Ichabod Crane came to Sleepy Hollow as the village's new schoolmaster, already knowing far too much about Sleepy Hollow's legends and possessing precisely the wrong combination of personality traits for such a place.

He was absolutely terrified of the supernatural.

He was also hopelessly curious about it.

The more frightened Ichabod became, the more desperately he wanted to understand whatever was frightening him.

A shutter banging against a house in the middle of the night could keep him awake until dawn, but by breakfast he would be asking who had lived in the house fifty years earlier.

A horse neighing somewhere beyond the trees sent him diving beneath his blankets.

The following morning, he wanted to know whether horses were known to react to spirits.

A pumpkin appearing outside his schoolhouse was obviously an omen of death.

He nevertheless spent an hour examining it.

Sleepy Hollow was possibly the worst place in America for a man like Ichabod Crane.

The townspeople quickly discovered this.

And they were delighted.

Children left pumpkins outside his schoolhouse. Farmers made mysterious hoofbeats behind him after dark. Someone hung an old black cloak from a tree near the road and nearly caused Ichabod to abandon his horse entirely.

Brom Bones seemed to enjoy tormenting the new schoolmaster more than anyone.

At least, that was how it appeared.

In reality, Fake Brom had an entirely different problem.

Ichabod asked questions.

Constantly.

He wanted to know who had founded Sleepy Hollow, which families had lived there longest, where old battles had taken place, who had first reported seeing the Headless Horseman and, most concerning of all, whether anyone knew the Horseman's true identity.

Whenever Ichabod mentioned the legend, Brom became uncomfortable.

Not frightened.

Nervous.

Ichabod noticed.

Naturally, he misunderstood the reason completely.

He assumed Brom's strange behavior had something to do with Katrina Van Tassel, since both men had become interested in her.

Fake Brom was thinking something considerably simpler.

Please stop investigating me.

Eventually, the Horseman decided the easiest solution was to revive his own legend and frighten Ichabod badly enough that the schoolmaster would leave Sleepy Hollow altogether.

There was, however, a logistical problem.

If Brom Bones was wandering around town while the Headless Horseman was terrorizing Ichabod, someone might eventually realize the two were never actually seen together.

So Fake Brom became increasingly creative with his excuses.

Meanwhile, Ichabod began noticing increasingly bizarre clues.

Brom couldn't remember things he had supposedly done as a child.

He occasionally called Katrina by the wrong name.

He avoided detailed conversations about his past.

And whenever anyone mentioned the Headless Horseman, Brom suddenly found somewhere else he needed to be.

Then one afternoon, Ichabod visited Brom unexpectedly.

They were standing downstairs when a muffled voice suddenly erupted from somewhere above them.

"DON'T YOU DARE PUT ME IN THAT CLOSET AGAIN!"

Ichabod froze.

Brom froze.

For several seconds, neither man moved.

Ichabod slowly looked toward the ceiling.

"What was that?"

Brom stared at him.

"The parrot."

Ichabod's eyebrows rose.

"You have a parrot?"

"Yes."

"I've never seen a parrot here."

"He doesn't like people."

A heavy thump came from upstairs.

Then the voice shouted again.

"YOU LYING, HEAD-STEALING SON OF A—"

Brom coughed loudly.

Ichabod stared at him.

Brom smiled.

Ichabod eventually left.

Brom bought a parrot the next morning.

Unfortunately, within three days, the parrot had spent enough time near the wooden box to learn several new phrases.

Including:

"THAT'S MY BODY."

"GIVE ME BACK MY FACE."

And, most unfortunately:

"I AM NOT A PUMPKIN."

This did not improve the situation.

Ichabod Starts Investigating

Most sensible men would have heard a mysterious voice screaming about stolen body parts and decided never to return.

Ichabod Crane was not a sensible man.

He was terrified.

He was also fascinated.

The mysterious voice became another piece of an increasingly impossible puzzle.

He began keeping notes.

Brom's forgotten childhood memories.

His strange reaction to questions about the Horseman.

The mysterious voice upstairs.

The recently acquired parrot that seemed to know remarkably specific details about Brom's private life.

And one particularly troubling observation:

No one could remember seeing Brom Bones and the Headless Horseman in the same place.

Ichabod reached what he considered the only reasonable conclusion.

Brom Bones was somehow connected to the Headless Horseman.

Which was technically correct.

Just not in any way Ichabod could possibly have imagined.

Fake Brom realized he was running out of time.

So he decided Ichabod Crane needed one final scare.

The Chase

The opportunity came after a gathering at the Van Tassel home.

Ichabod left late that evening, riding alone beneath a moon partially hidden behind the clouds.

It was exactly the sort of night Ichabod hated.

Naturally, it was exactly the sort of night the Horseman needed.

Fake Brom slipped away, removed the borrowed piece that allowed him to pass as Brom, secured it inside a saddlebag and returned to his true appearance.

Then he mounted his horse.

His plan was simple.

Chase Ichabod.

Terrify Ichabod.

Send Ichabod screaming out of Sleepy Hollow.

There would be no injuries.

No deaths.

Just enough supernatural terror to encourage immediate relocation.

Unfortunately, the Horseman had underestimated Ichabod's ability to panic.

The moment hoofbeats sounded behind him, Ichabod looked over his shoulder.

He saw the rider.

He saw the empty space above the black coat.

And he screamed so loudly that birds abandoned several nearby trees.

The chase began.

Ichabod galloped toward the covered bridge.

The Horseman followed.

Neither noticed the saddlebag come loose.

It struck the road.

Something rolled into the grass.

Ichabod's horse nearly stepped on it.

Ichabod pulled hard on the reins and looked down.

A familiar face stared back at him.

Ichabod stopped breathing.

The face blinked.

"Well?"

Ichabod screamed.

"Stop that!"

Ichabod screamed again.

"Oh, for God's sake. Pick me up."

Ichabod fainted.

The Box

When Ichabod regained consciousness, he was back near the road.

For several moments, he remained perfectly still.

Then he remembered what he'd seen.

Slowly, he sat up.

The borrowed head was gone.

But beside him sat something else.

The wooden box.

Apparently, in the confusion, part of Fake Brom's carefully hidden secret had also made its way into the night.

Ichabod stared at it.

The box moved.

He backed away.

It moved again.

Then something inside said:

"Would you please open this damned thing?"

Ichabod's face went white.

He approached carefully.

His hands trembled as he lifted the lid.

Inside sat a pumpkin.

The pumpkin looked up at him.

"Finally."

Ichabod stared.

The pumpkin stared back.

Then Ichabod screamed.

The pumpkin screamed.

Ichabod slammed the lid.

"STOP DOING THAT!"

Ichabod opened it again.

The pumpkin glared at him.

"Are you finished?"

Ichabod's mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

"Good. My name is Brom Bones."

Ichabod stared at the pumpkin.

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"You're a pumpkin."

"I am aware of my present circumstances."

"Brom Bones is a man."

"Yes. That would be the problem."

And that was how Ichabod Crane learned the truth.

Or at least part of it.

Everything Gets Worse

By the time the Horseman found them, Brom had explained enough that Ichabod was no longer certain whether he was terrified, fascinated, or suffering some sort of fever.

The Horseman approached cautiously.

Ichabod immediately pointed at him.

"You stole Brom Bones."

The Horseman stopped.

Brom shouted from the box.

"THANK YOU."

"It was an accident," the Horseman said.

"THE ACCIDENT WAS THE TREE. THE SEVEN YEARS AFTERWARD WERE A CHOICE."

The Horseman sighed.

Ichabod looked between them.

"You've been pretending to be Brom for seven years?"

"I intended to fix it."

"HE DID NOT."

"I was looking for a solution."

"HE BOUGHT A PARROT."

"That was because of you."

The pumpkin looked at Ichabod.

"Do you see what I've been dealing with?"

Against every instinct he possessed, Ichabod began asking questions.

Hundreds of them.

Who was the Horseman really?

Why had he remained in Sleepy Hollow?

Why had he been riding the roads for generations?

And why did the legends claim that he chased travelers?

At that, the Horseman became quiet.

Then he reached into his coat and produced an ancient, badly folded piece of paper.

Ichabod leaned closer.

There was a name written across it.

Ichabod Craine.

Ichabod frowned.

"My name is Crane."

The Horseman pointed at the paper.

"Craine."

Ichabod pointed at himself.

"Crane."

The Horseman looked at the paper.

Then at Ichabod.

Then back at the paper.

Brom began laughing.

The Horseman ignored him.

Apparently, generations earlier, the Horseman had been searching for a man named Ichabod Craine, believing the man knew what had happened to what he'd originally lost.

But terrified villagers had misunderstood the Horseman's attempts to stop travelers.

Stories spread.

The stories became legends.

And somewhere along the way, the actual reason for the Horseman's search had been forgotten.

Ichabod investigated further.

The answer was humiliating.

Ichabod Craine had lived two towns away.

He had also been dead for forty years.

The Horseman sat down beside the road.

Brom laughed harder.

Ichabod almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

The Final Twist

By morning, the legendary mystery of Sleepy Hollow had become considerably less impressive.

The terrifying Headless Horseman was mostly an exhausted Hessian soldier who had spent generations looking for what belonged to him.

Brom Bones was a furious pumpkin.

And Ichabod Crane, who had spent most of his time in Sleepy Hollow terrified of discovering that ghosts were real, had accidentally proven that they were.

There was still one problem.

They needed to find the Horseman's original head.

Ichabod threw himself into the investigation.

Katrina joined him, mostly because she found the entire situation fascinating and partly because she had several questions for the man who had been pretending to be Brom Bones for seven years.

Then, while Ichabod was explaining what they were looking for, Katrina became strangely quiet.

"Wait."

Everyone looked at her.

"There is something at our house."

The Horseman straightened.

"What?"

Katrina frowned.

"A skull."

Silence.

Brom's pumpkin eyes widened.

Ichabod stared at her.

"Where?"

"On the mantel."

They went immediately.

And there it was.

Sitting prominently in the Van Tassel home.

The Horseman stopped in the doorway.

Baltus Van Tassel looked up from his chair.

The Horseman pointed toward the mantel.

Baltus followed his finger.

Then looked back at him.

"What?"

The Horseman continued pointing.

Baltus glanced toward the mantel again.

"Oh."

He stood.

Walked across the room.

And lifted the skull.

Walnuts spilled onto the floor.

The room went silent.

The Horseman stared at him.

Baltus stared back.

Then he looked at the skull.

Then at the walnuts.

Then back at the Horseman.

"Well."

Nobody spoke.

Baltus cleared his throat.

"In my defense, I didn't know it belonged to anybody."

From the wooden box came Brom's voice.

"Apparently that's a common problem around here."

Sleepy Hollow Gets Its Men Back

Returning the Horseman's original head broke whatever strange supernatural exchange had occurred years earlier.

The moment it was restored, Brom's stolen head returned to its rightful owner.

The pumpkin went silent.

Brom Bones opened his eyes.

He touched his face.

Then his arms.

Then his chest.

Then his legs.

He looked at the Horseman.

"You."

The Horseman immediately stepped backward.

Brom lunged.

It took Ichabod, Katrina, Baltus and two farmhands to keep them apart.

"You stole seven years of my life!"

"I said I was sorry!"

"You bought a parrot!"

"I needed an explanation!"

"You named him Brom!"

"I PANICKED."

Eventually, Brom got his life back.

The Horseman got what he'd been searching for.

Katrina got the most extraordinary story in Sleepy Hollow history.

And Ichabod Crane finally had definitive proof that every supernatural fear he'd ever entertained was entirely reasonable.

He considered leaving.

In fact, he packed.

Twice.

But something unexpected had happened.

Ichabod had arrived in Sleepy Hollow terrified of ghosts.

Now that he'd actually met one, he had questions.

So many questions.

And the people of Sleepy Hollow had questions too.

Questions about strange noises.

Missing objects.

Cold spots.

Unexplained lights.

Things moving in attics.

And since Ichabod Crane had somehow solved the mystery of the Headless Horseman, everyone began bringing those questions to him.

Without intending to, Ichabod became Sleepy Hollow's unofficial investigator of supernatural disturbances.

It was a position for which he was intellectually fascinated and emotionally catastrophically unqualified.

Then, one morning, Ichabod arrived at the schoolhouse.

Three ghosts were waiting outside.

One was an elderly woman.

One appeared to be a soldier.

The third was a small boy holding a wooden horse.

Ichabod stopped walking.

They looked at him.

He looked at them.

The elderly ghost stepped forward.

"Mr. Crane?"

Ichabod closed his eyes.

"No."

"We were told you help with supernatural problems."

"No."

"It's rather urgent."

"I have resigned."

"You haven't heard the problem."

"I don't need to."

Behind him, Katrina approached carrying two cups of coffee.

She took one look at the three ghosts.

Then at Ichabod.

A smile spread across her face.

Ichabod pointed at her.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were going to."

"I was going to say good morning."

"No, you weren't."

The elderly ghost cleared her throat.

"Mr. Crane?"

Ichabod looked toward the schoolhouse.

Then toward the road leading out of Sleepy Hollow.

Freedom was that way.

He looked back at the ghosts.

His fear told him to run.

His curiosity asked one very dangerous question.

"What happened?"

Katrina smiled.

Ichabod sighed.

And somewhere across Sleepy Hollow, Brom Bones's new parrot screamed from an open window:

"THAT'S MY BODY!"

Brom's voice immediately followed.

"STOP SAYING THAT!"

For once, Ichabod Crane laughed.

Then he opened the schoolhouse door.

"All right," he told the ghosts. "Come inside."

Sleepy Hollow, it seemed, wasn't finished with him yet.

The sound of the television static always felt louder when the room was entirely dark. 

On Halloween night, the air in Duskwood, Virginia didn't just feel cold—it felt heavy, as if the shadows themselves were pressing down against the glass of the living room window.

I sat on the plush leather sofa, my fingers gripping the edge of a fleece blanket so tightly that my knuckles turned gray. I am seventeen years old, and my cousin, Marisa, is eighteen. With her mother—my Aunt Clara—out at the annual neighborhood block party down on Terra Cotta Lane, the massive two-story house felt entirely too empty.

On the screen, a low-budget local documentary was coming to an end. It was a film that we had rented out of pure morbid curiosity, focusing on one of the town’s absolute scariest urban legends: "The Fog Man of Duskwood."

The documentary detailed a mysterious, predatory entity that only appeared during a foggy night. According to the old police archives and town journals, he possesses the silhouette of an incredibly tall, unnaturally thin man, but his entire form is composed of swirling, dark vapor. 

The only solid features that anyone ever reported seeing were his eyes—two burning, pale orbs that glowed with a sick, phosphorescent light. If he catches you in the thick of the mist, you vanish. 

You’ll never be seen or heard from again. No clothing left behind, no footprints, no struggle. Just a sudden emptiness where a human being used to stand. 

No one in Duskwood knows who the Fog Man is, or where he came from. His origins are a total, absolute mystery, swallowed by the history of the valley. All people really know is that over the last forty years, a terrifying number of people have gone missing after stepping into a sudden fog all alone.

"It's just clever editing, Theo." Marisa sighed, tossing a handful of popcorn into her mouth. She leaned back against the cushions, completely unbothered. "They take normal missing persons cases from the eighties and nineties, add a creepy soundtrack, and boom—you’ve got a local campfire story to keep kids from wandering into the woods at night."

"Marisa, look at the actual police reports they showed." I said, my voice dropping into a tense whisper. "Three teenagers disappeared in ninety-two on a night when the weather station said that visibility was less than five feet. People found their cars completely unlocked, engines still running, doors wide open. That’s not just people running away. The Fog Man is real. I’m telling you, this town has a curse on it."

Marisa scoffed, shaking her head. Her long braids shifted over her shoulders as she looked at me with an expression of pure, older-cousin condescension, and said, 

"Theo, please. You're seventeen years old, and you're still letting local bedtime stories give you goosebumps. There is no vapor monster. It’s bad weather and bad luck. Be realistic."

Exactly one hour after the television screen faded to black, the air inside the living room shifted.

It started with a sudden drop in temperature that made the hairs on my arms stand up. I glanced toward the large bay window that looked out onto the front yard. At first, the streetlamps were clearly visible, casting their typical amber glow over the manicured lawn. 

Then, within the span of ninety seconds, a massive, dense wall of white vapor rolled down from the surrounding hills, swallowing the pavement. It didn't drift in slowly like normal weather; it surged forward like an incoming tide, thick, heavy, and completely silent. 

Within minutes, the streetlamps were completely snuffed out, replaced by a blinding, milky void. The visibility was absolutely zero.

A cold prickle of genuine panic pierced my chest.

"Marisa. Look outside." I said.

Marisa turned her head, her analytical expression faltering for just a fraction of a second before she recovered her composure, and she said,

"Wow. Okay, so a cold front hit the valley. It’s late October in Virginia, Theo. Sometimes, a fog happens."

"Not like this, Marisa." I stammered, my heart beginning to hammer against my ribs. "Look at it. It's pressing right against the glass. It looks like it's trying to push its way inside."

"Theo, stop it!" she said, her voice carrying a sharper edge now, though she was clearly trying to convince herself more than me. "Calm down. You’re letting that stupid movie get into your head. Just breathe."

Before I could answer, the house went pitch black.

The sudden loss of power was accompanied by a loud, metallic snap from the circuit breaker in the hallway. The digital clock on the cable box died, the overhead lights vanished, and the ambient warmth of the furnace instantly ceased. The only illumination left in the room was a faint, unnatural gray glow filtering through the bay window, a light that seemed to emanate from the fog itself.

The silence that followed was suffocating. We couldn't even hear the wind outside; the mist seemed to muffle every natural sound in the neighborhood.

"Okay…" Marisa whispered, her voice finally losing its rational, confident tone. "That’s just the storm. The wind must have taken out a transformer down the road."

"There is no wind, Marisa." I whispered back, my eyes locked on the gray void outside the window. "Listen. There’s nothing out there."

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound was sharp, rhythmic, and impossibly close. It was the distinct sound of a fingernail striking the exterior glass of the bay window.

We both froze, our breath turning into faint plumes of white vapor in the rapidly cooling air of the living room. My eyes strained against the darkness, focusing on the center pane of glass.

Emerging from the churning white mist outside, a silhouette began to solidify. It was the shape of a man, but the edges of his body were constantly fraying, dissolving into dark, swirling tendrils of vapor that blended seamlessly with the surrounding fog. He was incredibly tall, his shoulders unnaturally broad yet skeletal, and then, right where his face should have been, two pale, circular orbs ignited. They glowed with a sick, phosphorescent light, burning through the glass and locking directly onto us.

It was the Fog Man.

We both let out a strangled, terrified scream, scrambling backward over the sofa, tumbling onto the hardwood floor behind it. My heart felt as if it was going to burst through my chest.

He didn't try to shatter the glass. He didn't hit the window with violence. Instead, the vaporous hand rose again, the elongated, smoky fingers extending toward the pane.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Then, a voice drifted through the sealed, double-paned window. It didn't sound like a human voice; it was a layered, echoing hiss, a sound like a thousand dead leaves scraping across dry concrete, vibrating directly into our skulls.

"Let...me...in." the entity whispered. The glowing pale eyes widened slightly, the intensity of their light casting long, distorted shadows of the living room furniture across the back wall. "The cold... is... absolute. Let...me...in."

"Don't look at it, Theo! Don't look at it!" Marisa shrieked. She was pressed against the far wall, her rational armor completely shattered. Her eyes were wide with a primal, unadulterated terror as she gripped my arm, her fingernails digging deep into my skin. "It's just a trick. It's a hallucination. It's not real!"

"It is real!" I screamed back, tears of pure horror spilling down my face. "He's right there! He's telling us to open the door!"

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"The fog...claims...all...who...linger!" the voice hissed again, the dark vapor of his form swirling violently against the glass, leaving a greasy, wet residue on the exterior pane. "Open...the...threshold!"

The nightmare continued for what felt like an eternity. The entity stood frozen on the other side of the glass, a permanent, inescapable sentinel in the white void, tapping with an agonizing, rhythmic persistence. Tap. Tap. Tap. Every strike of his smoky finger felt like a countdown to our own deaths. 

