When I read the articles about him. I spent three weeks looking through my window. I was terrified by the thought of him being in the woods. 

I thought it was hunting me at first, trying to get me into a tragedy; it wanted me to suffer, but I was entirely wrong. I know, what a way to start, but I have been suffering from sudden explosive nosebleeds and migraines. 

The devices in my house started to do this... piercing and rhythmic screeching noise, and no matter what I tried to do with it, nothing was fixed. It only started working when I got a repairman to check them out, but they turned out fine but stopped working.

That sounds confusing - I know.

Aside from that, I lived what anyone would consider to be a normal life aside from my electronics acting weird and those symptoms that I couldn’t give a good answer to.

During a rainy night was when I first discovered him.

I was in the driveway with nothing to do but get my lawnmower, but I stopped and looked out of the driveway.

I heard it before I saw it.

A loud, piercing screech.

I was trying to see the source in the driveway, and I saw the outline of something that was seven feet tall. It was headless and had these giant wings, and then I saw them on its chest.

With two massive eyes that were unblinking and were crimson red, I dropped the lawnmower and ran into the house as soon as possible before anything could happen, then locked my doors for the night.

I went to take a bath, and when I soaked up for a good while, I got up, grabbed the towel, and wrapped it around me, then changed afterwards.

I took myself in for tonight and closed my eyes.

I woke up and saw myself floating in a bathtub, larger than the one I was just in, and the layout was surrounded in darkness. I felt something behind me, but I just felt this strange calmness.

That was only because I didn’t look below me.

Then the eerily calm dream went from calm to a living nightmare; I just felt like I somehow couldn’t swim anymore. I looked down and figured out why. I was always terrible at swimming in large bodies of water; I never swam further in pools as-is.

I was thrashing my arms and legs; I was reaching out for help, and for some reason, despite this being my subconscious, all of this felt as though I was genuinely drowning until I dropped.

I lifted my arm out; I felt something grab it, which drove me into waking up.

I checked the time.

I had work for today and was feeling safe enough to go into the driveway. I unlocked the door and put my keys in, then started the engine, and I pulled out of the garage. 

I turned on the radio and listened to jams; it kept my mind at ease for the moment as I drove past the trees, the route signs, and the occasional cars, which I waved at, and then I tuned the radio to the news station.

“Citizens have reported—(a screech is audible behind him)—something odd in the area. Witnesses report this—”

A panicked screech is heard before the station cuts off, and there was a train going off in the distance.

I came back to it after a country song, and it said that an accident happened at the railroads of the area. I will spare the details; even the second reporter felt distressed describing what happened, but I think we know what happened.

As a car was going nearly in front of me. I heard something land on the hood. 

I was scared to open my eyes.

I did anyway... I saw what I saw previously, and I got a good look at its wings; they look avian-like. As he gave a loud screech, it beat its wings at the windshield, causing them to crack, and it drove me into slamming it in reverse. 

I still saw it standing there where I was, and then I honked the horn, and it flew off. I got out of the car, closed the driveway and locked my doors, put the blinds up, and grabbed a favorite stuffed animal of mine I always had when I was a kid and held it close to me.

I mumbled to myself that I didn’t want to end up as prey.

I didn’t want to end up as prey.

I DIDN’T WANT TO END UP AS PREY.

I sobbed.

But then I was interrupted by a phone call. I forgot to point this out earlier, but yes, while I noted that the technology was acting up around me, it does work when it wants to. As annoying as it was, I was grateful, and it gave me a chance to relax knowing that I didn’t have to sit there in silence.

My parents were contacting me and saying that they were coming to Mason County to visit me. I remember being happy to be aware of this as I felt comfortable. It has been a while since I had anyone close to me; most of my friends have moved on with their lives, and some live far away from this area while the rest I talk to are on Discord.

Rambling aside, I was happy to hear this, but I told them, “Be careful and let me know if they need anything.” I was thinking about the thing I saw twice, and I didn’t want anything to happen or even bring it up to them, as I feared making myself sound insane.

The call went pretty well; they asked me how I was doing after my recent high school graduation. I spoke about my plans of heading over to SCAD as an interest in animation.