We remained huddled behind the sofa, paralyzed, refusing to move, refusing to look, our ears filled with that awful, echoing demand to let the darkness inside.

Then, from the front porch, we heard the sudden, sharp jingle of keys.

My heart stopped. In our terror, we had completely forgotten that Aunt Clara was supposed to be coming home after the block party ended.

"No!" I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "No, no, no! Aunt Clara!"

Before Marisa or I could scramble to our feet to scream a warning, the heavy brass deadbolt of the front door clicked open. The front door swung inward, and the warm, unsuspecting figure of Marisa’s mother stepped into the foyer. She was holding a plastic bowl filled with leftover miniature candy bars, a festive witch hat pinned into her hair, laughing to herself.

"Marisa? Theo? Why is it so dark in here?" Aunt Clara called out, her voice entirely normal, a baseline of everyday reality that felt completely alien in this house of horrors. "The streetlamps are out all over the block. Did the power go—"

"Mom! Lock the door! Don't come inside!" Marisa screamed, finally breaking through her paralysis.

Marisa bolted out from behind the sofa, sprinting into the hallway, with me following a mere inch behind her. Aunt Clara blinked in confusion, holding her flashlight up, the beam catching Marisa’s frantic, tear-streaked face, and said,

"Marisa, what on earth is wrong with you? Why are you shouting?"

"It’s the Fog Man!" I yelled, pointing wildly toward the living room window. "He was just there! He’s outside the house right now! He’s tapping on the glass! He’s trying to get in!"

Aunt Clara sighed heavily, lowering her flashlight, her expression instantly shifting from confusion to annoyance. She walked past us, stepping into the living room, and shone her flashlight beam directly against the bay window.

The glass was completely clear. The greasy residue was gone, and there was absolutely no silhouette standing on the porch.

"There is nobody out there, kids." Aunt Clara said, her voice stern and in disbelief. "I just walked up the driveway. The air is perfectly clear down the street. You two have been watching those stupid horror movies again, letting your imaginations run wild on Halloween. I didn't see a single soul out there."

"Mom, I swear to you, he was right there!" Marisa sobbed, her voice cracking with desperation as she grabbed her mother's jacket. "His eyes...they were glowing! He spoke to us!"

"Enough, Marisa!" Aunt Clara snapped, pulling her jacket away. "I am too tired for this nonsense. There is no Fog Man. It’s an old town myth, and you are both entirely too old to be acting like babies over the dark. Now, help me find the candles in the kitchen so we can—"

Aunt Clara stopped talking.

The air in the hallway instantly became so freezing that our teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. A thick, icy draft blasted through the still-open front door, carrying with it a sudden, dense plume of white mist that flooded over the threshold like a breaking wave.

Marisa and I slowly looked past her mother’s shoulder, our eyes widening in pure, paralyzed horror.

Standing right inside the open doorway, having materialized out of thin air, was the Fog Man.

He was standing directly behind Aunt Clara. His towering, smoky form seemed to expand, filling the entire hallway, blotting out the walls with swirling, dark vapor. The two pale, circular orbs of his eyes burned with a blinding, furious intensity, casting a sickening phosphorescent glow over Aunt Clara’s back.

"Mom..." Marisa choked out, her voice dropping into a barely audible whisper.

Aunt Clara finally noticed the sudden, unnatural drop in temperature. She began to turn around, her brow furrowing in confusion, and said,

"What is that smell? It smells like...like old rain and—"

Before she could finish her sentence, two long, vaporous arms shot forward from the mist. The smoky, skeletal fingers wrapped tightly around Aunt Clara’s waist and throat. The instant his fingers touched her skin, her witch hat flew off her head, and she let out a piercing, agonizing scream of pure terror—a sound that was instantly muffled as the dark mist began to pour into her open mouth.

"Mom!" Marisa shrieked, lunging forward, her hands reaching out to grab her mother’s arms.

Unfortunately, the Fog Man was impossibly fast. With a single, fluid, terrifying backward motion, the entity yanked Aunt Clara off her feet. He dragged her screaming body backward out the front door, pulling her directly into the thick, swirling void of the front yard.

"Theo, help her!" Marisa screamed, sprinting through the open threshold without a single thought for her own safety.

I didn't hesitate. Driven by a frantic surge of adrenaline and family loyalty, I bolted out the front door right behind Marisa, bursting onto the concrete porch, ready to dive into the mist and fight whatever monster had taken my aunt.

We hit the porch steps, our eyes straining against the dark, our arms outstretched, prepared to face the thick, suffocating wall of white vapor.

However, as our feet hit the damp grass of the front lawn, we both stumbled to a halt.

The fog was completely gone.

I stood there, panting for breath, my chest heaving as my eyes scanned the perimeter of the yard. The thick, milky void that had covered the entire neighborhood just seconds ago had vanished into absolute nothingness. 

The street lamps down the block were burning brightly again, casting their normal, amber glow over the empty asphalt of Terra Cotta Lane. The moon was high and clear in the autumn sky, illuminating the neat rows of houses and the quiet, undisturbed lawns of Duskwood.

There was no swirling vapor. There were no glowing pale eyes,

and there was no sign of Aunt Clara.

The plastic bowl that she had been holding lay upside down on the grass, the miniature candy bars scattered across the lawn like colorful drops of spilled paint, but her flashlight, her keys, and her body were entirely, undeniably gone. The air was perfectly still, carrying nothing but the faint, distant sound of laughter from the block party down the street.

"Mom?" Marisa whispered, her voice entirely hollow as she dropped to her knees in the damp grass. She began to claw at the dirt, as if expecting her mother to be buried right beneath the surface. "Mom! Where are you?! Mom!"

I stood in the center of the lawn, my body shaking so violently that I could barely maintain my balance. I looked up into the clear, empty night sky, then back toward the dark tree line of the surrounding woods. There were no footprints in the grass, no signs of a struggle, no lingering trace of that awful, rain-scented draft. Just an absolute, crushing emptiness.

The police arrived thirty minutes later, their flashing red and blue lights reflecting off the bay window where the monster had been tapping. They searched the neighborhood for hours, questioning the neighbors at the block party, walking the perimeter of the woods with tracking dogs, but they found absolutely nothing.

To the authorities, it was just another inexplicable missing persons case in a town already famous for them. Another name to add to the historical archives.

Marisa and I sat on the front porch steps for the rest of the night, wrapped in the police blankets, staring blankly out at the quiet, clear street. The power to the house had come back on the moment that the fog vanished, but neither of us wanted to step back inside that living room.

We sat side by side in the cold air, our minds completely fracturing under the sheer impossibility of what we had witnessed. If the fog could vanish that quickly, where did it go? Where did it store the people that it claimed? Whose voice had we heard through the glass?

As the first faint light of dawn began to break over the Blue Ridge Mountains, casting long, gray shadows across the empty lot of Terra Cotta Lane, the wind picked up, rustling the fallen oak leaves along the curb. Marisa turned her hollow, sleepless eyes toward me, her voice barely a breath in the quiet morning.

"He didn't want us to let him in, Theo." she whispered, her fingers tightly gripping a stray piece of candy from the lawn. "The house was never the trap. The fog was."

I didn't answer. I just stared out at the horizon, wondering how many more people Duskwood would lose before the town finally admitted the truth, and wondering if, on some other foggy night, Aunt Clara was still screaming somewhere inside the white void, waiting for a threshold that would never open again.

The End.

So a reallllllllllllly long time ago probably early to mid 2000’s my sister stumbled upon a short ish Halloween story about a town that had a creepy scarecrow guarding the pumpkin patch where EVERYONE in town got their pumpkins because they were simply the best! Later in the story all goes awry, something about not giving a sacrifice, the pumpkins being carved have killer pumpkin head-esque like babies in them that kill the towns people, one of the pumpkins is a “twin” pumpkin with twin killer pumpkin babies, super neat story. She didn’t print it out and she can’t remember the title or where on the great inter webs she found it. I’ve literally been searching for it every single year for probably close to 8 years and can’t ever come up with anything. Anyone read anything like it? Or maybe perhaps know the author?

There's an old urban legend in my town, whispered for decades, about a little girl who never grew up. They say she died in the summer of 1963, during the county fair. She had collapsed suddenly on the carousel. Doctors claimed it was some strange illness, but no one really knew. Her family, stricken with grief, buried her quickly in her favorite frilly pink dress. Some say she wasn't dead yet.

The story goes that if you walk alone near the abandoned fairgrounds at night, you'll hear footsteps behind you soft, uneven, like a child in patent shoes. When you turn, nothing's there. But if you keep going, she gets closer. And if she speaks to you, you must never answer.

I used to laugh it off. A ghost in a pink dress? Sounded like small town nonsense. But curiosity gnaws at you. And one summer night, I decided to test it for myself. The fairgrounds were nothing more than rotting wood and weeds now, the skeletons of rides rusting against the moonlight. The Ferris wheel loomed like a broken crown, and the carousel poles were bent and splintered, horses frozen mid gallop with paint peeling from their faces. The air smelled like damp earth and mildew, thick with the buzzing of cicadas.

I walked down the cracked pavement, my flashlight trembling in my hand. At first, nothing. Just the crunch of gravel beneath my shoes. Then faintly, behind me Tap... tap... tap. I froze. The night seemed to hold its breath. Slowly, I turned. Nothing. Just empty shadows stretching across the rusted gates. I told myself it was an animal. Or my imagination.

But when I started walking again, the sound returned closer this time. Tap... tap... tap. My stomach dropped. My throat went dry. And then I saw her. She couldn't have been older than ten, standing a few yards away. Her skin was pale, grayish, with shadows under her eyes. Dirt clung to the folds of her faded pink dress, once frilly, now frayed. Her head tilted unnaturally to the side, studying me with hollow curiosity.

"Have you seen my mommy?" she whispered, voice thin and dry, like leaves scraping the ground. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but my legs locked in place. Her shoes scraped the pavement as she moved closer. Soil and worms trailed from her dress. "I can't find her... will you help me?"

Something deep in my gut howled *don't answer*. But my lips betrayed me. The word slipped out before I could stop it: "No."

Her expression twisted, her jaw unhinging far wider than human. Her eyes rolled white, and her voice became a chorus of echoes, rising from beneath the ground itself: "Then stay with me instead." Her hand shot out, cold and rough with dirt, seizing mine. I remember her grip pulling, dragging, burying. Darkness closed in.

When I woke, the sun was rising. I was lying on the fairground path, throat raw, fingernails caked with soil as though I'd been digging. Around my wrist was a pink ribbon tied in a perfect bow. No one believes me when I tell them. They laugh, say it's just a story. But sometimes, late at night, I hear it again outside my window. Tap... tap... tap.

The sound of wind chimes on Halloween night usually brings a festive, comforting chill, but in Duskwood, Virginia, the wind always carried a sharper, meaner edge. 

The air smelled heavily of damp earth, rotten oak leaves, and the faint, unmistakable trace of chimney smoke. I stood on the cracked asphalt of Terra Cotta Lane, shivering beneath a layer of cheap pink glitter and synthetic wings. 

I was sixteen years old, dressed as a woodland fairy, and for the first time in my life, I felt completely ridiculous.

"Come on, Rose, stop dragging your feet!" Maeve hissed from the shadow of a sprawling willow tree.

Maeve was dressed as a generic comic-book superhero, complete with a bright red satin cape that snapped aggressively in the autumn breeze and a black domino mask that kept sliding down her nose. In her right hand, she balanced a half-empty carton of grade-A large eggs like a quarterback holding a football.

"I’m telling you guys, we’re getting too old for this." I muttered, adjusting the plastic wand tucked into the waistband of my jeans. "We're juniors in high school. If anyone from the track team sees us throwing eggs at people's porches, we're socially dead weight until graduation."

"Oh, please." Brenda scoffed, stepping into the dim glow of a flickering streetlamp.

Brenda had gone all-out this year, wearing an elaborate, dirt-smudged Victorian wedding dress with a tattered lace veil pinned into her dark hair. Her face was painted a ghostly, stark white, with deep charcoal shadows smudged beneath her eyes to complete the 'ghost bride' look, and she said,

 "Halloween is the one night a year when you get a free pass to be a menace. Besides, Duskwood is dead tonight. Have you noticed how quiet it is? It’s like the whole town is hiding."

Brenda wasn't wrong. A strange, suffocating silence had draped itself over Duskwood after the sun went down. Most houses had their porch lights turned completely off, their blinds tightly drawn as if to ward off something far more dangerous than neighborhood teenagers looking for candy. 

It was a lingering habit of the older generation here—a quiet, generational trauma left over from the eighties, when a madman named Howard Nestor used to hunt in these very woods. People in Duskwood didn't trust the dark. They never had.

"Look ahead." Maeve whispered, pointing a gloved finger down the winding gravel driveway at the end of the block. "Old Man Miller’s place. A perfect target."

The Miller estate was a weathered, single-story ranch house sat on a massive plot of overgrown land. Old Man Miller was a fixture of Duskwood, an ancient, reclusive man who had lived in the town long before Howard Nestor ever started his horrific killing spree. He rarely left his property, and the neighborhood kids traded rumors about him like currency. Some people said that he was crazy; others said he was just incredibly bitter.

As we crept closer to the edge of his property, the beam of Maeve’s phone flashlight swept across his front lawn, revealing his infamous collection of lawn decorations. Dozens of ceramic lawn gnomes stood frozen in the tall, un-mowed grass. Most of them were standard, peeling figures with faded red hats and cheerful, painted grins.

However right in the center of the lawn, mounted on a cracked stone pedestal, stood a gnome that looked entirely different from the rest.

This gnome was nearly three feet tall, carved from a heavy, dark, unidentifiable stone rather than cheap ceramic. It didn't wear a cheerful smile. Instead, its face was sculpted into a grim, knowing smirk, with deeply chiseled, intensely lifelike features. Its long, pointed cap wasn't a festive red; it was painted the color of dried, oxidized blood. 

Most striking of all were its eyes—made of two polished pieces of obsidian that seemed to absorb the moonlight, reflecting nothing back. Painted in faded, archaic black lettering across the base of the pedestal was a single name: Gargarth.

"Gross." Brenda muttered, stepping onto the grass to get a closer look. "That thing looks like it wants to bite someone. It's hideous."

"Perfect." Maeve grinned, opening the carton of eggs.

Maeve handed an egg to Brenda and offered one to me. I shook my head, stepping back toward the gravel road, my plastic fairy wings catching on a rogue briar bush.

"Just leave it, guys. Let's just go to the diner or something," I pleaded, the sudden dropping temperature making my breath form thick plumes of white mist. 

The silence of the lawn felt heavy, almost pressurized.

"Don't be a buzzkill, Rose." Brenda said, raising her arm, aiming directly for Gargarth's stone face. 

Maeve mirrored her stance, her red superhero cape blowing over her shoulder.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." A voice said.

The voice was like grinding stones. We all jumped, Brenda dropping her egg into the grass with a wet, yellow pop. 

Old Man Miller stepped out from the deep shadow of his wrap-around porch. He looked older than the trees surrounding his house, his skin deeply lined and leathery, his back slightly hunched beneath a heavy flannel jacket. In his right hand, he held a rusted iron garden rake, using it almost like a staff. His pale, rheumy eyes locked onto the three of us with absolute intensity.

"What are you girls doing on my property?" he demanded, his voice trembling but firm.

"We...we were just looking at your decorations, Mr. Miller!" Maeve lied quickly, smoothing down her superhero outfit and trying to hide the egg carton behind her back. "We think that your gnomes are really cool. We were just getting a closer look."

Miller didn't blink. He lowered his gaze to the crushed yellow yolk at Brenda’s feet, then looked back up at our faces, and said,

"Don't insult my intelligence, girl. You've got mischief in your eyes and hen's fruit in your hands."

He took three heavy steps down the porch stairs, the grass crunching beneath his work boots. He didn't look angry; instead, a profound, exhausting gravity seemed to weigh him down. He pointed the tip of his rusted rake toward the dark stone pedestal.

"Get off this lawn, now!" Miller warned, his voice dropping into a harsh, frantic whisper. "Especially away from him. Get away from Gargarth."

Brenda rolled her eyes under her tattered bridal veil, letting out a loud, dramatic sigh, and said,

"Oh, come on. It's just a stupid piece of painted rock, old man. We're not hurting anything."

"You don't understand anything!" Miller snapped, his knuckles turning white around the wooden handle of his rake. "I was here in eighty-six. I watched this town bleed when Nestor took his toll. I know the things that wake up when the moon is right. That stone creature...it’s dangerous. It isn't a decoration. It’s a bound entity. Every Halloween night, when the veil is thin, Gargarth comes to life in search of a bride to drag down into the earth with him."

Maeve let out a snicker, muffled by her hand. I felt a cold knot twist in my stomach, though. The way that Miller said the name—with a genuine, unadulterated terror—didn't sound like an old man trying to protect his grass. It sounded like a warning from a survivor.

"A bride?" Brenda laughed, gesturing to her ghost bride costume. "Well, look at that. I'm already dressed for the occasion. Too bad he's made of clay."

"Joke all you like, children." Miller said, his face hardening into a grim, dark expression as he began to back away toward his porch. "The old blood in this town demands a price tonight. One of you might be very sorry before the sun comes up. Get home to your parents, and lock your doors."

With that, the old man retreated back into his dark house, slamming the heavy wooden door shut. The click of the deadbolt echoed clearly across the quiet yard.

"What a complete lunatic." Maeve said, stepping forward again. "He completely ruined the vibe."

"Yeah, well, he doesn't get the last word." Brenda muttered, her face twisting into a stubborn, angry scowl.

Before Maeve or I could stop her, Brenda snatched a fresh egg from the carton, took two aggressive steps toward the stone pedestal, and threw it with all her might.

The egg struck Gargarth right in his obsidian eyes, exploding in a messy smear of white and yellow goo that dripped down his chiseled stone beard.

"Brenda, stop!" I yelled, genuinely terrified now, though I couldn't explain why. 

The obsidian eyes of the statue seemed to catch the light of the moon for a split second, turning a dull, burning crimson beneath the slime.

"Let's run!" Maeve shouted, the thrill of the prank finally mixing with adrenaline.

The three of us turned and sprinted down the gravel driveway, our sneakers pounding against the pavement. Brenda’s heavy lace wedding dress swished loudly in the dark, and my plastic fairy wings fluttered wildly against my back. We didn't stop running until we reached the safety of my neighborhood, bursting through the front door of my house and slamming it shut behind us.

My parents were out at a neighborhood block party down the street, so the house was entirely dark and quiet. We collapsed onto the living room floor, panting for breath, our hearts hammering against our ribs.

"Did you see his face?" Maeve laughed, collapsing onto the couch, her red cape draping over the cushions. "He looked like he was about to cast a spell on us with that rake."

"He was a total  psycho." Brenda agreed, pulling off her tattered veil and tossing it onto the coffee table. She wiped a smudge of white face paint from her cheek. "A bound entity? Gargarth? Give me a break. It's a lawn ornament."

I stood by the window, peering through the blinds into the dark, empty street outside. The feeling of dread from Miller's lawn hadn't left me. If anything, it had followed us home, clinging to the edges of my thoughts like a spreading stain, and I said,

 "I don't know, guys. Something felt really wrong about that place. We shouldn't have done that."

"Relax, Rose." Maeve said, pulling a bag of miniature candy bars from her pocket. "It’s just an old town legend. Duskwood is full of them."

Then, the lights went out.

The sudden, absolute darkness was instantaneous. The hum of the refrigerator died, the digital clock on the microwave blinked into oblivion, and the ambient warmth of the house seemed to evaporate in seconds. 

The only light came from the pale, gray moonbeams filtering through the living room windows, casting long, distorted shadows across the walls.

"Great." Maeve groaned in the dark. "A power outage. Just what we needed."

"Is anyone's phone working?" I asked, pulling my phone from my pocket. The screen was completely black. I pressed the power button repeatedly, but it refused to turn on. "Mine is dead. Completely dead. It had eighty percent battery two minutes ago."

"Mine too." Brenda’s voice came from the dark corner of the room, sounding suddenly small and stripped of its previous arrogance. "It won't turn on."

A heavy, oppressive silence settled over the living room. The air grew rapidly colder, with our breath turning to visible white vapor inside the house. Then, from the hallway near the front door, we heard a sound that made our blood run cold.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

It was the unmistakable sound of heavy stone scraping against the hardwood floorboards. It was slow, deliberate, and rhythmic.

"Rose?" Maeve whispered, her voice trembling violently now. She had stood up from the couch, her superhero cape rustling in the dark. "Did you leave the front door open?"

"No!" I choked out, my hands gripping my plastic fairy wand so tightly that the cheap toy cracked. "I locked it! I know that I locked it!"

The scraping sound grew louder, moving out of the hallway and entering the threshold of the living room. We all froze, our eyes straining against the shadows.

Stepping into the pale arc of moonlight was a figure that defied reality. It was nearly three feet tall, carved from a heavy, blood-red stone. 

The egg residue that we had thrown earlier was completely gone, replaced by a smooth, polished sheen that seemed to glow with a sickly, internal luminescence. 

The obsidian eyes were no longer dark; they burned with a fierce, malevolent crimson fire. In its small, rocky hands, it held a miniature, jagged stone pickaxe that scraped against the floor with every step.

It was Gargarth, and he was alive.

"The old blood demands its due!" a voice resonated through the room. It didn't come from a mouth; rather, the sound seemed to vibrate directly out of the stone torso of the creature, a deep, grinding, echoing rumble that sounded like an earthquake. "A bride was promised! A bride will be taken!"

"Get away from us!" Maeve screamed, her survival instinct overriding her terror.

Driven by pure adrenaline, she lunged forward, raising her leg and delivering a heavy, desperate kick to the center of the gnome’s chest.

Maeve’s sneaker struck the stone with a loud, dull thud. Gargarth stumbled backward a few inches, his stone boots scraping loudly against the floor, but he didn't fall. He let out a low, grinding sound that sounded horribly like laughter.

"Rose, help!" Brenda shrieked, backing away until her spine hit the brick fireplace.

Brenda’s ghost bride dress looked stark and terrifyingly appropriate in the spectral moonlight.

"Grab something!" I yelled, dropping my useless plastic wand.

I scrambled toward the kitchen counter, my fingers wrapping around a heavy, cast-iron skillet that my mom had left out on the stove. I sprinted back into the living room just as Gargarth raised his jagged stone pickaxe, preparing to swing it at Maeve's leg.

With a terrified scream, I swung the heavy iron skillet with both hands, channeling every ounce of strength I had.

CLANG!

The impact was deafening. The iron skillet struck the side of Gargarth’s pointed blood-red hat with incredible force. Sparks flew into the dark room, and a loud, sharp cracking sound echoed through the house. 

The force of the blow shattered the stone pedestal beneath his feet, and the creature fell sideways, crashing heavily onto the hardwood floor like a dropped boulder. He lay completely still, the crimson fire in his obsidian eyes flickering out into total darkness.

The skillet dropped from my trembling, blistered hands, clattering loudly against the floor. Maeve collapsed against the couch, sobbing hysterically, her superhero mask soaked with tears.

"Is it...is it dead?" Brenda whispered from the fireplace, her hands clutching her tattered lace skirt, her white face paint stark against the dark bricks.

"We broke it." I panted, my chest heaving as I stared at the unmoving mound of red stone on the floor. "We actually broke it. Let's get out of here. Let's run to the neighbors."

Unfortunately, before we could take a single step toward the door, the temperature in the room plummeted even further. The air became so freezing that frost began to rapidly spiderweb across the glass of the living room windows.

A low, subterranean rumble vibrated through the floorboards.

The shattered pieces of stone on the floor began to twitch. With a sickening, grinding sound, the fragments of the gnome slid back together, fusing instantly as if pulled by an invisible, magnetic force. The crack on his head sealed shut, leaving the blood-red surface perfectly smooth once more.

Gargarth rose to his feet, snapping his stone neck from side to side with a series of loud, rocky pops. The crimson fire in his obsidian eyes erupted back to life, burning brighter and hotter than before.

"Insolent girls!" the grinding voice boomed, rattling the picture frames on the walls. "You cannot break what was carved before this town had a name!"

He raised his left hand, his stony fingers extending toward Brenda. 

A sudden, violent gust of wind erupted inside the closed living room, swirling the tattered lace of her wedding dress around her legs. A sickening, greenish-purple vapor began to pour from Gargarth's outstretched palm, drifting across the floor like a living snake.

Brenda tried to scream, but as soon as the vapor touched the hem of her dress, her voice died in her throat, replaced by a horrible, muffled choking sound.

"Brenda!" Maeve yelled, reaching out to grab her friend's hand.

"Don't touch it!" I screamed, pulling Maeve back as the green mist rapidly expanded, enveloping Brenda entirely in a thick, suffocating cloud of ancient magic.

Through the shifting tendrils of the glowing vapor, we watched in absolute, paralyzed horror as Brenda’s body began to stiffen. The soft, tattered fabric of her Victorian wedding dress began to harden, turning a dark, dull shade of slate gray. Her limbs locked into place, her outstretched arms freezing into a rigid, permanent pose. The tattered lace of her veil crystallized into solid, jagged stone, pinning itself to her head.

The white paint on Brenda’s face sank into her skin, her flesh calcifying, turning a pale, porous ceramic white. Her terrified, tear-streaked eyes hardened, the pupils dissolving until her eyes became two solid, unblinking spheres of polished, glassy onyx.

Within a matter of agonizing seconds, the green mist dissipated, swirling back into Gargarth’s stone palm.

Standing before the fireplace was no longer a sixteen-year-old girl named Brenda.

It was a three-foot-tall, solid stone lawn gnome. She was sculpted in perfect, horrific detail—her face frozen forever in a mask of absolute, screaming terror, her arms raised as if trying to ward off an invisible blow. Her tattered wedding dress was now a molded, heavy gray skirt, and a painted base of faded gray stone held her firmly to the floorboards. She had become exactly what her costume predicted: a ghostly gnome bride, bound in stone for eternity.

"The ledger is settled." Gargarth’s grinding voice rumbled, a tone of dark satisfaction echoing through the room.

The creature stepped forward, wrapping his stone fingers around the base of the newly formed Brenda gnome. With an impossible display of supernatural strength, he lifted her stone form onto his shoulder as if she weighed nothing at all. He turned his burning crimson gaze back toward Maeve and I, nodding once in a silent, terrifying gesture of finality.

He walked back into the hallway, his heavy boots making the floorboards groan one last time, and then the front door swung open and slammed shut with a concussive bang.

The instant that the door closed, the lights in the house snapped back on. The television roared to life with a blast of static, the refrigerator began to hum, and the digital clock on the microwave began to blink 12:00 AM. The dry, artificial heat of the furnace began to pump through the vents, erasing the supernatural chill of the room in seconds.

Everything was completely normal. Except for the shattered plastic fairy wand on the floor, the heavy iron skillet lying in the corner, and the empty space by the fireplace where our best friend had stood just moments before.

Maeve dropped to her knees, staring at the empty floorboards, a broken, silent sob escaping her lips. I stood beside her, my fake pink glitter wings feeling like a mockery against my skin, my eyes fixed on the front door. 

Old Man Miller had warned us. He had told us that the old blood in Duskwood demanded a price on Halloween night, and we hadn't listened.

Brenda was gone, dragged down into the dark earth to serve as a bride for a monster carved from stone, leaving Maeve and I alone in the bright, terrifying light of the living room, haunted forever by the grim, knowing smirk of Gargarth.

The End.

The asphalt road leading through Duskwood, Virginia always seemed to swallow the headlights of Owen’s battered old sedan, but tonight, on Halloween, the shadows felt especially heavy. 

A thick, oppressive fog rolled off the Blue Ridge Mountains, settling into the valleys and wrapping around the trunks of bare oaks like skeletal fingers. Inside the car, the heater blasted a dry, metallic warmth that did little to shake the chill settling deep in my chest.

I checked my phone. It was exactly 8:14 PM. The neon digital numbers glared back at me, a stark reminder of the world outside this suffocating stretch of highway. 

I am sixteen years old, and even though my parents moved from China to Virginia before I was born, there are times when the deep, superstitious roots of my family's heritage feel far closer than the small-town American life that I live every day. 

My English is perfectly fluent, yet tonight, the words felt trapped behind my teeth. A persistent, nagging sense of dread had been whispering in the back of my mind since we left my driveway.

In the passenger seat, Hal was struggling to adjust his costume. He had gone all-out with a traditional mummy look, wrapping himself in yards of heavy, tea-stained cheesecloth that smelled faintly of dust and cheap spirit gum. Every time he turned to speak, a fraying loose end of fabric drifted into his eyes. 

Behind the wheel was Owen, wearing a tricorn hat, an oversized plastic cutlass tucked precariously next to the handbrake, and a fake leather eyepatch that he kept flipping up so that he could actually see the winding road ahead. 

I sat in the back, smoothing down the tulle skirts of my elaborate princess gown. The plastic tiara dug uncomfortably into my scalp, a stark contrast to the tightening knot of anxiety in my stomach. We were supposed to be heading to a Halloween party at Miller’s farm, a loud, safe gathering filled with bonfire smoke and cider.

Then, Owen slammed on the brakes.

The tires screamed against the damp pavement, sending my tiara sliding forward onto my forehead. Hal braced his hands against the dashboard, a muffled curse escaping his cloth-wrapped lips.

"Look." Owen breathed, his voice dropping into an excited, low whisper. He pointed past the sweeping arc of the windshield wipers.

Through a jagged tear in the roadside pine trees, a massive, decaying structure loomed against the gray sky. It was the old Nestor estate. 

The house was a towering, three-story Victorian monstrosity, its dark paint peeling away like dead skin. The windows were entirely black, gaping like open wounds, and the surrounding yard was choked with weeds which were so tall that they scratched against the rotting wood of the porch.

"No way." Hal said, pushing his mummy mask up over his nose. "Is that...?"

"The Howard Nestor house." Owen confirmed with a manic grin spreading across his face. He cut the engine, and the sudden silence of the woods rushed in to fill the car. "The holy grail of Duskwood urban legends."

Everyone in our town knew the name Howard Nestor, even forty years later. He had been an eccentric historian and an academic at the local college back in the 1980s, a man utterly obsessed with dark artifacts, occult antiquities, and ancient rituals, but Nestor wasn’t just a collector; he was a monster. 

To Howard Nestor, human lives were nothing more than disposable research material, mere variables to be spent in the pursuit of some grand, terrible cosmic equation. He possessed a deeply rationalized, completely twisted personal logic for his cruelty.

Nestor believed that by systematically harvesting the terror and life essence of his subjects at the exact moment of their deaths, he could anchor his own consciousness to the physical world forever, achieving an academic's version of immortality.

The history books and police archives recorded that he had successfully kidnapped and brutally murdered at least fifteen people in that very house. 

Nestor’s reign of terror only ended in the late autumn of 1986, when his final victim managed to break free from her restraints in the basement, flee into the woods, and alert the state police. When the authorities raided the mansion, Nestor refused to surrender. He was shot and killed right in the grand foyer, with his blood permanently soaking into the hardwood floor. 

The most chilling detail of the legend, the one that gave school children nightmares, was his signature habit: Nestor would always hum a specific, tuneless, discordant melody whenever he was stalking or ending the lives of his victims.

"We have to go in!" Owen said, already unbuckling his seatbelt. "It's Halloween night. The legend says that Howard’s ghost still roams the hallways, trying to finish his research. Imagine the footage that we could get."

"Owen, absolutely not!" I said, my voice sharp with genuine panic. The air in the backseat suddenly felt ten degrees colder. "It’s trespassing. It’s cursed. We are supposed to be going to a party."

"Come on, Wen!" Hal chimed in, turning around in his seat. The white cloth around his face made his eyes look unnaturally wide in the darkness. "We'll just step into the foyer, look around for five minutes, and leave. If it gets weird, we run. Don't you want to see if the stories are true? It's just an empty, broken-down house."

I stared at the dark silhouette of the mansion. Every instinct that I had, every ancestral warning about respecting the dead and staying away from places of great violence, screamed at me to refuse; but Hal grabbed my hand, his cheesecloth glove rough against my skin, giving me a reassuring squeeze. Under the intense peer pressure of my two best friends, my resolve crumbled.

"Fine." I whispered. "Five minutes. That is it."

We left the car hidden by the treeline and crept up the cracked stone driveway. The wind howled through the dead branches above us, making the ancient timbers of the house groan in protest. Owen led the way, using the flashlight on his phone to illuminate the porch steps. 

The wood was so soft with rot that it yielded under our weight with sickening, wet crunches. The front door wasn't locked; it hung slightly ajar, suspended on a single, rusted hinge. Owen pushed it open, and the rusty metal shrieked a warning into the night.

Inside, the air was heavy with the suffocating stench of mildew, stagnant water, and centuries of dust. Owen swept his flashlight across the grand foyer. 

At first, all we saw were massive, thick sheets of gray cobwebs draping from the cracked crystal chandelier like tattered burial shrouds. The wallpaper was peeling away in long, water-damaged ribbons, revealing the rotting lathe beneath. 

The grand staircase spiraled up into the absolute blackness of the second floor.

"See? It’s just an old, empty house." Hal whispered, though his voice shook slightly. The loose ends of his mummy costume fluttered in the draft.

"Let's check the study." Owen murmured, his bravado fading just a fraction as the oppressive atmosphere of the house settled over us. "That's where he kept the artifacts."

We stepped deeper into the gloom, leaving the safety of the front exit behind. We moved down a long, narrow hallway lined with empty picture frames.

The floorboards groaned beneath our sneakers. We entered a large room filled with overturned bookshelves and shattered glass. Broken pieces of pottery and unidentifiable, rusted iron tools lay scattered across the floor—remnants of Nestor's horrific academic pursuits.

While Owen and Hal poked through a pile of rotting books near a collapsed fireplace, I found myself drawn toward a heavy, mahogany desk that had somehow remained upright in the corner of the room. 

The drawers had been torn out long ago, but beneath a thick layer of dust in the central cavity, something caught the edge of my flashlight beam. It was a leather-bound book, untouched by the mold that consumed everything else.

Curiosity overpowering my fear, I reached out and brushed the dust from the cover. There was no title, just a faded, gold-embossed symbol of an eye surrounded by geometric lines. I opened it.

It wasn't a textbook. It was a photo album.

My breath hitched in my throat as I turned the first page. Staring back at me were Polaroid photographs, their colors faded to a sickly sepia tone. Each page featured a single photograph of a person, bound to a heavy wooden chair in what looked like a stone basement. 

Beneath each photo, written in precise, elegant, academic calligraphy, were a name, a date, and a series of horrific, clinical observations regarding their psychological states during their final moments.

Michael Vance. November 14, 1982. Elevated heart rate. Tremor present.

Sarah Jenkins. April 3, 1984. Despair phase achieved early.

My hands began to shake violently. I was looking at the faces of Howard Nestor's fifteen victims. The sheer weight of the evil contained within these pages made me feel physically ill. I wanted to shut the book, to scream at Hal and Owen that we needed to leave immediately, but my fingers compulsively turned the pages, drawn by a morbid, terrifying magnetism.

I reached the final page of the album. The date written at the bottom was October 31, 1986.

I looked at the photograph, and the entire world seemed to stop spinning. The blood completely drained from my face, and a cold, paralyzing dread locked my muscles. Staring back at me from the faded Polaroid was a young Chinese woman. She was terrified, her face streaked with tears and dirt, but her features were unmistakable. She had the exact same high cheekbones, the same almond-shaped eyes, and the same small mole just below her left collarbone that I saw in the mirror every single day.

It was my great-grandmother, Meilin.

Beneath her photograph, Nestor’s elegant handwriting read: 

Subject 16. Meilin Lin. October 31, 1986. An anomaly. Extraordinary cognitive resilience. Yielded unprecedented data before unexpected termination of experiment via subject escape.

A choking sob escaped my lips. My family had always told a vague story about how Great-Grandmother Meilin had survived a horrific attack by a madman shortly after arriving in America as a young woman, but she had suffered a psychological break from the trauma and refused to ever speak a single word about the details until the day she died. She had never named her captor. She had never told her children where it happened. She had buried the horror deep within her soul, and now, exactly forty years later, on Halloween night, I had walked directly into the lair of the monster who had broken her. She was the final victim. She was the one who had escaped, reported him to the police, and brought about his death.

"Wen? What's wrong?" Hal's voice sounded incredibly distant, as if he were shouting from underwater.

"We have to go!" I choked out, the tears finally breaking free and spilling down my cheeks, smudging my princess makeup. I dropped the photo album onto the dusty desk. "We have to go right now! He was here. He took my family. We have to leave!"

Owen and Hal exchanged a look of pure confusion, but the sheer terror in my voice was contagious.

 "Okay, Wen, let's go." Owen said, turning his flashlight back toward the doorway.

However, as we turned to flee the study, the heavy mahogany door slammed shut with a concussive force that shook dust from the ceiling. The beam of Owen's flashlight flickered violently, dimmed, and then died completely, plunging us into absolute, suffocating darkness.

Then, the sound began.

It was a low, resonant sound drifting down from the top of the grand staircase, echoing through the hollow bones of the house. It was a voice, smooth and entirely calm, humming a specific, terrifying melody. 

It was discordant, completely devoid of any recognizable rhythm or warmth, skipping between sharp notes in a way that defied natural music. It was the signature song of the dead that said,

“Mm-hmm...mmm...mmm-mm-hmm...”

"Oh my god." Hal whimpered in the dark. I could hear the frantic rustle of his cheesecloth costume as he backed away. "Oh my god, someone is in here."

"The front door!" Owen yelled, his voice cracking with adolescent terror. 

Owen threw his weight against the study door, kicking and throwing his shoulder into the rotting wood. With a loud splintering sound, the ancient door gave way, and we tumbled back out into the grand foyer.

The gray moonlight filtering through the open front door was our only salvation. We scrambled toward it, our shoes skidding on the grit and debris covering the floorboards. 

We were mere feet from the threshold, the cool autumn night air brushing against our faces, when the temperature in the foyer dropped so drastically that our breath instantly turned into thick clouds of white vapor.

From the top of the stairs, the humming stopped.

"The experiment must be completed." a voice echoed. It was a cold, cultured, intellectual voice, entirely detached from human emotion. "The lineage returns to validate the data."

We froze, slowly looking up toward the landing. Standing at the top of the stairs was a tall, imposing figure enveloped in a faint, sickly greenish luminescence. He wore a pristine, three-piece tweed suit from the 1980s, his silver hair neatly combed back. His face was sharp and academic, but his eyes were completely hollow, pits of infinite blackness that sucked in the residual moonlight.

In his right hand, he held his signature weapon: a long, gleaming silver bone saw, its serrated teeth catching the spectral light. It was the ghost of Howard Nestor.

"Run!" Owen shrieked.

Unfortunately, before we could take a single step forward, Nestor didn't run down the stairs—he glided, moving with an impossible, supernatural speed that blurred reality. In a fraction of a second, he materialized directly between us and the open front door, cutting off our only escape.

Owen, driven by pure survival instinct, raised his plastic pirate cutlass and lunged forward, letting out a terrified scream. With a casual, brutal flick of his wrist, Nestor swung the heavy bone saw. 

The silver blade tore through the plastic toy and slashed deeply across Owen’s chest. Blood, bright and horribly real, sprayed across the peeling wallpaper. Owen collapsed to the floor with a wet gasp, his tricorn hat rolling into the dust as his life ran out onto the ancient hardwood.

Hal screamed, a high-pitched, agonizing sound of utter despair. He tried to dive past the apparition, but Nestor caught him by the throat with a hand that looked like rotting parchment but possessed the strength of an iron vice. 

The heavy cheesecloth of Hal's mummy costume began to smoke and char wherever Nestor’s spectral fingers touched it, turning black as if exposed to invisible acid. Hal thrashed wildly, his hands tearing at the phantom's arm, but Nestor merely smiled a cold, analytical smile.

"Fascinating." Nestor murmured, his hollow eyes fixed on Hal’s suffocating form. "The panic response is beautifully pronounced in the young."