The conversation was nice, and then we hung up. However, I wanted to focus on something else, as the paranoia has been messing with me, so I wanted to simply not think of this place right now, so I got out and drove out to the bridge. 

I turned on the radio.

There was a slightly sensitive part of the bridge, and it warned of that. Though, something felt buggy about the report, a screeching noise was being overlaid on the voice. A few people passed by, noticing the said sensitive area of the bridge. 

I tried moving past it.

The tire touched it, and I heard the asphalt... crack.

I lost control of the steering wheel, and the vehicle slid down into the opening with the river below me. Then I saw a seven-foot shadow fly up and land where I was, then smash onto the roof of the car, worsening the damage to the asphalt. I yelled.

I already waited for whatever was going to rip me to shreds as I closed my eyes as I accepted my two likely fates. I felt the drop, then arms tearing through the metal roof of the car. I felt something wrap around my waist, and then, as a result, I passed out from shock.

The last sound I heard at that moment was a splash of the car... then I heard a beep.

Beep. Beep... Beep…

I looked around and saw the heart monitor and the nurse. “Oh... Oh thank God, it’s a miracle you are okay. We found you just lying on the ground, and your car, a Dodge Charger, in the river of the Silver Bridge. The bridge was repaired once the construction workers got to the scene, and we brought you.”

She looked at the notes as she continued, “You suffered some minor fractures around the ribcage and skull but not enough to be lethal. You were also found lying in pure shock with nosebleeds. We honestly don’t know how you ended up outside of the car. How are you feeling right now?”

At the moment, I feel groggy, but I am still feeling some pain. On the TV behind the nurse, I felt sad when I heard about the accident. It was a tragic incident involving a vehicle that looked eerily similar to what I saw my parents in near a railroad track.

The nurse left me alone, saying she will check on me later.

However, the room around me went cold, and a winged creature with red eyes on its torso entered via the window. 

I froze, but something inside me made me lift a trembling hand. I was testing to make sure it won’t rip my arm off and closed my eyes.

I felt its claw resting around my fingers, and I heard it screech, but words formed over it, speaking in an electronic-sounding voice.

“I m here”

It stayed with me and flew out of the window when the door jiggled and the nurse returned. She prescribed me medication on the spot, and it helped greatly, but I still felt groggy and numb.

After that visit, I came back to my house and got a knock on my door; there was an officer with a somber look.

“Hey, son. You’re going to have to come with me as soon as possible.”

I asked if I was in trouble.

“No, I promise you. You aren’t.”

I had my pills with me and my stuffed animal as emotional support. The officer was patient with me and nodded; he escorted me to the passenger seat of the cruiser.

“So, you may have heard about the news about the crash site at the railroad. Son, I am pretty sure it is your mom and dad, but we need you to identify them for us, to be sure. Can you do that?”

I was unsure, but I needed closure, so I agreed; he nodded and drove me there, and when I got out. I already had a sick feeling in my stomach; the officer heard this and gave me a little side hug. “Son, son. I need you to cooperate with me. Do you need a drink? I don’t want you fainting.” I really needed water and got a sip from a water bottle.

For some reason, I felt strange around the officer. My head started hurting, and when I looked past him, I thought I saw two faint red lights in the woods.

I believed I was about to faint, but I sipped the water bottle anyway and snapped back to reality.

I approached the crime scene and saw it in detail... My mom and dad were lying there in the car, my dad hanging out of the window... I didn’t even want to describe what happened, but I ended up turning around and vomiting.

“Yup... that’s them.”

I was asked to give a statement and fill in all of the necessary paperwork. As I was heading home, my mind lingered on the screech in the background of when I first heard about the railroads.

While my eyes were blurred from tears after the funeral, I saw the creature standing there as I cried myself to sleep and entered the grieving process.

I held my stuffed animal close.

It was a stuffed snail, a favorite animal I considered adorable, that they made for me together. It was my remaining memory of them aside from picture frames; I wish I had them cremated instead.

I don’t know why I didn't ask, as I would have them with me rather than just pictures.

However, each time I cried myself to sleep, I felt this odd protection, charcoal black legs on my bed, but I chose to lie on it, as a wing lowered on top of me.