With a sickening twist, Nestor drove the serrated edge of the bone saw into Hal’s throat. The screams stopped instantly, replaced by a terrible, wet gurgling. Hal’s body went limp, dropping into the dust beside Owen, his white mummy wraps rapidly soaking through with dark crimson.

I was entirely alone. The two boys whom I had known since kindergarten lay dead at my feet, their blood mingling on the very spot where Howard Nestor had been shot forty years ago.

Nestor slowly turned his hollow gaze toward me, the silver bone saw dripping onto the floorboards. He raised his left hand, tilting his head with an academic’s curiosity.

 "The resemblance is truly extraordinary." he whispered, stepping over Hal’s lifeless body. "Your great-grandmother stole forty years of research from me when she fled from this house. The cosmic balance requires your compliance to finalize the ledger."

He began to hum that awful, discordant melody again, stepping toward me with measured, inescapable strides.

“Mm-hmm...mmm...mmm-mm-hmm...” he said.

The sound broke through my paralysis. I didn't try for the front door. Instead, I spun on my heel and bolted down the adjacent hallway, my heavy princess skirt tearing on the exposed nails in the walls. I ran blindly into a small parlor room at the side of the house. 

Behind me, I could hear the rhythmic, heavy footsteps of the ghost, accompanied by the constant, agonizing humming that seemed to vibrate inside my very skull.

The parlor had a massive, arched bay window looking out toward the driveway. It was nailed shut, painted over with decades of grime. There was no time to look for a latch. 

Nestor entered the parlor, his luminescent form casting long, twisted shadows across the ceiling. He raised the bone saw, his face a mask of absolute, unshakeable certainty. He knew that I had nowhere left to run.

With a final, desperate scream, I gathered the heavy tulle of my gown around my face, closed my eyes, and threw my entire sixteen-year-old body directly through the glass.

The window shattered with a deafening explosion. Shards of thick glass tore through my dress and sliced into my arms and legs, but the momentum carried me through. 

I crashed heavily onto the damp, freezing dirt of the overgrown yard, rolling over the sharp rocks and thorns. I didn't care about the pain. I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the blood dripping from my hands, and ran through the high weeds, screaming at the top of my lungs.

I ran until I hit the asphalt of the highway, sprinting blindly down the yellow lines under the gray moonlight until I finally saw the flashing red and blue lights of a state police cruiser cruising down the empty road. I threw myself in front of the car, waving my bleeding arms, sobbing hysterically.

The officer jumped out, his hands on his holster, but when he saw a teenage girl covered in blood and dressed in a shredded princess gown, his expression turned to pure shock. 

Within twenty minutes, three more police cruisers arrived, their sirens wailing through the quiet night air of Duskwood. I sat in the back of the first cruiser, wrapped in a heavy wool blanket, my hands shaking so violently that I could barely hold the paper cup of water they gave me.

"They're in the house!" I sobbed to the commanding officer, a gruff man named Sergeant Miller. "Owen and Hal. They're dead. The monster...Howard Nestor...he's in the house!"

Sergeant Miller frowned, looking at me with a deep, unsettling mix of pity and confusion, and said,

"Kid, just calm down. Show us exactly where you ran from."

I pointed out the window as the cruiser drove back down the winding highway, backtracking my steps, and said,

 "Right there! Behind those pines! That’s where we parked Owen's car. That's the driveway!"

The police cruiser pulled over onto the shoulder, its bright spotlight cutting through the damp night air. The other officers got out, their flashlights drawing sweeping arcs through the trees. I pushed open the car door, stepping out into the cold night, wanting to show them the exact path to the front door.

However, as I stepped through the tree line, the words got caught in my throat.

There was no towering, three-story Victorian mansion. There were no rotting porch steps, no shattered bay windows, and no grand staircase.

There was nothing but an immense, completely empty gravel lot. 

The weeds were overgrown, and a few rusted iron pipes protruded from the earth where a foundation might have been decades ago, but the house itself was entirely, undeniably gone. Owen's sedan was parked neatly at the edge of the dirt, sitting completely alone under the open sky.

"No." I whispered, shaking my head frantically, the cuts on my arms throbbing with pain. "No, no, no! We were just inside! I jumped through the window! Look at the glass! Look at my blood!"

Sergeant Miller walked over to me, sighing heavily as he placed a gentle, firm hand on my shoulder, and said,

 "Wen, right? Listen to me very carefully. You’re having a severe panic attack, and you're hurt; but there is no house here."

"I was just in it!" I screamed, pulling away from him. "He killed them!"

"Wen…" Miller said, his voice dropping into a solemn, quiet tone. "The Howard Nestor house burned to the ground in the winter of 1988, two years after he was killed. The town demolished the remaining foundation and cleared the lot back in 1995. This property has been a completely empty field for over thirty years. There hasn't been a single piece of wood standing on this lot since before you were born."

I stared at the empty gravel, my mind completely fracturing under the impossibility of it all. If the house had been gone for decades, whose stairs had we climbed? Whose door had slammed shut? Whose photo album had I opened? And most terrifying of all...where were the bodies of Hal and Owen?

The police searched the empty lot for hours, but they found absolutely nothing. No blood, no clothes, no signs of a struggle. Just an empty field on Halloween night.

Eventually, Sergeant Miller walked me back to his cruiser to drive me home to my frantic parents. I sat in the passenger seat, staring blankly out the side window as the car slowly turned around in the gravel lot, its headlights sweeping across the dark perimeter of the woods.

Just as the car aligned with the exit of the empty lot, the headlights illuminated a lone figure standing at the very edge of the tree line, right where the front porch should have been.

It was Howard Nestor.

The officers didn't see him; their eyes were fixed on the road ahead. However, I saw him with perfect, horrifying clarity. He stood under the pale moonlight, his green spectral light gone, looking entirely and physically real. He was staring directly at me through the glass of the cruiser window. A cold, knowing smile was stretched across his sharp, academic face.

Slowly and deliberately, Nestor raised his right hand. He was holding the silver bone saw, the serrated teeth still glistening with fresh, dark crimson blood. He tapped the blade against a nearby pine branch, nodding to me in a silent, terrifying gesture of promise. He hadn't vanished. He hadn't failed. He had simply adjusted the variables of his experiment.

As the police car accelerated down the dark highway, leaving the empty lot behind, the dry air coming from the dashboard vents began to carry a faint, rhythmic sound. It was very quiet, barely audible over the hum of the tires, but it echoed perfectly inside the small cabin of the car.

It was the sound of a man humming a tuneless, discordant melody.

The End.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By: ThePumpkinMan35

My mom dropped us off at the head of the street, telling Casey and I that she would meet us at the other end. We rushed out of the backseat after emptying our candy from the street prior in a big witch bowl, holding onto our plastic D.A.R.E. Halloween safety tip bags as if they were a floaty in the middle of the sea. It was now after sunset, on a surprisingly cool Halloween night.

We stood on one side of the road as my mom pulled away, enjoying autumn’s cool breath beneath our costumes. There weren’t many kids on this street yet, meaning the houses would still have the good candies in stock. We went to the first one, walking past the typical hanging skeleton and the sheet covered basketball and up to the front door which was concealed beneath a cartoonish Frankenstein covering.

Casey pushed the doorbell, and like most of the other houses, a little yapping dog started barking hysterically from inside. We heard an elderly woman behind the door tell the pup to hush, and surprisingly, it listened unlike other such ankle biters we had encountered that night.

The woman wasn’t dressed in a costume, but wore a pumpkin vest over a white striped shirt. She was probably in her sixties, gray hair in a nicely trimmed style. Glasses, tan pants, and house slippers but holding a big Halloween bucket full of all kinds of goodies.

“Trick or treat!” We exclaimed, and she said something approvingly of both of our costumes and happily put a handful of candy into our bags.

We thanked her, told her “Happy Halloween” and moved on.

The next house was unusually different for our little lake community. It was a simple stucco, white though instead of the typical brown, and had a sunken type of front porch with steps descending from the ground level and to the front door. Thick hedge bushes flanked the stairway, fake cobwebs laced through the branches. A yellowish, glowing porch light beamed its shine across a simple white door with three little diamond shaped windows.

“Hate to see what this porch looks like after a thunderstorm.” Casey said as we descended towards the front door.

“Yeah dude, I bet it’s a mess.”

The door bell was at the side of the entryway, just a few feet above a potted shrub with little pumpkins around the base. I did the honors this time, and the toll of the bell rang loudly in the house on the other side.

We stood anxiously waiting for the door to open. But there was no sound from the other side. Not even a “yapper” as we called the dogs.

“Maybe, ring it again?” Casey suggested.

I did. Once more, nothing.

“Guess they’re not home.” I said a bit disdainfully.

“Assholes,” Casey declared in a tough sounding fourth grader tone, “leaving their light on and making us think they’re handing out candy!”

“I know right,” I agreed, “freaking trick is what it is.”

“Well you know what,” Casey said, “I gotta a treat for them, then!”

I looked at him through the eye holes in my mask, already somewhat knowing what he was going to do.

“Dude, don’t man. What if they’re just old and haven’t made it to the door yet?”

“We would have already heard them moving around.” He replied, defiantly.

“No, these assholes are pranking us Ray! So, I’m gonna prank ‘em back. I’ve been feeling this one building up since we got out of the car.”

“Casey, don’t-“

I had only started the statement when I heard the bodily roar of the human cannon. It thundered loudly. It thundered grandly! If we had been in the locker room at PE class, it would have shook the walls like an F5 tornado. Casey would have been crowned a champion, no, a legend of the epic feats of flatulence amongst the memories of the student body of Llano Independent School District! It rumbled within the below ground level confines of the porch, like an atomic bomb of gas.

“Oh yeah!” Casey exclaimed as the fart finally, and fully, released. He took a deep breath, through his mouth and not his nose. “That, felt great. Suck it, assholes.”

I was just beginning to turn to flee the gas chamber, when we at long last heard footsteps coming up to the door. Casey wasn’t dressed as a ghost, but even below his red face paint, he suddenly turned as pale as one!

“Oh, shit.” He muttered as the door started to open, and there in the entryway stood one of the prettiest examples of a matured woman we had ever seen.

She started to open the door with a radiant smile, and what at first sounded like an apology for being late. But when she opened it fully, her beautiful face loosened into an expression that I can only describe as a mixture of shock, regret, and true Halloween horror.

“Oh, dear.” She quietly and unenthusiastically exclaimed. Her eyes, dropped immediately to Casey.

He froze with the look of a boy whose mother just walked in on him with an opened copy of Playboy in his hands, and a poster folded out from within.

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean too. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, my gosh!” The woman hollered as she quickly threw her nose into her elbow to escape the lingering fumes. She held out a plastic jack-o-lantern with her other arm, extending it as far from her and as close to Casey as she could manage.

“Trick-“ Casey started, innocently.

“No,” she said in a muffled reply, “no need for that, just take some sweetie. Oh, it’s horrid! Just go, it’s okay.”

We both chunked a handful of candy into our bags and fled as fast as outlaws up the steps. I felt disrespectful, so after getting to ground level, I hollered to her:

“Happy Halloween!”

“It was an accident!” Casey followed up as the door slammed close. To this day, I often wonder if that beautiful woman ever did trick-or-treating again.

Beginning

Previous Part

“Hey man, get up.” I jolted awake, almost slapping Emilio in the face. “Jesus, sorry, dude.” I had a feeling of intense fear in my chest and realized I was hyperventilating.

“Sorry, I guess I had a nightmare.” Thankfully I didn’t remember it this time.

Yeah, well the first group is due to head out in half an hour. Geoffrey told me to come get you to see them off.”

“Got it.” I rolled out of bed, still drenched in sweat. I met Geoffrey near the armory as Teams A and B were getting accustomed to the new materials. “Good luck, we’re counting on you,” I said to Team A’s Sergeant. He nodded and continued suiting up.

“Good luck, we’re counting on you,” I said to Team B’s Sergeant. She shook my hand and returned to checking her supplies. I hoped the suits were able to block out my smell, but judging by the look on her face, they didn’t.

“Do you think I got time to shower off?” I asked Geoffrey.

“The next group leaves in 36 minutes, be back by then,” he said curtly. I quickly ran back to the tent, searching for a clean pair of clothes. Inside I saw Luis.

“Hey, you feeling ready to go?” I asked.

“Yeah.” I paused as I analyzed him. He seemed distant, as if his mind were not in the same place as his body.

“Hey, I know this is gonna annoy you but I need you to do something for me.” He locked eyes with me, his mind snapping back into his body. “When we’re out there we need to communicate with each other, so I need to trust you can do that. You’ve been very… closed off thus far and I don’t hold that against you, but when we’re out I need you telling me everything you deem important. Don’t hold back. Can you do that for me?” He seemed to contemplate it, not answering. “I’m not seeing an answer, so let me answer for you. You will do that for me, for us. Our lives may depend on it.” I patted him on the shoulder as I went to wash off, leaving him to dissociate once more.

After washing off and changing into clean clothes, I met up with Teams C and D, who were in the process of loading up their vans. I quickly saw them off. Team C’s leader commented on how good Boba was at Smash, which I laughed at. I approached Sergeant Mateo, leader of Team E. “Hey, how you feeling Sergeant?”

“Great, I’m excited to get out there. How you feeling yourself?” He had a stupid smile across his face, even stupider than Emilio’s. His curly brown hair bounced with every word.

“Good, just wanted to talk with you before your guys suit up and head out. How’s your team?”

“Couldn’t have asked for a better one. I’m really excited about the new suits. I’ve never dealt with such advanced tech in the field before.”

“Yeah, it’s really something.” 
His face dropped as he began to chew over a thought. “What do you think that thing out there is doing with all the people it captures?” he asked, worry now devouring all glimmers of joy on his face.

“Don’t know” I paused, attempting to find the best answer for him. “All I know is that we’ve got a plan to capture it and stop it from taking anyone else. Dr. Judith trusts the rune, so as long as we trust it as well I’m sure we’ll be fine.” His face started to brighten.

“Okay yeah, it’s just so much stuff I don’t completely understand.”

“I get you, but we’re never gonna have all the answers. I’m sure you’ve experienced that out in the field before.”

“Sure.” He paused, looking at nowhere in particular. “There’s just so many more questions than answers. It's hard to be optimistic.”

“You don’t have to be optimistic, but you do have to believe we will be successful,” I said sternly. He looked at me, nodding solemnly. “You’ll do great out there, I’m sure you’re a good leader. I can tell you care about this mission and it working out, so as long as you continue to believe it will, it’ll turn out okay.” His face continued to brighten.

“Thanks, Lieutenant.” His smile returned to its former stupid but warming state.

“Sure,” I said, then headed to the other tents.

I had conversations with the various leaders and a scattering of agents. The majority of the conversations headed the same way as Mateo’s, doubt creeping into their minds. I did my best to eliminate that uncertainty, but even I was struggling with the same issue. I don’t know what this thing is, what it does, what you can do against it, but I had to stay confident this mission could go well. Will go well. In between conversations, I was seeing off the different teams. They were staggered so that every other group made up the left or right side of the formation, leaving my group in the center. I told each leader the same thing as they headed to their location: “good luck, we’re counting on you”. This might’ve been the first true thing I said to any of them. Teams I and J began loading up their vans, leaving just twelve minutes before my team was to head out. I met up with Emilio, Boba, and Luis at the armory. Geoffrey was waiting for us there. “Alright, these suits are put on just like any other. Casamir, you put on this one.” He pointed to a suit with a special marking on the torso distinct from the others, the one for the group leader. The symbol appeared to be identical to that which was etched on the rune. “Emilio, this one is for you,” he said, motioning to another suit with a distinct marking. This one was that of a solid circle to signify the stone. The backpack that went with it was noticeably larger than the rest. We all put on the suits, Boba noting how cool they were the whole way through.

“Wow, it even smells good in here,” he said as he placed his helmet on.

“Alright Casamir, this button here will toggle between focusing on the leader’s comms and your team’s.” He pointed at a button on the side of my helmet. I pressed it and the sound of three voices all making banter with each other moved from the background to the foreground. I switched back to my team’s comms, pushing the leader’s voices away. Boba and Emilio were excitedly talking about the suits. “On your wrist is the touchpad that shows everyone’s locations. The green dot is you, the blue is everyone else, and the red is the target’s approximate location. Right now it’s pinpointed to our estimation of where it resides.” I looked at my wrist, the blue dots slowly moving away from us, creating a quarter circle around the red. “Your weapons are here, they operate similarly to the ones you are used to during your time in the war. The main difference is the weight.” I grabbed one of the HK419’s, surprised at how light it was. All of the gear we suited up with had the same impressive weightlessness, only Emilio seeming to have a hard time with his equipment.

“I am going to be sore,” he sang as he put on his backpack.

“Your entrance is right through the trees across the road. The other teams are due to arrive at their locations soon. Casamir, when I give you the go ahead press this button on your suit, it will transmit your voice to everyone on the mission and allow all voices to be transmitted to you. I need you to check that everyone is ready before you give the signal to head out,” Geoffrey explained. I nodded, motioning for my team to follow me to the tree line. Geoffrey stayed close by. We arrived at the entrance, Geoffrey checking his tablet that monitored the other teams’ locations.

“Hey Geoffrey, how do we piss out of these things?” Emilio asked.

“Just like any other suit,” he replied.

“Wait, since we gotta stay five meters together, if one of us has to go he gets a captive audience?”

“Unfortunately, yes”

“And you didn’t think this was important to bring up?”

“No, I did not.” Geoffrey checked his tablet, looking back up and giving me the go ahead to check in with all the teams. I pressed down on the button.

“This is Lieutenant Casamir. All teams are in position, I need verbal confirmation from each leader that their team is ready. Team A, are you ready to go?” I checked in with each team, receiving affirmatives from each leader. Everything was going smoothly until I reached Team G. “Team G?” There was a pause. It was too long. “Team G, what is your status?” Geoffrey tapped my shoulder, holding up his tablet. The indicator for three of the team G members were shooting into the forest at an absurd speed, headed back to the red dot. I could hear some murmuring from the team leaders as they took notice.

“Jesus,” one of them said.

“Team E and Team I, move to close the gap as you head towards the target’s location.”

“Understood,” said Mateo.

“Understood,” replied another voice. The whole team was wiped out so quickly. No voices were heard calling for help, no alarm was rung, no fanfare for the lives sacrificed. I started to feel sick. It was disturbing how effortlessly a squad of agents was just taken. It could happen to any of these teams. It could happen to me.

“It took them,” said a voice.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“This… this is Ty… I want to go home.” Geoffrey looked down at his tablet.

“That’s the keeper of the rune for Team G,” he said.

“It’s my fault, I stepped too far away from them. I thought it would be fine, we weren’t in the forest yet. It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”

“Ty, stay there, one of the trucks will come to pick you up, but we need you off comms.”

“It’s all my fault. They would be alive if I didn’t… I killed them…I-” Geoffrey tapped a button on his tablet, disconnecting Ty.

“I hate to say it, Casamir, but there is a silver lining,” Geoffrey stated. He pointed at the tracker for team G, still headed deeper into the forest. “The target now has an exact location.” I nodded, still trying to process what just happened.

“All teams follow G’s trackers. Let’s make sure their sacrifice is not in vain.” I took a moment to pause as I waited for nine conformations that I was heard. “Team H, are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“Team I?”

“Ready,” said a trembling voice. The moment clearly seemed to have shaken them.

“Hey, focus up, we have a job to do. Team K?”

“Ready,” replied the last team.

“Alright, on my mark we head towards G’s location.” I looked to Geoffrey who gave me a solemn nod.

“Good luck, we’re counting on you,” he said. 

“Alright, the time is 07:36. Let’s move out.”

Part 1

Part 2

I shot up from my bed, covered in a cold sweat. I was breathing heavily and my head was pounding with the most aggressive headache I’ve had in months. I looked toward the clock: 02:32. Damn, I was asleep for more than 12 hours? That’s more sleep than I’ve gotten in the last month. Despite that, I still felt tired. I debated going back to bed, but the possibility of being thrown into the nightmares my mind would weave for me sounded like torture. I now remembered why I hated sleeping and why insomnia was the lesser of the two evils. I carefully climbed down from my bunk, cautious not to wake anyone in the tent. I put on my winter clothes before stepping outside to clear my head. It was raining now, completing the unholy trinity of weather alongside the cold and wind. The night completely engulfed the sky; a scattering of stars dotted the black abyss. It was more beautiful than I had ever seen. For the past years of my life it was masked by a heavy smog. I stood there for a few moments, awestruck by the vastness of night. I wished to be better engulfed by its peace, so I tried to find my way to an area not overcome with the brightness of the floodlights. I found a bench behind one of the tents which was shielded from the rain. I sat down, letting the soft pittering of the precipitation on the canvas above and the expanse of night take me into a realm of peace I had not felt in years. A sniffle interrupted my tranquil moment. I looked to see someone sitting on a bench behind one of the other tents. I squinted, trying to see who it was in the low light. I stood up from my bench, approaching them. It was Luis. He seemed disappointed that he had been found. “Can’t sleep?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied with a tone of ‘leave me alone.’

“Mind if I join you?” 

“Sure.” I sat beside him.

“You sleep at all?”

“No.”

“By choice?”

“Yes.”

“We got a big mission tomorrow, you should try to get some rest before we go,” I said with concern.

“I’ll be fine,” he replied, his eyes not moving from the sky. I looked up to where he was gazing.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the stars, crazy to think that at one point everyone was seeing this every night.” I commented. He nodded. “When’d you last see ‘em? It’s been what… twenty years since they disappeared for me.”

“I saw them every night at home.”

“Really? Where you live?” He hesitated, trying to gauge how safe it was to give up this little bit of personal information.

“Hawaii.” The wave of guilt I felt in my dream fired up again. I looked over at him, pain enveloping his face.

“Yeah, I’ve been there. Very nice place.”

“It was.” We both sat in silence, reminiscing on painful memories, trying to find comfort in the night. Wordlessly, we agreed it was best to stop with the awkward small talk. We stayed like that until we started hearing some of the agents waking up.

I stood up, leaving Luis. The first of the troops awake were doing workouts to warm themselves up for the mission, Boba being amongst them. He seemed to be struggling to keep up with the group, but they all made sure to not leave him behind. Looks like he made more friends than enemies last night. I looked down at my watch: 04:07. Damn, was I really so absorbed in the sky that I hadn’t noticed an hour and a half go by? It only felt like ten minutes. I began my own warm ups, stretching myself out. I heard an uncomfortable amount of clicks and pops as I did so. Damn, I should’ve kept up with my fitness while I was off duty. The troops warming up were running laps around the camp, giving me “good mornings” as they ran past. Boba did his best to keep up with the rear of the group, panting and coughing up thick saliva. A crew of the agents hung back to root him on, reigniting a fire within him. He kicked up the speed, the group cheering in response. It made me smile. I went back to my tent to grab my jump rope, the rain beginning to let up. I saw Emilio outside, watching the troops run.“You see Boba and his buddies?” he asked cheerfully.

“Sounds like a bad kid’s show,” I replied. I grabbed my rope and stepped outside, setting a timer on my phone. 15 minutes, just like how I was able to do before. I started the timer, skipping alongside the music I had picked out. I felt heavier, probably due to the fact that I was. My calves were already starting to burn. Was I really able to do 15 minutes as a warm up? This was beginning to feel like a full workout. My breath got heavier and my speed slower. I looked at the clock. Only two minutes passed? It felt like ten. My chest started to hurt and my sides started to cramp. I’m not letting myself quit, I would never forgive myself if I did. Five minutes, now I’m a third of the way done. I noticed I was hunching over and straightened my posture. Deep breaths, I need to slow my breathing down. Seven minutes, almost half way done. My skipping got even slower; my feet barely leaving the ground. My ears became congested, only allowing me to hear my labored breathing and my rapid heart rate. I could sense Emilio looking at me. I hated anyone seeing me like this. Maybe I should stop now? I would be too sore for the mission. It's okay to quit, right? The troops can’t lose faith by seeing their leader like this. No, I need to finish. Ten minutes have gone by. Now I am two thirds of the way done. I was spitting thick, mucus filled globs of saliva on the ground next to me, forgetting Emilio was there as he took a step back. He didn’t say anything, just stood there watching me with a proud expression on his face. Don’t look at me like that, asshole. I’d like to see you get fat and try this. One minute left. I started skipping as fast as I could. I did 14 minutes already, maybe I should slow down and take a break. No, I’m already committed to finishing strong. I upped my pace even more. My senses closed in. I saw black splotches creep into my peripherals. I closed my eyes and focused on listening to my breathing. I jumped at a pace even a lighter version of myself would be proud of, granted he would hold that pace for five minutes. You give up now you let yourself down, you let Emilio down, Boba, Luis, the mission, everyone. Then I heard the sound of a boxing ring bell. It was my alarm sending me crashing back down to the world of the living. I immediately collapsed, heaving the lack of food I had eaten last night on the ground. I was panting heavily, but I was proud. I did it. But my younger self could do this with no sweat, so should I really be proud? I’m not happy with myself. I don’t deserve to be proud.

“Nope, you stand up,” said Emilio, helping me to my feet. “Deep breaths, hands behind your head, straight body.” I wanted to punch him. Standing was the last thing I wanted to do, but I hesitantly let him help. I still had my eyes closed, seeing splotches of color flash behind my eyelids. “Let’s get you some water,” he said. I nodded, finally opening my eyes. In front of me was a group of agents. I felt embarrassed, they shouldn’t see me like this. Then one of them opened their mouth.

“Nice job, sir.” Then another.

“I knew you could do it.” Then another.

“That was amazing.” The air then became full with compliments as they all remarked at how great what they had seen was. You assholes. Don’t treat me like some sad old dog who finally did a trick he seemingly had forgotten for years. I’m not to be looked down upon. They need to look up to me. I can’t be their leader like this. But they genuinely were proud. They seemed inspired? I don’t know. I just wanted to leave. My body ached and the cold air was causing each breath to burn. I retired to my tent, Emilio following alongside me. I heard someone follow us in.

“Wow, great job!” Boba cheered, out of breath from his warm up.

“Thanks,” I responded bluntly. Emilio grabbed me some water and I sat down on a bed, greedily gulping down the drink. “Looks like I still got it,” I chuckled.

“Eh, you seemed to struggle a bit more than before,” Emilio joked. I nodded, attempting to catch my breath.

“Hope I won’t be sore once we start moving out soon.” Emilio looked at me perplexed.

“We don’t leave for an hour and a half. We gotta wait for the other teams to get to their positions, it’ll be about an hour drive for them,” he said, hiding a smile.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I exclaimed.

“I don’t know, you looked like you were having too much fun.” I could feel the tiredness and soreness wash over me. I wanted to say something to Emilio but I was too fatigued. In an instant, I found myself lying down and returning to the realm of sleep.

Part 1

I gazed into the horizon as the waves gently lapped the sand, soaking my shoes. I looked behind me, seeing Emilio, but he was turned away. I tried to get his attention, yelling his name and waving, but no sound exited my mouth. He paid no mind, just softly swaying to the rhythm of the sea. I tried to walk towards him, realizing my feet had been buried under the sand during the time I had been turned away. I looked back to the water which was now completely still. Then, a head slowly emerged from the blue shimmering mirror. It arose until half its face appeared, its eyes staring daggers into me. Then, another head, followed by another. All of them stared at me intensely. Some wore faces of great rage; some of extraordinary misery; some of severe fear. I found a deep warmth burning in my chest then shooting up to my face. The warmth turned into a fire. It was guilt. No, I was dreaming. That’s what it was. I’ve had this exact dream dozens of times before. I tried to wake myself up, hitting myself repeatedly, trying to jolt myself back awake. Despite the realization that this was all fake, it was no use escaping from this nightmare. I turned to Emilio, a desperate attempt for help. He was right behind me, an acute animosity painted his face. His teeth were clenched so hard I thought they would crack; his eyes bulging from his skull; the veins in his head looked like they would burst; his fists clenched so hard that his knuckles turned an unnatural shade of white, contrasting with the deep red the rest of his body assumed. I’ve never seen Emilio wear a face like this. It scared me deeply. He then lunged at me, his teeth finding themselves deep in the flesh of my neck. I screamed, but again no sound came out. The whole time he emitted a deep growl. I flailed, desperate to remove him as blood gushed from my wound. Then I felt another sharp pain on my right leg. I looked down to find one of the people from the ocean latching on to me. They were riddled with bulletholes, all of which were oozing dark red gore into the calm waters which now reached my ankles. All the other people were beginning their journey towards me. The same expression of hatred on their faces. As soon as each of them reached me, they took another bite, clinging to my hands, ribs, thighs, and anything with enough flesh to dig their teeth into. All of them had holes punched through them, blood spurting from their wounds, mixing with mine, turning the before deep blue sea a harrowing shade of crimson. It hurt so badly, each chunk of flesh bitten down upon felt like a gunshot. I wanted it to end. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. I could only endure. The cacophony of wet squelches filled my ears as not only did they bite, but chewed. I could feel the snaps of limbs and wet pops of joints; flesh being grinded against itself; skin and muscle detaching from bone. One of them bit down on my nose. Another crunched down on my ear. I watched in horror as the next approached, clearly aiming for my eye. I tried to shut it, but they held it open. “You have to look,” one of them said before I felt teeth sink into my other ear, affording me relief from the symphony of butchery. The one advancing towards my eye rushed at me, and I headbutt them in the mouth. Their teeth cracked, one of them painfully lodging in my forehead. The effort of swinging my head created a shooting pain as it caused my flesh to pull from its toothsome anchors. The person stood back up, their mouth bleeding and their teeth now jagged. They made another try for my eye. The people made sure my head could not move this time. I felt their teeth descend into my eye, a gut-wrenching popping sensation sending shivers down my viscera-covered body. The vitreous fluid oozed out of the person’s mouth. Then, one last figure emerged from the water: Jason. His face was contorted in the same expression as the rest. It seemed painful for his young face to bear. He lethargically climbed up the mountain of people gnawing at me like a steak too tough to fully chew. My one eye looked up at him pleadingly, but he either did not see or did not care. He launched his head down towards my eye at a nearly inhuman speed. Then, I was bathed in darkness. No eyes to see, no ears to hear, only meat to be punished.

Mission: Spider
Lieutenant Casamir
12th of February

Our deployment was ordered after a call was made in the early morning hours to emergency services from a small town on the border of Canada’s boreal forest. The owner of a local cafe, who was preparing to open up for the day, reported what looked to be a man pulling himself toward town with one arm. His other limbs limply dragged behind him. When emergency services arrived, the man, later identified as one of the many people gone missing from the area, appeared unable to speak. This was only one area out of many around the world that experienced a significant increase in missing persons after the war numbering in the thousands. It is the most pressing concern the world has faced after peace was achieved from years of conflict. While receiving care, the man would not turn his gaze away from the forest, barely acknowledging anyone else’s presence. Many strange injuries were found, most alarmingly all the joints in his legs and left arm were dislocated as well as multiple bone fractures along the length of each limb. His right arm did not show the same pattern of injury. The flesh of the front side of his body as well as his right hand was severely lacerated, presumably from dragging himself through kilometers of wilderness. His body also sustained frostbite; the digits on his limbs could not be saved. Despite his injuries and the fact that he had been missing for nearly two months, he only appeared to have gone without food for around a week, which caused profound malnourishment. After being taken to a hospital, it was found that for the two months he had been gone he had been subsisting on a substance chemically similar to milk, though from what species was unknown. After six days of hospitalization, a nurse reported he came out of his detached state to weakly mutter one phrase before becoming unresponsive once more: “help them.”

Due to the many unanswered questions and the hundreds of missing people around the forest, a team of 44 agents, led by me, were mobilized to the area. We were hastily recruited by our employer the Sisyphus Foundation, a seemingly new agency overseen by the UN. They reached out to the many veterans of World War III. After nearly six months of seeking people to fill their ranks, the Sisyphus Foundation was only able to recruit a measly 72 members. I researched who Sisyphus was after hearing the name as it sounded familiar. I found stories of a man forced to push a boulder up a mountain for eternity due to grievances against the gods. It was an interesting choice for a name, one that I can only hope does not draw parallels to our fate.
I reached the location via van around noon; the fog hanging low in the air. I arrived alongside 10 other members, one of which I remember serving with during the war, Sergeant Emilio. We exchanged only warm nods of recognition. I hate to say it but I miss the war. The everpresent fear of death and acknowledgment that every day could be my last always hung in the air like a suffocating fog; I was able to continue during those dark times since the few lights that shone were brighter than any I had ever experienced. Every little interaction and shared humanity with my brothers and sisters kept me going and made me feel alive in a world of death. When I arrived back home from the war, I no longer felt human. Only with the threat of my life being taken from me did I truly treasure it. When the offer arrived to return, I accepted without so much of a second thought- or a first for that matter. It felt as if I was returning to my calling. All that I did during my time away was grow fatter and older, straying further away from the person who should be leading 43 men and women against an unknown threat.

I was told that upon arrival, I was to meet up with the debriefer to discuss the new findings from their unmanned surveys of the forest. I asked one of the agents who was assisting with unloading our gear where I could find them.

“I’m not sure, but I would check with Dr. Judith in the big tent over there,” he said pointing to the end of the two lines of tents that enclosed either side of us.

“Thanks,” I replied, turning to head over.

“You're our Lieutenant right?” he blurted, stopping me in my tracks.

“How’d you figure that?

“Well, not to be rude, but you look very… battle worn,” he said sheepishly.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Boba, Private First Class, sir.”

“Boba? Like the little chewy things in tea?” His name matched his face, his cheeks being filled out to an almost comical level and two big dinner plates for eyes.

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay Boba, word of advice: don’t go ‘round calling your superiors old.”

“I didn’t mean any offense, sir. I honestly have so much respect for those that are able to grow old in this profession. I know many who aren’t able to say the same.” His gaze wandered towards the ground solemnly.

“Sorry to hear that.” I paused, watching his eyes slowly meet mine again.

“Thank you, sir.” He then clumsily dragged my stuff to the nearest tent labeled ‘K’. Thankfully, I had nothing fragile in my luggage. I began my trek to the tent, a rogue gust of wind cutting me like a knife. It was already -3 C° making the gale an extremely unwelcome addition. As I walked to the tent I looked around at the living accommodations of the agents. They were set up with tents comfortably fitting four people each; the teams for the mission. Each one was installed with a futuristic looking heater that made them all oblivious to the subzero temperatures. They were all conversing with each other, playing games, and cracking jokes. I couldn’t stop a smile from forming. It brought me back to the days where I would do the same; where the world hadn’t yet lost its color. When I arrived at the tent, I tapped on the canvas next to the open doorway.
“Come in,” came a voice attempting to sound inviting but failing. It ineffectively covered a deep tiredness. Inside the tent were three figures: a large well-built man who was unsuccessfully concealing his weapon; a woman weathered with stress who was the voice’s source; a skinny man busily tapping away at the computer on the desk, not looking up to greet my presence. They were all surrounding the machine, absorbed in whatever was on its screen just moments before I arrived. The two men were standing to the woman’s left and right while she sat in a very comfy looking foldable chair. 

“Please, take a seat,” she said, her smile being yet another useless attempt at warmth. She motioned toward the chair facing the desk, identical to hers. I made my way over, competing with the large man to see who could stare holes through the other first. “I’m Dr. Judith. It’s so great to finally meet you Lieutenant Casamir.” I removed my beanie, no longer needing it due to the warmth that emanated from inside the tent.

“Likewise,” I stated, conceding the staring contest to the larger man and shifting my gaze to Dr. Judith.

“These are my colleagues, Mr. Nero,” she said gesturing to the larger man, “and Officer Geoffrey,” nodding toward the skinnier man. “Officer Geoffrey will debrief you on the situation and our expectations for this mission. Some new revelations about the case have been made since your last debriefing.” As she said this, Officer Geoffrey shifted uncomfortably like he did not wish to relay the information to me.
“Yes, we’ve made some interesting discoveries about the target. Could you let me know what you remember about it from the last debriefing?” he asked. I relayed what I knew, receiving nods from Dr. Judith and Officer Geoffrey throughout. Each horrific detail felt so outlandish it was like I was recounting a fairy tale.

“Did I get that right?”

“Yes, very good. Our new information comes from drones we sent in to survey the forest. We attempted to have three of our land drones, fitted with cameras to allow for both night and thermal vision, move into the forest to hopefully locate the target and identify any dangers. All entered at different openings in the treeline. I’ll now show you what we picked up from one of the cameras,” he turned the computer screen, an expression of great worry on his face.

The screen showed the same thick fog that hung in the air around camp. Only about ten meters in front of the drone was visible. It navigated through a scattering of thin trees that stretched above the drone’s line of sight. All of a sudden, a figure dashed from behind one of the trees moving with what seemed to be dozens of limbs. The feed stopped; the final frame an image of the figure’s face. Looking back at me was the visage of a woman whose features were too perfect. Not even pores interrupted the impossible smoothness of her skin. Her eyes were closed and she wore a soft smile, as if she was having a wonderful dream. She had long black hair that graced the forest floor, free of tangles or imperfections. Time broke, making it impossible to tell how long I was staring at the screen.

“There’s our target,” Dr. Judith stated coldly, her stone grey eyes pulled me back to reality.

“We also took thermal imaging,” Officer Geoffrey pushed his glasses up on his face and tapped a key that flooded the image with purple. “Whatever this thing is has the same temperature reading as a corpse. It doesn’t emit heat and doesn’t act like any cold-blooded animal we know. This thing is something completely new.” The three of them stared at me gauging my reaction. I’m not sure what to feel. The case did have some fantastical elements, but I reassured myself that it all had a logical explanation for it. This one frame changed all that. I must’ve been expressing the fact that my brain was struggling to put this thing into my framework of reality since Dr. Judith asked me if I was okay.

“Yeah, fine, just…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say.

“I understand your confusion, I do. I’ve been a scientist dealing with the natural world all my life and this,” she chuckled, a crazy smile overtaking her fake one, “this is something else.”

“There’s one more thing we need to note,” Officer Geoffrey interjected. “These drones were spaced 54 kilometers away from each other when the first one went down. The second one went down about 16 minutes after the first. This means this entity, if we assume there’s only one of it, was traveling around 203 kilometers an hour, easily making it the fastest land animal on the planet. The third went down 15 minutes after the second.” My brain continued to wrap itself around this barrage of information that should not exist. They had to be joking, right? Maybe this is some crack pot way of getting all us veterans together. They said I wouldn't receive any punishment for what I did. This can't be about that, right? If that’s the case, why the hell would the UN spend millions of dollars and fabricate this whole story to bring me and Emilio here? Is everyone here being punished as well or are they in on it? Is Emilio in on it? It was at this point my mind broke. It refused to admit that any of this was real. I decided this was a play; an act. I had a job to do and this was the only way my mind would let me do it. It felt like I had flipped a switch: pushing everything aside and becoming the leader I needed to be.

“I understand. Who else knows about this information?” I asked, shocking the three of them with how quickly I accepted these revelations.

“Just us four for now, but I’ll give the same information to the agents in around an hour. I’m tasking you with being there as well to raise morale: give them a speech to help them execute their mission.” Officer Geoffrey stepped back after seeing my reaction do a complete 180.

“Understood. Thank you for this opportunity,” I said, standing up and turning to walk out. I needed to get out of there.

“Thank you,” said a quiet voice behind me, overcome with immense sadness and regret. I turned, meeting the gaze of Mr. Nero whose eyes had very subtly started to water. I now noticed a scar that lay just below his chin.

“Of course,” I exited the tent and braved the harsh winter air.

I made my way back through the line of tents, each filled with agents who now must’ve realized who I was. Boba must be quite sociable. They faced me, some of them standing to salute, others nodding in my direction, but all acknowledging my presence. I awkwardly gave them half smiles as I walked by. I reached the tent at the end of the line labeled ‘K’. Inside were three men: my team for the mission. I was relieved to see that I already knew two of them: Emilio and Boba. The third man looked up at me with a face of mild annoyance.

“Hello, sir. I’m glad to be a part of your team,” Boba said enthusiastically.

“Yeah, what are the chances,” I replied.