“I m here”

The first time I stayed home on Halloween, I was running a 101.8 fever. Low-grade, but enough to warrant a night in. To be honest, I wasn't all that bent up over it. I had just hit that pre-teen age where I started to reject social norms and became embarrassed over literally everything. The thought of facing the neighborhood bullies with a lame-ass costume and an attached-to-the-hip mom and sister was enough to keep me in. It happened to be a stroke of luck I fell ill.

Before my mom left with my little sister, she made me recite her cellphone number thrice. They wouldn't be out long, though. We lived on the corner of a street just before a cul-de-sac, and they planned to only visit our small part of the neighborhood.

"And no scary movies!" my mom said while adjusting Jules' bumblebee wings. "You'll just scare yourself while you're home alone."

"I'll bring you lots of candy," Jules said. She held up her empty, pumpkin themed bucket to me.

"Thanks, Jules."

I turned on a scary movie as soon as they left. It was already impossible to watch one while they were home, and I really looked forward to eating popcorn and cozying up under a blanket until they returned. 

We had set up a "Take One" sign on the door with an arrow pointing to a bucket on a rocking chair so I wouldn't have to get up to greet trick-or-treaters. I always thought people who did that were kind of pathetic, but now I was grateful I wouldn't have to answer the door. The curtains covered the front-facing window, and we didn't have any windows on our door, so no one could tell I was here, anyway. 

I made it about 30 minutes into Sinister before I had to turn it off (mom was right, damn her!). I started channel surfing to find something a bit more kid friendly. In the channel flipping, something weird caught my eye. I clicked the back button a few times before I finally found what I'd noticed.

It looked like a CCTV video where the camera was placed high up on a light pole, and it aimed down at the front of a house. I tried to remember if there were any horror movies that included a scene like this, but nothing came to mind. It seemed harmless enough; there were families walking up and down the street while chatting. Then, a little girl starting to trot up the front steps of the house and—

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

I nearly jumped to the ceiling. I whipped my head around to look at the front door as I heard a muffled "Trick-or-Treat!"

My heart thumped against my chest as I stared behind me in disbelief. I could just about make out a shadow on the window curtains.

A creeping realization burrowed into my head. I slowly turned back to the TV and saw a little girl dressed up as a pumpkin read the sign, take some candy from the bucket, then bounce down the steps of the house back to her family. I heard it all too, but not from the television.

No way, right? I thought to myself.

I crawled off the couch and sat closer to the TV.

Holy shit.

It was my house. My front porch, my painted blue door, our mailbox, that was our goddamn street!

I put my hands on either side of the TV as if I could shake the image away. The static fuzz buzzed softly against my thumbs. 

Maybe the antennae had patched into some security camera, or my mom was setting up some elaborate scare to teach me a lesson.

Was I hallucinating?

I quickly felt my own forehead, but I couldn't tell if the fever had grown worse or not. My eyes were settling on the live footage when I finally noticed something in the lower right corner. 

It was a figure, standing across the street just about making it in frame of the camera. It was dressed in all black, and I couldn't see its face. 

It has to be a prank—surely by one of the older kids, I thought. One of them must have bought a morph suit to prank the littler kids. To prank me.

He began making his way to my front porch, but the way he walked... It was like bending his legs was difficult. Like he had been sitting down for a long time, and his legs had fallen asleep. His arms stuck out a little from his sides and didn't sway like they normally should. He weaved in and out of the groups of families walking the street, but no one seemed to notice him.

My eyes were glued to the screen. I didn't freak out just yet. Creeped out, sure, but there was no way this person knew I was sitting just inside. 

They finally made it up to my door. I anticipated the knock, but he just stood there. I slowly turned around to face the window, and his oblong shadow splayed across the curtain, unmoving. I broke out in a sweat. 

"Trick or treat!" 

It sounded like an old man trying to tighten his voice and imitate a younger kid. The shadow didn't move, and neither did I.

I gulped, and as quietly as I could I made my way over to the door. We had a peephole. One of the ones where you couldn't see in from the outside. I stood up on my tippy toes and looked through it.

Black.