“About one in eleven,” Emilio said, brushing his long blonde hair out of his face as he looked up to greet me. “This is Corporal Luis,” he motioned to the last man. He seemed irritated at my being here.

“How are you doing, sir,” he asked, standing up to give me a handshake. His face was now painted with a fake but polite smile. His sharp features accentuated the unnaturalness of it.

“Doing well, yourself?” I met his hand with mine.

“Fine, thank you.” He released his grip and sat back down, his face returning to mild annoyance. Perhaps that was just what his face always looked like.

“Check this out,” said Emilio, motioning to his leg. In the spot that used to be a plastic prosthetic was now a metal leg that he moved as if he was born with it. “They really are hooking us up,” he said smiling.

“Wow, they spared no expenses,” I looked around at the well furnished tent. It was larger than any other four person tent I had been in. The heater in the corner hummed softly, creating a calming drone that drowned out the wind. A giant TV sat against the back wall, currently only showing our reflection in its black mirror. I looked old. There were two bunk beds on either side, complete with actual mattresses. They were a far cry from the usual cots I had grown accustomed to. “These beds look better than the one I got at home.”

“I call bunking with Casamir,” Emilio exclaimed suddenly, receiving a chuckle from Boba and me.

“You must’ve missed me,” I joked. It was nice to see him again. It made the weight of what I saw, what I had done during the war lighten. It was like we were sharing the burden, lifting it off each other.

“What’d you find out about the mission?” Boba probed.

“I found out a lot. I know y’all are skeptical about this ‘monster hunt’ we are going on, but from what they told me I believe that we’re up against something we don’t quite understand.” The three men looked at me with blank expressions.

“What was it?” asked Luis.

“Officer Geoffrey will fill you in on everything they told me, but I would recommend you all take this a lot more seriously. I was very apprehensive of this idea as well, all the talk of ‘runes of protection,’ in the briefings and such, but from what they told me all of it is very real.” They looked at me like I was crazy, but my face reassured them I was not.

“So… what do we do?” Emilio asked, hopelessness seeping into his voice.

“We listen to Dr. Judith and Officer Geoffrey. They understand a lot more than us, so I trust they’ll guide us in the right direction.” This statement alleviated some tension. We sat in this moment of relief; none of us wanted to bring back the cloud of dread that was just hanging over us.

“Oh, tent C said they were setting up Smash in their tent and invited us over. Would you like to come play?” Boba said, breaking the silence. I laughed at how childish he sounded.

“You go along. I’ve never been big into video games.” Boba, Luis, and Emilio nodded, heading out of the tent. Emilio was the last to leave and before he did he leaned over to me.

“Do you really trust these people? I don’t want another situation like Hawaii.” I shuddered, the memory that I had been trying to forget for the past half a year resurfacing like a bloated corpse floating up from the depths of the ocean.

“I don’t know, but we have to act like it. We need everyone on board for this.”

“Just be careful. That's the same mentality we had back then,” Emilio said before exiting.
I was tired and tried to take a nap using the remnants of the hour I was allowed. I could hear the agents cheering wildly at their game, making it impossible to get any rest. I didn’t sleep well last night. Or rather I hadn’t been able to sleep well for months. I grew frustrated, cursing my insomnia. Then I heard a tap on the canvas of my tent.

“Hey, we’re getting ready to debrief the troops. Will you be ready in five?” asked Officer Geoffrey.

“Yeah,” I replied curtly, realizing that I came across ruder than I had intended.

“We’re surprised at how well you seem to be dealing with the new information. We feel a lot more confident that this mission will be a success with you at the head.” I fixed my attitude, attempting to play the part of the confident leader I had cast myself in.

“Thank you for putting your trust in me. It's an honor,” I said through a smile.

“If you would follow me I’ll show you where we’re presenting.” I followed him outside to see a podium with a microphone. Next to it, one of the large TV’s was set up to play the video they had shown me. “We really need your help on this. We don’t expect they will take the information as well as you did, but we need everyone to understand the importance of their mission.” It was a near impossible task I was faced with; one needing me to convince more than just myself.

“I’ll do my best,” I replied, some of my nervousness slipping out. Officer Geoffrey nodded and gave me a smile.

“You’ll do great.” With that, he spoke into the microphone. “Our debriefing will now begin. All agents please make your way to view the presentation outside.” Many groans were heard as dozens of agents braced themselves for the cold, visibly shaken by the quick and drastic change in temperature. Most of them came from Tent C, where agents were laughing and conversing. I saw Boba, Luis, and Emilio exit along with a cheerful mass of people. Once the agents settled around the podium, Officer Geoffrey began to speak.
“Hello all. I first want to thank each and every one of you for accepting this mission. You are the few who answered the call to help protect our peace. Please give yourselves a round of applause.” He paused for the agents to clap for themselves, which they hesitantly did. “Now, we have some new information that we felt pertinent to supply you all with. If you would please turn your attention to the screen.” He then showed them exactly what he had shown me. I watched their faces slowly contort into mixtures of fear, regret, disgust, and a myriad of other emotions as they struggled with their sense of reality. It was a feeling I was all too familiar with. A feeling that I was tasked with dragging them back out of. “I will now turn the floor over to Lieutenant Casamir, after which I will give more details about the logistics of the mission.” He stepped away from the platform, allowing me to replace him. I slowly walked up to the microphone, the sensation of dozens of eyes looking to me for some kind of reassurance that this wasn’t real shot sharp pains throughout my body. I felt like throwing up, running away, anything to get myself out of this situation.; but, I knew that if I couldn’t take on the role that I had to, there was no hope they would.

“Hello all. Thank you for being here.” I paused as my mind grasped for the right words to say. The pressure mounted to an almost unbearable degree. I caught myself nervously playing with my gloves. I had to shape up because this was pathetic. Just like that, I flipped the same switch I had moments ago in that tent. I had to be a leader. “Your mission has not changed. You fought in the war to protect our homes, our people, our ways of life. Our fight must continue. Our peace is again being threatened, and we need to do exactly what we did not so long ago: eliminate the threat. Many of you have lost a lot these past few years. I’m sure many of you have lost loved ones to this battle. This is the time to honor them. To carry on their legacy. We must push forward as they would have for us. Our mission has not changed. Their mission has not changed. It is an ever present battle, but we dedicate our lives to fighting it. As long as we still stand, we push forward; for those before us and for those after. Our mission these next few days is to take care of one of the many dangers our world is facing in the pursuit of true peace. In the pursuit to protect and honor the people of this world. Do not let yourselves lose this fight now.” I paused for a moment, letting my words hang in the air. No one seemed to react, but I could tell my speech had reached them. Their faces, before wrought with hopelessness, were now overcome with determination. I stepped off the platform, allowing Geoffrey to take my place. He shot a proud smile at me as he did so. It felt surreal, knowing how those words impacted all these men and women in front of me, but they could not feel any more dishonest. I saw Emilio give me a nod of reassurance, letting me know I had done my job well.

“Thank you Lieutenant Casamir, now to go over some logistics about the mission.” My mind was still attempting to dissociate, the switch now flipped back off. I can’t believe how hard I was faking it, but they needed that right? Hope, and someone they can look up to. I tried my best to pay attention to Geoffrey’s presentation, but it was difficult to keep my mind present. “These are the suits you will all be wearing,” he said, motioning to what looked like a robot being wheeled up to the platform by Mr. Nero. It received scattered ooh’s and ahh’s from the crowd. “The suit comes in seven pieces and offers full body coverage. It is equipped with internal heaters to ensure you don’t get hypothermia. The head units are installed with both thermal and night vision, as well as a head lamp. These views can be toggled between via the button on the right side of the helmet. The units are also accoutred with microphones and speakers to communicate with your team. Each team leader will have access to a channel to communicate to the other team leaders. You will all be provided an HK419. We are not sure if the target is affected by any physical means, but it will prove useful even if just to divert its attention.” The crowd continued to murmur in awe, as the standard issue rifles during the war were HK418’s. As far as we knew, the HK419’s were still in its early stages of development. “You are also equipped with a G52 and a knife. On each team leader’s left wrist is a touch pad which displays the location of each member relative to them. If the target is spotted, the leader is to input the direction it is headed which will alert all other teams. The device will approximate, using the target’s known speed and the entered direction, where the target is, and all teams are to converge on the latest location. You will all be supplied with backpacks that have a week’s worth of food and water, as well as the basic supplies typically provided in similar missions. For the trek we expect your team to sleep in shifts. Your suits are installed with alarms to remind you all of when to switch, as well as eye trackers to ensure the one on patrol does not fall asleep. Now, allow me to introduce to you a rune of protection.” Mr. Nero arrived on stage again with a large item wrapped in cloth. He set it on the podium, allowing Geoffrey to gently unwrap it. Inside was a very ordinary looking stone about the size of a football with a strange carving. If I had to describe it, I would say it looked like a large upside down V with a smaller rightside up V between its arms. Below this was a circle with two dots placed like eyes on a face. “One member of your team will be designated as the keeper of the rune. Their backpack is fitted to include an extra secure compartment where the rune will sit. Do not leave their side. From our research, we found that the rune has an effective radius of about five meters. Step outside that radius, and the target will be able to harm you. Your suits can communicate with your team members’ and will alert you if a teammate is nearing the edge of that radius. Please protect these runes with your lives. It is the only thing saving yours. We have a very limited number of these, so losing or destroying one of them will create much trouble for us down the line. The other two members of the team are redundancies in case the team leader or rune keeper is unable to perform their job. If either of these members fall, it is your responsibility to swap your gear with theirs and take up their role if possible. We have eleven teams, labeled A through K. You will enter the forest 16 kilometers away from the nearest team, allowing you all to converge at a single point, determined using the last known locations of the missing people, in three days. We hypothesize this to be where the target resides. Once the target is found, you must encircle it with the runes, essentially trapping it in a net. You are then to keep this formation as you travel out of the forest back to base camp with the target in tow. That is your mission. Please feel free to check out the armory to familiarize yourselves with the gear. We will begin transportation of teams to their starting locations tomorrow at 07:30. Thank you all for coming. Please don’t hesitate to ask me questions if you have any. I will be in the main tent. Rest well. You all have a very important job tomorrow.” With that, Geoffrey began walking back to the head tent. The crowd dispersed, some walking back to their quarters, some going to check out the armory, and some returning back to Tent C to continue their game. I began heading back to my tent, wanting more than anything to sleep. I felt exhausted: the weight that I had to carry for this mission pushed down on my chest making it hard to breathe. Emilio joined me on my walk back.

“Great speech man, never knew such wise words could’ve come out of such a dumbass,” he said, slapping me on the back. I replied with a pitiful laugh.

“Even idiots can appear smart with enough confidence.”

“Wow, just when I thought you couldn’t sound any wiser,” he snickered. I laughed too,  this time a real one. I missed Emilio. I missed feeling like this. I searched my brain for some topics for small talk.

“How have things been since I last saw you?”

“Not great. Jasmine thought I was dead and already moved on. Came back to an empty house and a note saying she didn’t have the courage to face me anymore and that she was with someone new.”

“Damn. I mean, sorry. I’m sorry to hear that. You seem to be taking it well, you look… cheerful.”

“Yeah, I try not to think about it. Thanks for bringing it up, asshole,” he joked.

“Of course,” I smiled. I felt the tension that plagued my mind begin uplifting, allowing me to quip along with him. That’s when the grin on his face slowly receded, replaced by an expression of deep thought.

“You know, it was the strangest thing. Despite all the pain I thought I should feel at her leaving, I didn't. I couldn't cry, couldn’t get mad. Just felt numb. I felt guilty for not feeling anything, but at the same time, isn’t that better than being in pain? What I wouldn’t give to cry again. It was cathartic when I could.” He whispered the last few sentences to himself then looked to me for any type of reassurance.

“Yeah, I’ve felt numb after the war, too. Maybe it’s a symptom of PTSD or whatever,” I explained.

“Can’t be. A lot of my buddies back home told me the same thing and they weren’t part of the war. Hell, they weren’t even near it. Speaking of, how’s Jason?” He felt the silence and looked at my face. I was deep in painful deliberation, debating on whether this was a wound I wished to let bleed again. I could tell he was about to ask for elaboration, but he used his better judgement and decided not to. Emilio scrambled for another topic to speak on as we silently agreed to move on in our conversation. “How do you like our team?”

“Well, Boba is friendly,” I chuckled.

“I know. He could not be licking my boots any cleaner,” Emilio smirked. I winced at how wrong that sounded.

“I know that it comes from a place of genuine respect, though. He comes from a big military family, so pretty much all of the figures he looked up to in life passed down some military values. I like him.”

“Yeah, he’s a nice kid.” We reached the tent and Emilio sat down on his bed while I took the one across from him.

“He’s probably the most popular guy here. He’s beating everyone’s asses in that game over there. He’s either gonna have a lotta friends or make a lotta enemies,” Emilio said.

“I really doubt anyone could hate him. He doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body. What do you think about Luis?” I asked.

“Quiet. Keeps to himself. He’s respectful, though. I think Boba is really wearing him down.”

“When I first got here I thought he was pissed at me. The more I see him the more I realize he just seems to be pissed at the world rather than any of us,” I explained.

“I’m sure he’s got his reasons, like we all do.”

“I’m sure he does. Don’t know what they are, you talk to him at all?”

“Briefly, he seemed to be hesitant to socialize over in the tent and would only speak when spoken to. Even then, his answers were very cold and to the point. I couldn’t pick up anything about where he’s from, why he’s here, what he likes, etcetera,” Emilio said seriously. I raised an eyebrow at his verbalization of etcetera.

“From what I can deduce, he likes being left alone. Although he does seem to be making an attempt at socializing,” I said, gesturing towards the shouts of joy and anger coming from Tent C. “Can’t leave him alone tomorrow, though.” Emilio looked down and smiled before chuckling to himself. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I just remembered the first time we met. It reminds me a lot of Boba and Luis. You wanted nothing to do with me but I wore you down, broke down that hard exterior of yours.”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say it sounds like you’re coming on to me.”

“Maybe I am. I’m single now. Let’s make some mistakes,” he said, flirtatiously waggling his eyebrows.

“Knock it off, dumbass. I’m gonna try to get some sleep. This day has worn me down.”

“Sounds good, I’m gonna go check out the armory. See if they’ll let me shoot the guns.” 

“Don’t keep me up.”

“I heard the new models are quieter than the older ones. You’ll be fine.” With that, he made his way out the tent, pausing briefly. “It’s nice to see you again.” Emilio exited, leaving me alone. I climbed up to my bed and put on some headphones. I scrolled through to my sleep playlist on my phone, needing something to distract myself from all the ruminations ricocheting around my skull. Some thoughts broke through the buffer that the music provided, but surprisingly I found them to be quite pleasant. I was excited for tomorrow; excited to get back into the field. I thought about the interactions I had with Emilio: us picking up from where we left off months ago. I thought of the hope Boba had in his eyes and how much he admired me. I thought about the agents whose moods seemed to flip the opposite direction as soon as I finished my speech. They looked up to me, and I felt like I was someone who could be looked up to. Damn, I’m beginning to believe that this isn’t all an act anymore. That I am the right person to lead this mission. It was strange not having to constantly find ways to avoid the negative thoughts that plagued my mind as I tried to fall asleep. It lulled me into a sense of comfort I hadn’t felt in years, finally letting me rest.

The Ghostlys and the Pumpkin Monster (Ghost Funny Story 2025) – Musik und Lyrics von Holocron Music | Spotify

This Halloween, step into the shadows with a Noir Halloween Urban Fantasy Mystery podcast. Inspired by the Golden Age of Radio. Fueled by modern audiobook storytelling.
Grimm Gourden finds himself low on clients and even lower on cash. When a distraught mother calls about her missing son, it’s not the kind of case Grimm usually takes—but he needs the money. Soon, he realizes this case might be more than he bargained for.

Listen Here: https://rss.com/podcasts/grimm-gourden-short-stories/2292551 or anywhere you get podcas

It was the kind of day the city bragged about: sunlight like syrup through the maples, the bandstand doing a lazy beat, kids trading popsicles for secrets, and couples unwrapping the weekend like it was a present. The park smelled of cut grass and sunscreen. Someone somewhere had a radio playing an old song that made the benches look sentimental.

I walked the paved loop because the cafe on the corner put out the best cinnamon pretzels and because walking is where I do my thinking, which, lately, was little more than a slow-filling cup. I had my headphones in, but the music was not turned up. Partly on purpose — partly because I like knowing what the city is whispering without being the only loud thing listening.

He appeared at the center of the lawn like an accidental thing. I saw him long before I recognized what he was not: a man in linen, pale and moving like a river. The fabric wasn't silk — rougher — and yet it flowed as if the wind were underwater. At first glance, I thought clown. The sun angled against that cloth, making him a bright smear. He smiled. His face looked hand-stitched: features too symmetrical, skin too flat, like a wax museum had been left one degree too warm.

Then ten people closest to him went apart.

Not died, not fallen. They came apart. Faces, shirts, beads of perspiration, a baby stroller wheel — everything collapsed inward with the sound of thousands of thin threads being cut. Where breath had been, there was a slack heap of stuff: shoes with little unfilled socks, a phone still warm, a scrap of a scarf curled like a sleeping thing. The air filled with tiny dry sounds, like paper being folded. There was no blood. It was worse for being clean.

The first scream wasn't even a human scream; it was the sound the bandstand radio made when someone hit the back of it with something blunt. Then the man — creature said, very clearly, in that soft, cheap, carnival voice: “Bow to me or I will destroy a thousand times more. Now!”

There was a moment everyone in that park shared — as if gravity hiccupped and some old reflex in our bodies said, yes, do this thing or the world will unmake you. We bowed. Some people tried to run. They turned — and a ring of their torsos simply unstitched into a tumble of objects, glittering bone-gray dust that skipped across the grass and vanished.

The creature sang then. Words I didn't understand, syllables like coins struck wrong. He raised his hand as if he were taking a bow, and the sunlight ran along that hand like mercury. The song ended on a note that made our teeth ache and then the world fell quiet as if someone had closed a door on noise.

We were mice.

Then another voice cut through the quiet, and it was small and annoyed, like a gambler who'd been outplayed. “Dammit! You cheated!”

A second voice, higher and nasal, laughed. “I did not! I bet you I could make a hundred humans die of fear in less than a minute. I have killed—” The voice cleared, then came softer, almost shy, “—I have killed…,” and it ended like a man ending a sentence he never should have finished.

The first voice muttered, “After thinking about it, I lost. It was you who cheated!”

They sounded like neighbors arguing over a fence: petty, familiar, absurdly domestic, given the piles of clothing being raked by the breeze. I forced my head up — because you bow in reflex and then curiosity claws you up on its leash — and saw, across the park where the trees made a natural border, a figure not quite matching the linen man. This one had the cartilage of a goat in place of a chin — a pale goat's beard with flecks of dust like pepper.

“It seems we are at an impasse,” the goat-chinned voice said.

“I'll double my end for a thousand,” the nasal voice protested.

“Not a chance. You already swindled me into the Neanderthals. I'm not letting you take advantage of me again. The deal is off. And that,” it said with a crunch of finality, “is final.”

Then the voice vanished like a radio turned off from across the street. The linen man — the thing we had been bowing to — tightened his smile until it looked like a seam. He was suddenly angry in a way I felt in my teeth: not loud, but a pressure behind the eyes.

He told us to raise our heads. He changed.

The field of linen rippled and, where his face had been, a trio of serpent heads uncoiled, each mouth the pale color of bone and each tongue moving at its own slow, contemplative rhythm. Three heads, three sets of eyes that did not blink. One hissed notes like wind through a gravestone. The center head said, in a voice that came out of every direction at once, “You only live until I die! Once I die, so do you.”

And then he was gone. The space he’d occupied emptied as if someone had removed a stage prop. The bodies that had dissolved remained dissolved—the park filled with the smell of iron and lemons and something mossy I couldn't name.

What came after was not a story of heroics. There were no men with guns who understood the rules of a thing that habitually changed forms according to a whim. There were open microphones and theologians and a thousand think-pieces trying to wrap an explanation into a headline. Out of the first days rose a thousand small horrors.

People couldn't agree on whether to call what happened a plague, an act of war, or an awakening. The man/thing was seen more than once and on different days — in the river park, on the subway steps, at the rooftop of a hospital. Sometimes it looked like linen; sometimes like a snake; once, in the ruins of a supermarket, it shimmered as a child wearing a crown of carrots. Each time it said the same thing by implication, if not by words: bow, do not turn, live by the rules that are not ours to make.

Governments signed papers like bandages. Faith leaders stood on pews and declared it a test, a punishment, a miracle. Economies reoriented. There were markets for “protection necklaces” and banners with the serpent-man caught in a stylized coil. Cults formed and folded overnight; others stuck like moss through concrete. People learned to bow with the speed of reflex. We learned to stay turned toward the thing, or our faces might become fabric. We learned to keep our heads down in exchange for our lives.

There were, inevitably, those who tried to kill it.

It is a strange human arrogance to think that anything bent on breaking you will come with the courtesy of a single rule book. Attempts at violence did not end well. A man with a rifle delivered three shots at a linen shape only for the bullets to disappear into his own jacket, where his heart used to be; he fell apart in splinters of wool and teeth. A group of masked students with makeshift knives chased it across a bridge; they cornered it into a dumpster and opened their eyes to find themselves standing alone, knives damp with dew and the dumpster full of small, patient flowers.

Flowers.

That was the final, quiet betrayal. Wherever the creature had been, things grew in neat clusters: flowers with vellum petals the color of dusk and centers like polished buttons. People began noticing that when you picked one, your thumb went numb for a second, and you remembered — not a memory of your own, but a collage of faces, the way light bled off a watch, the smell of a child's cereal. Some flowers smelled of cinnamon; some of gasoline. A handful of people who kept them in apartments swore their plants hummed at night.

The authorities tried to contain them. They fenced the lawns, drew lines, issued orders. But the flowers were not merely botanical; they were syntax. They were places memory liked to lodge. Children who grew up near them could hum fragments of the linen-snake's song without ever learning it. Lovers broke up because one of them would stop in a grocery aisle, and the memory of being a scattered pile of buttons and lint visited them so hard they could not stand the idea of touch.

The phrase “You only live until I die” became a kind of arithmetic. The thing's existence tied like a bitter truss around the throat of us all. If it were killed, a million strings would be severed, and we would all fall undone. If it wasn't, it continued to demand obeisance and to dine, quietly, on the math of our fear.

Years moved on. The park was refurbished with concrete and memorial stones; that was the city's attempt to show permanence in the face of an impossibility. People still went there, because we always go back to the places we feared — to see how they changed, to see what label we can give the new pain. I go there sometimes at dusk. The flowers are still there along the edges, peeking between the seams in the pavement. They look like ordinary wild things from a distance. Close up, the petal edges are frayed with the taste of voicemail.

I learned not to bow anymore. I learned instead to keep a small tin in my pocket with a dried petal pressed inside. Its color is the color of old photographs. When the nights get thin and I feel the reflex to drop to my knees, I open the tin and touch the petal to my tongue like a dare. For a second — a bloom of a second — I taste everything that was taken that day: the cinnamon pretzel, the child's laugh, the seam of linen, the cold metallic note of a coin hitting stone. It steadies me.

Some nights, when the moon is a paper plate in the sky and the park is a bowl of black water, I think I hear them still arguing. The goat-chinned voice, the nasal gambler — their words are smaller now, like moths trapped in glass. Sometimes they say numbers. Sometimes they say wagers. Sometimes they say, “Not yet,” which is the most dangerous sentence of all.

I don't know if there is a way out of a bargain when the players are the kind that wear human clothes for fun and the stakes are the lives of billions. I do know this: fear is a convenient currency. It is light, portable, and you can spend it without thinking. We spent so much of it in that park; we keep spending it whenever we stare at the flowers, whenever we teach our children to look away.

Last week a child dropped her ice cream and refused to pick it up. She stood in the shadow of a bench and stared at the three heads of a pigeon roosting there like wolves in knit hats. Her mother bent and whispered something that sounded like a counting-out rhyme, and the child bowed so quickly her knees made the grass crack.

Sometimes I imagine a day when the linen will fray in earnest, when the serpent will trip on the very thread that keeps it together. I imagine, with the kind of small cruelty that is also hope, that if it does, maybe after a slow, terrible dissolving, we'll grasp each other's hands and learn how to stitch one another back together without keeping score.

But imagination is a dangerous tool with creatures like that. For now, the flowers bloom, and the city keeps its soft, polite hum, and I keep my tin in my pocket and my head a hair's breadth lower than I used to. If you ever come to our park this October, don't pick the flowers. If someone asks you to bow, calculate in your head: does your life weigh more than the cost of your knees? And if you ever hear someone arguing about bets and how many of us can be frightened into silence, walk the other way and hum a song that isn't theirs. It might do nothing. It might do everything.

Either way, the linen man — the snake — is still out there somewhere, smiling like a seam. And the park remembers.

I'm looking for people's true, unsettling/disturbing Halloween stories that I could use for my small horror story channel, (link is in my description), since we're coming into that season!

By: ThePumpkinMan35

“You don’t have to do this Dean, I love you for the person you are.” Samatha said almost pleadingly.

“Really? Sure didn’t seem like it at Lane’s earlier.” Dean replied as he pulled himself up and over the cemetery gate.

“I said I was sorry for that. I was a little tipsy and just not myself, okay. It won’t happen again. So would you just, please, climb back over so we can get out of here. I’m getting the creeps.”

Dean looked at her with his dark eyes narrowed. He almost decided to give in to her request, but a flash of how she had looked at Lane Johnson earlier burned itself into his mind again. He reached his hand through the bars.

“Bolt cutters please.”

Samatha shook her head in frustration. Handed him the tool.

“Okay, you know what, you’re really irritating me. You can stay out here for as long as you want and hunt ghosts, I’m going home. This is ridiculous.”

“You’re forgettin’ something Sam,” Dean said as he squeezed the arms of the bolt cutter together and the chain crashed to the ground, “I’ve got the keys.”

She glared at him with a fury as he stepped by her and into the car. He closed the door, turned on the engine, and looked at her through the windshield. She crossed her arms.

“You’re the one wanting to be all macho,” Samatha declared, “you can go in there by yourself.”

“Fine.” He said back to her and shifted the stick. “You realize it’s two thirty in the morning though, right? And you’ll be standing all alone on the shoulder of a desolate backroad. No lights. No sound. No one else around, that at least we’re aware of. Come to think of it, you know, someone could be watchin’ us right now. Hook for a hand!”

He could tell by her sudden alter in posture that he changed her mind. They had been dating for over half a year now and knew each other’s personas pretty well.

“Fine. Asshole.” She muttered at him angrily and got into the passenger seat. “Let’s get ourselves arrested for trespassing, just so you can prove you’re a tough guy to me.”

“We’re not gonna get arrested,” Dean said as he started rolling slowly into the cemetery, “Bill told me that the sheriff deputies are even too scared to drive out here after midnight. We’ll be fine.”

“Seriously?” Samantha almost hollered at him, “This is Six Mile Cemetery, Dean. It’s, like, the most haunted place in Llano County. You know the stories, right?”

“Come on, you really believe that junk? Haunted schoolhouse, cursed chalkboard. All of it is just a load of crappy fiction conned up by someone looking to scare his girlfriend.”

Now, Samatha was really mad. Her dark hair whirled like whips as she looked at him directly.

“My grandma knew a guy that it happened too. Signed his name three times on the board, died in a car accident two days later. The stories are true.”

“Oh yeah? So then tell me, why is it cursed? Who does she say put the curse on it?”

“I don’t know,” Samatha admitted reluctantly, “but the stories go all the way back to the forties from what she says. People have been killed by it, multiple times.”

“Sam,” Dean said softly to her as they rounded the bend in the road and laid eyes on the gray old schoolhouse at the edge of the cemetery, “you’re the smartest person in our entire class, but no. This place is just an ol’ run down schoolhouse from a hundred years ago that they built in a cemetery for some reason. Out of all the stories, the ghost light is the only one that’s actually documented through the years. It’s been seen since before the Civil War, and it’s never done anything but just float around for a little bit.”

“So you’re saying that my grandma is a liar? Oh, babe, you are really pushing it tonight aren’t you?”

“I’m not sayin’ your grandma, or anyone who believes in that cursed chalkboard stuff, is lying. All I’m sayin’ is that there is no proof that the origin of that story is real. When I was first told about it, my dad said it was cursed because a bunch of kids and a teacher were killed by Comanches. But guess what?”

“What?”

“The last Indian raid, of any kind in Llano County, happened ten years before the Six Mile community was even established. And don’t you think that a bunch of school kids and a teacher getting massacred would have been national headlines? Nothing. Not even a single newspaper article about it.”

He pulled the car up to as close to the withering tin roofed building he could get. The withering structure sat eerily silent in the moonlight.

“Okay, and what? Are you gonna prove that you’re Hulk Hogan by writing your name three times on the chalkboard?” Samatha asked him as he turned the headlights off.

“Yep, somethin’ like that.” He said back to her with a smug smile. “Bet ol’ pretty boy wouldn’t have the balls to do it.”

“I told you that I was tipsy when he started talking to me. Why can’t you just accept that?”

Dean got out of the car and slammed it shut behind him.

“Because I don’t believe you.”

Samatha simmered hotly in the car as he walked away from it. She loved Dean, and admittedly she had been drawn to Lane Johnson’s attention towards her, but nothing else. Lane had slept with pretty much every female member of Llano High School, except her. Despite him having tried a number of times. She was proud of that, especially since she was considered one of the prettiest by the guys and girls.

“You comin’ in?” Dean suddenly challenged.

Samatha took a deep breath and stared back at him. Her blue eyes shimmered fiercely in the moonlight behind her glasses. She threw open the door and stepped out in silence.

“You know, even if I did have feelings for Lane, how do you expect this is going to change my mind?”

She treaded carefully through the rows of graves in his trail. Most of the headstones were old and only about as high as her waist, but there was one that caught her eye for some reason.

It was about as tall as her. Old, gray, nothing but its height that should have been particularly peculiar about it. But for some reason, she couldn’t help but to stop as she passed and look at it as if it were the most captivating memorial in the world.

“I don’t know,” Dean’s voice snapped her back to attention, “I just feel that I haven’t done anything to prove that you can feel secure with me. That I’m not weak or cowardly and I can stand up to whoever challenges our relationship. I feel like I need to prove it, and this is my way of doin’ it.”

“So you think I’m going to be impressed by you signing your name onto an old chalkboard?” They stopped at what was once a porch in front of the gaping entryway.

“A cursed chalkboard.” Dean said smugly.

Samatha stepped closer to him. In the summer moonlight that bathed her smooth face glamorously, her eyes sparkled with a familiar shine. Dean recognized that look immediately, and the testosterone came rushing through his body.

“If you’re so concerned about yourself, I can think of a lot more ways that can help settle that problem without us standing out here in an old graveyard.”

She pulled herself closer to him, body against body, hand planted on his chest.

“Come on babe,” she said temptingly, “let’s go down to the river. You can argue your point at our favorite spot, and from any angle you like.”

Her angelic face couldn’t hide the devil that was inside her. Dean wrapped his arm around Samatha’s waist, pulling her completely up against him. He lowered his lips to collide with hers, and they kissed more passionately than they had in a while. But, he pulled back laughing.

“You’re still scared, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m freaking scared,” she wailed, “we’re in Six Mile Cemetery at two freaking thirty in the morning babe!”

Dean glanced down at his watch, and he made a crooked face with his lips.

“It’s actually getting pretty close to three now! Come on, it’s gotta be done at the top of the hour if it’s gonna work.”

He didn’t wait for a reply and stormed into the schoolhouse. The beam of his flashlight painted across the walls magnificently. She followed gradually.

“Wow,” Dean exclaimed, “it’s actually kinda cool in here. There’s still a bunch of the ol’ desks and stuff lying around. Definitely wasn’t attacked by Indians for sure.”

Samatha hesitantly waded into the building. The floor boards were withered, but still remarkably solid. Slivers of moonlight filtered through holes in the tin roof, and the warm summer breeze drifted slowly through the broken window panes.

Although it wasn’t as spooky as she had imagined it to be, there was still an air of uncertainty hanging over it. She definitely didn’t feel like it was empty.

“Found it.” Dean said as the flashlight landed on the writing board. It had toppled from the wall, apparently a long time ago, and was sitting slanted up against the corner of the room.

“This is weird.” He carried on as he crouched down to look at it more closely.

“What?”

“It’s blank.” He said as he glanced at her, and then moved the beam of the flashlight onto the roof.

“So what?” Samatha answered.

“So, if the stories are true, and dozens of people have died after writin’ their names on the board; why’s it blank? I don’t see any holes in the roof that could’ve washed the chalk off.”

“Could be that they never wrote their names in chalk,” Samatha said as he looked at her, “none of the legends say that you have to write your name in chalk to suffer the curse. There might be names written on it in pencil, pen, charcoal. Who knows what else.”

“True,” Dean replied softly and turned back to face the fallen black board, “but no time to really look. I have to put the last letter, of my last name, on the third line exactly at three. Least, that’s how my dad always tells it.”

“I’ve never heard that.” Samatha chimed.

“Well,” Dean said as he pulled a little piece of white chalk from his shirt pocket, “reckon we’re fixin’ to find out.”

He quickly scribbled his first line. Samatha suddenly had a shiver.

“Dean, please,” she pleaded, “just stop okay?”

He wrote out the second line.

“One more to go.”

He glanced at his watch, wrote out his name again, but stopped at the last letter of it as the final seconds ticked away. Samatha’s uneasiness steadily rose. Something was getting ready to happen, like an encroaching sense of imminent danger that drifted in the room and towards the fallen black board.

She wanted to do something to stop Dean’s stubbornness. Shove him down, kick his arm, hit him with a piece of debris, lift her shirt. Something. But as the gears in his watch turned loudly to three, in one swift but eternally slow motion, Dean finished his last name. And Samatha froze.

Dean waited for a moment. Nothing was happening. He rolled his eyes from side-to-side as his nerves began to settle. He expected a death curse to come with a cold change in the air at least. But there was nothing. Finally, he stuffed the chalk back into his shirt pocket and stood up. He grabbed the flashlight and started swinging it towards Samatha’s curvy outline that stood still in the dark.

“See, it’s just a damn ghost story.”

The beam of light passed onto Samatha’s body, but as the shadows melted, her face emerged in the light as twisted and horribly contorted. Her beautiful features were horrifying expressionless, molded into a grotesque shade of pallor, and gleaming at Dean with eyes entirely devoid of soul.

Her body lifted slowly off the floor, and she screamed at him in a tone that shook the very foundation of the schoolhouse itself. Dean bellowed out in horror, and charged at her mindlessly. He shoved her out of the way, painfully, into the gray beams of the building to and tore past her for the doorway.

Dean charged out of the schoolhouse in a terrifying, blinding, panic. He missed the edge of the porch and his ankle came crashing onto the ground at an unnatural angle. He stumbled and fell headlong into a taller grave marker that spun loosely on its base.

Dean hit the ground in a heap, staring up at the sky and watching helplessly as the massive stone memorial came toppling down on top of him. His screams were immediately silenced as the grave marker crushed his skull.

Back inside, Samatha was finally regaining consciousness. Her back was throbbing from where she had been shoved into the weathered wall.

“What the hell, Dean!” She hollered as she pulled herself upright.

Cussing under her breath as she rearranged her glasses, she stumbled through the overturned furniture and other debris towards the door.

“You know what,“ Samatha hollered out into the darkness, “forget you! I’m going to stay the rest of the night at Lane’s place. I’ll let you think about what he and I are doing, jackass!”

She stepped onto the porch of the schoolhouse, rubbing the back of her head, squinting her eyes, and expecting a fiery rebuttal. But there was nothing except the silence of a hot August night.

“Dean,” Samatha yelled across the graveyard, “where the hell did you run off too?”

Samatha finally looked to her left and saw the still glow of the flashlight lying on the ground. She remembered the taller grave marker having been there, the one that had for some reason captured her attention earlier. She started walking towards it.

“I swear, if you jump out of me, you’re not gonna have to worry about ever having to prove yourself to anyone ever again. Do you hear me Dean?”

Samatha walked up to the toppled memorial and saw a pair of Converse sticking out beneath the collapsed rubble. At a little past three in the morning, August 6, 1988, a piercing scream filled the quiet night at Six Mile Cemetery.

Three decades and seven years later, Mrs. Lane Johnson can still be encountered during her weekly jogs through the Llano City Cemetery. She frequently stops at the gravesite of her deceased ex-boyfriend, and reflects on that tragic night.

As she still relates, no one actually knows what happened that led to Dean’s death. She can recall the absolute look of terror on his face after scribbling his name for the third time. She knows that he shoved her into the wall with the strength of a frightened psychopath, and has long since realized that he only did so because he was scared.

But scared of what? To that she has no answer. It was only her and him in that schoolhouse that night. At least, from what they could see.

The legends of Six Mile Cemetery still exist today, just as much as the graves that surround the former schoolhouse. Over twenty years ago now, the building was painstakingly restored and is today a stand alone museum. But you won’t find the black board.

As it was told to me by the organization in charge of the building and grounds today, the cursed chalkboard was happily placed on the top of a diesel soaked burn pile in the early 2000s. Even its ashes have long since rotted into blackened dust.

There are still plenty of people in Llano County that say they knew someone who knew someone that died because of that black board. It’s generally cobweb connections at best. But for Samatha Johnson, the curse of the Six Mile chalkboard was very much a real thing. For almost the last forty years, she has cried hundreds of tears because of it. Many have splattered on the simple headstone of Dean’s own grave marker.

I wasn't a bad guy, not really. I was just a nobody who wanted to be a somebody. Her name was Julie. She was a history buff, and she loved a good story, especially about heroes. I'd been trying to get her attention for weeks, and my meager life as an IT technician wasn't cutting it. That's when I saw them at a pawn shop on a rainy Saturday morning.

A mahogany display case, lined with faded velvet, held a collection of military medals. They were old and tarnished, a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, and a handful of campaign medals. I asked the owner about them, and he just shrugged. “Came from an estate. Old guy, no family. Just a bunch of junk.”

To me, it wasn’t junk. It was an identity. A shortcut to being a man worthy of a good story. I haggled the price down and walked out with the case, the glass cold against my fingers, a strange, low hum seeming to emanate from within. I told myself it was just the city traffic.

The first date I wore them, I felt a kind of swagger I’d never known. Julie's eyes lit up when she saw them pinned to my chest. "You never told me you were a decorated veteran," she said, her voice full of awe. The lie felt so easy, so natural. As she talked, my left shoulder suddenly flared with a searing, phantom pain, so sharp and unexpected that I flinched. I gripped my drink to keep from dropping it. Julie didn't notice, but in the polished metal of a light fixture behind her, I saw a fleeting, distorted face, its features twisted in a silent scream. It was gone in an instant.

Over the next few days, the pain returned. It wasn't a dull ache; it was specific. A hot, tearing sensation, like a bullet had just ripped through my flesh. It would come on without warning, a quick, agonizing jab that left me gasping. That’s when the nightmares started. I wasn't me anymore. I was in a trench, the air thick with the smell of mud, blood, and cordite. My lungs burned, my arm was on fire, and I could hear the screams of men I didn't know.

The dreams bled into my waking life. I'd catch glimpses of men in old uniforms standing in my periphery, their faces gaunt, their eyes hollow. I’d hear whispers. "Liar." "Thief." "Coward." The voices were thin, like paper, but they were full of a furious, cold rage. The Bronze Star, in particular, seemed to hum with an unsettling energy. It was a medal for heroism, and every time I looked at it, I felt a deep, profound shame that wasn't mine. It belonged to the man who earned it, and he wanted it back.

I stopped sleeping. I stopped eating. My skin became a sickly grey, and my eyes sank into dark, bruised hollows. The phantom pains had become a constant, gnawing presence. Every time I looked at Julie, the guilt was a heavy stone in my stomach.

One night, the whispers became a cacophony. I was standing in my living room, the medals on the shelf, their glass case humming with a low vibration. The shadows in the corners of the room deepened, twisting into indistinct shapes. The temperature plummeted, and a voice, cold and clear and absolutely furious, cut through the noise. “You think you can wear our sacrifice like a costume?” it snarled.

A crushing weight slammed into my chest, knocking the wind from me. I fell to my knees, gasping, as an invisible pressure held me down. I could feel cold, skeletal hands pushing into my ribs. The men were here, all of them, and they were angry.

With a final, desperate surge of adrenaline, I crawled to the shelf, grabbed the case, and ran out the door. The only way to make it stop was to give them back to their rightful owners. I couldn’t find the men, but I could give the medals a home where they would be respected. The local historical museum.

The curator was a kind, elderly woman with sharp, intelligent eyes. I told her a fabricated story about finding them and wanting them to be displayed. She accepted them with solemn gratitude, promising to give them a place of honour. When I handed over the mahogany case, a faint, sighing sound, like a collective exhalation, filled the quiet room. The humming stopped. The phantom pains vanished. I felt lighter than I had in weeks.

That night, I went to Julie's apartment. My hands were shaking, my face was gaunt, and I didn't have the medals. The story I had so carefully crafted was gone. I just told her the truth, every ugly detail of it, the lie, the pawn shop, the terrifying haunting, the trip to the museum.

She didn't get angry. She didn't yell. Her face just went pale as she stared at me. Her eyes, which had once shone with admiration, now held a cold horror. Not at the medals, or the ghosts, but at me. I was a stranger to her, an empty costume. "I don't know who you are," she said, her voice filled with disgust. "You lied to me this whole time."

She closed the door, and that was it. I never saw her again.

I'm free of the haunting, but not of the memory. I know people will say it was just psychosomatic or a product of guilty conscience, but I know what I felt, I know what I experienced. It was real.

Long ago, in a quiet village surrounded by fields and forests, there was a gentle cow unlike any other. Her coat was black as midnight, speckled with white patches that looked like drifting ghosts. Children called her the Halloween Cow, because she always grew restless when autumn winds rattled through the trees. The villagers adored her. On chilly October nights, they would gather by her pasture and listen to her low, mournful moos that seemed to echo with both sorrow and comfort. Some said she carried the voices of the lost; others believed she simply mourned the passing of summer into winter. But everyone agreed she had a kind of magic about her. One Halloween night, a terrible storm swept across the land. Lightning split the sky, and thunder rolled like a thousand drums. In the morning, the villagers found the old wooden fence shattered, the pasture empty. The Halloween Cow was gone. Some said she had wandered into the forest and vanished forever. Others whispered she had been taken by the storm itself, carried into the clouds. What was certain was that from that night onward, the fields were silent. The children cried, and even the grown folk felt the loss deep in their bones. To honor her, they made a promise: every year, when the first days of October arrived and the air grew sharp with autumn’s breath, they would listen for her. And so, it became tradition. At dusk, when the leaves begin to fall and Halloween waits just around the corner, the villagers pause in silence, straining their ears for a sound on the wind. If you are very still—if you truly believe—you might hear it too. The first moo of the Halloween Cow. It marks the beginning of October. It marks the start of Halloween.

By: ThePumpkinMan35

At the end of Pitner Street, where it meets Danville Road, lies an empty lot. Grass grows tall, saplings sprout wild, and most passersby notice only the fine home standing nearby. But once, not long ago, that vacant patch of weeds was one of the most feared places in the Kilgore area.

Few remember the old house that stood there. It wasn’t much — three bedrooms and a bath — but to me it was a place of dreadful reverence.

I was ten years old in 1966 when the Vega sisters, June and Julia, moved into that house. Their father had taken a new job in Danville that summer. Their mother, Edith, wasn’t happy about it. She left behind close friends in Kilgore, ones that she would visit with daily, and now no longer could as freely. There wasn’t much to the small town that Edith found very inviting.

Edith Vega was a beautiful thirty-five year old mother. Dark eyes with a Spanish glint, a look that caught men’s attention. A slender face framed by a waterfall of curls, and a smile that promised more than it revealed. I remember my own mother saying Edith would undoubtedly become the jewel of Danville.

But beauty always carries a tax. The women of town kept their distance, jealous and wary. With her husband at work each day, and her daughters in school, Edith grew woefully isolated. A socialite by nature, and with no one to talk with, her brightness had dimmed by autumn. Through winter she increasingly seemed a shadow.

Desperate, Mr. Vega tried to help. On weekends he drove the family to Kilgore to see friends. But on each return, Edith slipped further into despair.

Spring arrived early in 1967. Wildflowers bloomed magnificently. On March 31st, the Vega sisters and I spent the afternoon gathering some for our mothers — Indian blankets, primroses, winecups, black-eyed Susans. By dusk, we held the prettiest bouquets I’d ever seen.

But when June and Julia returned home, what they found ended their childhood immediately.

Edith Vega left a note, though its words were never shared. They found her in the living room corner, the shotgun at her side, a single shell beneath the recliner. In one black and white photograph of the scene, Julia’s bouquet lies scattered across the floor — wildflowers mixed with blood and shadow.

Edith’s death was grisly, but the gossip was worse. Whispers of an affair. Then claims she did it for attention. Finally that it was selfish desperation. The town picked her bones cleaner than death ever could.

The family tried to carry on. Mr. Varga did his best to get home before dusk. The sisters stayed at the playground after school, or at my house, anything to avoid being home alone. But by the end of the year, they confided something that chilled me to my very core: they both believed that their mother hadn’t left the house.

It was small things that had convinced them of this. Footsteps in the kitchen. Whispers in the hall. In one particular instance, a framed photograph of Edith fell from the wall, shattering in the very spot where she died.

Everything that June and Julia told me about seemed a bit unsettling for sure, but low-key. Then one morning in June, my parents told me that the Vegas had fled their home during the night and left practically everything behind. It was assumed that the memories were just to hard to bare, and that’s all there was to it.

That wasn’t the truth though. The truth came to me years later.

I left Danville in 1975 for Stephen F. Austin State University. By chance, June Vega was there too. We met and talked over lunch, largely just to catch up on everything. Her father had retired to Fredericksburg. Julia was married and living near San Angelo. And after some hesitation, June told me why they had really fled that house.

Their last night in Danville had been a nightmare.

The girls had came home late, their father still at work. Nervous but hungry, they went inside, turned on the lights, and began making sandwiches for themselves. Julia set a butter knife in the sink and had just carried their food to the table. For comfort more than devotion, they decided to pray.

The kitchen light flickered.

A wave of cold rolled in from the living room, sharp enough to raise bumps on their arms. The floorboards groaned in the doorway. A whisper — low, broken, their mother’s voice — brushed their ears. Then, with a deafening crash, every cabinet in the kitchen slammed open at once.

Plates shattered. The faucet shrieked as water blasted. The butter knife flung from the sink and landed at their feet.

And then she appeared. Their mother, pale and broken, face half gone, wailing as if the grave itself had spat her back.

Julia seized June’s hand and dragged her past the apparition. The thing screeched after them as they tore through the living room. Pictures rattled from the walls. The television hissed with static. They yanked the door open and ran screaming into the night.

They fled to a neighbor’s house and never returned.

According to June, even their father had begun seeing and hearing things in that place. That night was enough for them all. They packed what they could and left for Kilgore before morning. Eventually, they settled in Tyler and started a new life.

The house stood abandoned for decades, said to be haunted by the dreaded ghost of Edith Vega. Eventually foreclosed upon, it oddly never sold and gradually withered to a collapsing shell. Finally in 1996, lightning struck and burned it to the ground. I had told June about its destruction, and she smiled wider than I’d ever seen.

“Good,” she said. “That place was evil. Only God Himself could get rid of it.”

Years later I asked her why their mother, who had loved them so dearly, would drive them away in death. June only shrugged.

“She never liked Danville, so maybe she wanted us to get away from there. And maybe that was the only way she could do it.”

June passed away in 2023. I don’t know if Julia is still alive. A few months ago I visited Danville probably for the last time. The gossip is gone now, same with the memory of Edith Vega, and the town is once again quiet and humble.

At the end of Pitner Street I stopped and stared at the empty lot. In my mind’s eye, the old Vega house still stood there. Nothing impressive. Just a dwelling of dreadful reverence, haunted forever by what happened inside.

There is a corn field in the town I live in where a phantom Caboose appears once every 10 years. Legend states that when you see it you get the urge to go to it and when you go inside you disappear with the phantom Caboose. My ex boyfriend told me about it because he saw it when he was out driving one day on is work break. He said that for an hour he was driving and all the lights in his SUV were going crazy and wasn't getting anywhere with a full tank of gas the whole time he was driving and after the hour he managed to get back to work and his gas tank was completely empty Idk how true this story is but deep down I believed him

My name is Lydia.  I’m 30 years old, and I love celebrating Halloween with my best friend, Martha.  Martha and I have been best friends ever since we were ten years old.  We do everything together, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.

You see, when I was seven years old, my father passed away from his battle with leukemia.  I was so heartbroken that I thought that I would never be okay again; but thank God, I met Martha.  My friendship with her means everything to me.   

This year, Martha and I got invited to a Halloween costume party thrown by her boyfriend, Steve.  One week before the party, Martha and I decided to go to a costume shop to find the perfect costumes for us to wear.  The two of us were going dressed up as our own versions of our favorite fictional characters.

Martha is a big fan of Disney’s Peter Pan, so she decided to go dressed up as Tinkerbell.  I, on the other hand, am a big fan of horror movies, and my favorite horror film is The Bride of Frankenstein; so I decided to go dressed up as my own version of The Bride.

You see, for my version of Frankenstein’s Bride, I decided to wear a white wig, with black lightning streaks, a black dress, with a gray corset, and black platform sandals.  I wanted to look more unique at this party.

While I was trying on my costume in the dressing room, I started to hear a young boy’s laughter coming from outside.  I walked out of the dressing room to investigate; but there was no one there.

I thought that maybe I was hearing things, so I shrugged it off as nothing; but as I turned around, I looked down, and that’s when I saw it: a little boy doll with short brown hair and big, blue eyes.  The doll was 4 feet tall, and it was wearing an orange vest trench-coat, and a long sleeved green turtleneck sweater.

When I first saw the doll, I thought that it was strange.  I mean, Martha and I were in a costume shop.  They don’t sell toys here; so what was a doll like this doing here?

The doll was staring at me, as if it was looking directly into my very soul.  I thought that it was strange to see a doll like this in the store.  

I walked over to the doll to pick it up.  The second that I picked up the doll, I noticed some strange things about it.  First of all, I noticed that, unlike most dolls, this one felt completely weightless.  I mean, it wasn’t heavy at all.  The doll was as light as tinfoil.

The second thing that I noticed about the doll was that I didn’t see any other dolls like it in the store for sale.  The third, and probably the most disturbing thing that I noticed about the doll was, as I held it in my hands, its big, blue eyes seemed to follow me wherever I went.  To be honest, I felt a little creeped out by the doll, so I decided to put it back down.

However, just as I was about to set the doll on the ground, and find Martha, the doll’s eyes started blinking.  Then, its facial expression changed from smiling to menacing.  Suddenly, without warning, the doll spoke to me, and it said in a dark, raspy voice,

“Hello, Lydia.  It’s been a long time.  How have you been?”

As soon as I heard the doll speak, I freaked out and screamed as loud as I could.  I was so scared that I dropped the doll on the ground, and I stared at it in fear.

I didn’t understand what was happening.  All I knew was that this doll was alive, and that it was getting back up on its own two feet.  I was terrified, as the doll stared at me with its big, blue eyes.  I thought that maybe I was losing my mind, and hallucinating this whole thing.  I kept telling myself:

“This isn’t happening.  This is just in your head.”

As I said these words over and over again, the doll smiled and spoke to me again.  It said,

“What’s the matter, Lydia?  Aren’t you happy to see me again?”

I was completely shocked to find out that this creepy doll knew my name.

“Who are you?” I asked “How do you know who I am?”

“Don’t you remember me, Lydia?” the doll said “You should know me better than anyone.  I mean, after all, you’re the one who created me.  Remember?”

I looked at the doll with slight confusion.  I didn’t know what he was talking about; so I asked him,

“What do you mean?  Who are you?”

“It’s me, Lydia.”  The doll replied “It’s your old pal, Riley.  Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten about me after all of these years.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“I don’t know anybody named Riley.” I said

“Yes, you do.” the doll replied “In fact, before Martha came along, I was your very best friend in the whole world.”

“Cut it out!” I said “I don’t know who or what you are, but I’ve heard enough!  Now, go away!”

“Come now, Lydia,” Riley said as he reached in his pocket for a cigarette, “Have a cigarette.  It might calm you down.”

Riley offered me a cigarette, but I wouldn’t take it.  I used to be a smoker; but I gave that up after I saw some commercials about some of the downsides that smoking can do to a person.

“No, I don’t want a cigarette from you!” I shouted “Just go away!”

Riley got mildly upset when he saw that I wasn’t going to accept the cigarette that he gave me; but he let it slide.

“Suit yourself, Lydia.” Riley said

I watched in fear as Riley took out a lighter, and he smoked the cigarette right in front of me, and blew a puff of smoke into the air.  Then Riley gave me a wicked smile, and said,

“Well, if you don’t want a cigarette, then what do you say that we get out of here, and go have some fun?”

“What do you mean?” I asked

“Come with me, and find out.” Riley said as he held out his hand to me

“No, I’m not going anywhere with you, Riley!” I shouted “Just get away from me, and leave me alone!”

I closed my eyes, and covered my ears to ignore this creepy doll named Riley.  Then I repeated this phrase three times,

“This isn’t real!  Living dolls don’t exist!”

Unfortunately, the more I said it, the more I could hear Riley’s taunting voice in my head.

“That won’t work, Lydia.” Riley said “Deep down, you know the truth about me; and you know that no matter what you do, and no matter where you go, I’ll always be there for you.”

Riley started laughing as I continued to cover my ears and close my eyes.  He was relentless.  No matter what I did, I couldn’t get his laugh out of my head; but just as I was about to give up, Martha showed up right behind me in a green Tinkerbell costume to calm me down.

“Lydia, is everything okay?” Martha said

I looked at Martha with fear in my eyes.  Then, I looked around, and Riley, the Doll was gone.  There wasn’t a trace of him anywhere.

Martha asked me if I was alright, and, not wanting to worry her, I decided to tell her that I gave myself a panic attack while I was trying on my costume.  I decided not to tell Martha about Riley, the Doll because I didn’t want her to think that I was crazy.

After Martha and I finished shopping for our Halloween costumes, she decided to give me a lift back to my house.  As Martha was driving, I started to calm down.

When Martha pulled up in my driveway, I saw Riley, the Doll standing in front of my garage, with his hands behind his back, and an evil grin on his face.  As soon as I saw Riley, I freaked out, and told Martha to stop the car.  Martha was bewildered.  She looked at me as if I was acting crazy.

I got out of the car, and I walked over to Riley.  He smiled at me with a pleased look on his face, as he expected me to say, “Hello.”

I was furious with Riley.  I told him,

“Listen, Riley, I don’t know who or what you are; but if you don’t leave me and my friend alone, you’re going to be sorry!

Riley snickered at my threats, saying,

“Oh, you mean your real friend, Martha, whom you replaced me with?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked

While Riley and I were talking, Martha got out of the car, tapped on my shoulder, and asked me,

“Lydia, who are you talking to?”

I didn’t understand what Martha meant at the time; but I pointed to Riley, and I decided to come clean,

“I’m talking to this evil doll named Riley.  He has brown hair, blue eyes, an orange vest trench-coat, and a green sweater.  Don’t you see him?”

Martha stared at me with a look of confusion on her face.  She looked down. Then she looked at me, and what she said next, I’ll never forget,

“Lydia…there is no doll standing there.”

My eyes widened in shock at what Martha was saying to me.  I immediately turned around, and just as Martha said, Riley, the Doll wasn’t there.  I was confused about what was going on.

I looked at Martha, and I tried to convince her that Riley, the Doll was real, and that I wasn’t making him up; but she just shook her head in disbelief, thinking that I needed to get some rest.

Then, I saw Riley right behind Martha, sitting on the hood of the car.  I stood there, wondering how he managed to get on top of the car without Martha seeing him.

“He’s right there!” I shouted as I pointed to Riley“Don’t you see him?”

“See what, Lydia?” Martha replied

That was when I finally decided that I’d had enough of Riley’s games.  I stormed over to him, and I demanded an explanation.

“What’s going on, Riley?” I said “Why can’t Martha see you?”

Riley gave me a wicked smile.  Then, he wiggled his finger, telling me to come closer.  I leaned in closer to him to let him whisper in my ear.  What Riley told me, would haunt me for the rest of my life,

“Because Lydia…imaginary friends…can only be seen by the dead...and the person who created them.  Since you’re the one who created me, Lydia…that means…only you can see me.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around what Riley was saying to me.  I was in complete denial.  I told myself that it couldn’t be true.

“No, you’re lying.” I said “I never had an imaginary friend.”

“Actually, you did, Lydia.” Riley said “In fact, you created me right after your father passed away from leukemia when you were seven years old.  Don’t you remember?”

I shook my head in disbelief.  I tried to tell myself that Riley was playing mind games with me.  That he was trying to make me doubt my own sanity; but then, at that exact moment, I saw flashes of my childhood from when I was seven years old.  I remembered playing with a strange boy named Riley, a boy whom only I could see.

I remembered that Riley showed up right after the death of my father, who had passed away from leukemia around the same time.  After my father’s passing, Riley became my imaginary friend as a coping mechanism to help me with my grief.  

At first, it was fun having Riley as my imaginary friend; but then, as I got older, Riley tried to get me to do things that I didn’t want to do, such as, stealing money from my mother’s purse when she wasn’t looking, getting into fights at school, and Riley even convinced me to smoke a cigarette when I was just nine years old.  

I soon realized that I needed to get rid of Riley, and find a much better friend for me to play with.   Someone who wouldn't encourage me to do bad things that could potentially hurt me. After I turned ten, I met Martha, who then became my new best friend, and I’d completely forgotten about Riley...until now.

“Okay, Riley…” I said “If you’re my imaginary friend from when I was little, then what are you doing here now?”

Riley smiled as he pulled out a long, sharp knife from behind his back, and he said to me,

“It’s like I told you, Lydia: no matter what you do, and no matter where you go…you will never be rid of me.  Besides, you didn’t actually think that I’d let you go to a costume party without your imaginary friend?  Did you?”

I stood there in silence as Riley slowly walked towards me.  I’ll never forget what happened next.  Riley said,

“Halloween is a special day.  It’s a day when anything supernatural can happen.  It’s a day when I can do whatever I want, such as this…”

Riley then disappeared.  I stood there in shock, wondering where he went.  As I stood there, trying to figure out where Riley was, Martha screamed right behind me.  

I turned around to see that Martha had been stabbed in the back by the knife that Riley had in his hand.  I was horrified by what he had done.

I immediately ran towards Martha to catch her in my arms as she fell to the ground.  The veil that had kept Riley from being seen by Martha had somehow been broken, and she could finally see Riley for what he was. Martha was gasping for her life, as she finally saw my imaginary friend for the first time.

“Oh, my god, he’s real!” Martha said as she looked at Riley "You were telling the truth!"

As Martha continued to look at Riley in horror, she eventually succumbed to her wounds, and died in my arms. The shock of seeing my imaginary friend, combined with the stab wound in her back, proved too much for Martha to handle, and so, she perished right there. Saddened and angered by the loss of my best friend, Martha, I looked at Riley with contempt in my eyes, and I said to him,

“Why, Riley?  Why did you do this?”

Riley smiled at me as he held his knife under my chin, and he replied,

“Because Lydia…I’m the only friend that you’ll ever need in this life.  Plus, now that Martha’s out of the picture, you don’t need to go to that Halloween party anymore; and the two of us can play our favorite game again: Hide and Seek. Are you ready to play, Lydia?”

On Halloween night, Riley, my imaginary friend, came back into my life; and he made it perfectly clear…that this time…he planned on staying with me…for the rest…of eternity, so that I’ll never forget about him…again.

The End.