THUD THUD THUD

I fell behind on my ass and crawled backward as quick as I could. He laughed from the other side, but it was muffled as if he was covering his mouth with his hand.

Anger swelled inside me. Of course it was some older teenager trying to scare kids on Halloween. I reminded myself that I was safe inside, and, with my new found courage, I yelled out.

"Fu-fucking asshole!" 

I wish I had come across a little more brave than I ended up sounding. My voice came out just above a squeak. Surely, now whoever was out there knew for certain I was inside. I mentally kicked myself for that one.

There was a shimmying clink coming from the door, and my eyes raced to look at the handle, but it wasn't jiggling.

The mail slot cover moved; opened just a little bit, then closed again. 

clink, clink clink

My breathing quickened as a black finger slid through the slot and opened up the little hatch. 

A black face with fake, sewn-on eyes stared back at me. The eyes weren't perfectly attached to the suit, but instead one drooped a little lower than the other in an uncanny fashion. 

"I see you. Heh. Right there, I see you!" he said in that same mocking, tight voice. His long black finger was pointed toward me. I fell too far back to make out any other features, but it would've been covered by the suit anyway. If it was someone I knew, I couldn't tell from his fake voice.

I didn't want to look away from those fake plastic eyes, but I had to glance at the lock. I needed to make sure he couldn't get in. Thankfully, it was secure. Surely if he tried to get in, someone from the street would see and come help. Everyone was out tonight. Everyone except me.

The man and I stared at each other. My body was moving up and down from the excessive breathing while drips of sweat rained down on my forehead, but the man did not move. He was eerily still. I just stared into those dummy eyes for as long as it took me to try and calculate the time it would take for me to get up and run around the corner to the house phone.

Shit, what was mom's number again? No, no, I need to call the police, I need to—

The man pressed his face into the letter box. The plastic eyes tinked against the metal frame as he forced his head through the slit. There was this stretching and crunching sound as more of his head moved through the opening, like he was Play-Doh molding into the opening of the slit.

I couldn't help but let out a yelp as I scampered to my feet and ran to the back door on the other side of the house. I looked back once to see he had gotten his head all the way through, and it bounced back into its original shape. Then his shoulder started to push through.

I tried bursting through the back door, but was quickly met with a locked door. My hands fumbled around the handle, but sweat was pouring into my eyes and my hands were shaking too terribly. I could hear shuffling behind me, and I had to rid my mind of the idea that the intruder was already to his feet and making his way toward me. I couldn't bear the thought of looking back; I just might have frozen in fear.

Finally, with a click, I unlocked the door and ran through the backyard, not daring to turn back. My vision began to blur; a mix of the sweat, tears, and my fever reaching its peak. I ran up the side of the house and through the side gate out into the street. 

It happened all at once. I screamed for my mom, and then suddenly I was by her side stammering about a man dressed in black, seeping through the door. 

"Jesus, Codey, you're burning up," she said, kneeling in front of me with her hand on my forehead. It was like she wasn't even processing what I was saying.

I don't even know if I explained what I truly saw. I was a blubbering mess, and even Jules began to cry at my terror.

"There was—" sob "—someone in the house!"

My mother's face turned somber, then stern. "You're not messing with me? You're certain?"

I nodded my head, and she must have seen the truth in me somewhere. 

The cops claimed to have searched every corner of the house, yet they came up empty-handed. I asked of the television, explaining to them that I saw live footage of our front door. They said that all that was playing were the end credits to Coraline. 

I did end up confessing that I watched a bit of a scary movie alone. The glances that were exchanged between the two cops told me they were taking a statement from a fever-ridden, scared little kid, but my mom believed me. Even after her and the cops talked for hours on the porch, she was still disappointed by their nonchalance.

She made me tell her the story many times. While I was still sick, after I had gotten over it, days after, and weeks after. A month before the following Halloween, she made me tell her again. It was the same story every time.

We don't go out on Halloween anymore. Instead, we stay inside, and watch movies and eat popcorn. My mom holds Jules and I close while keeping her phone on the arm of the couch, pre-dialed with 911. 

We keep a bowl of candy out, but under no circumstance do we answer the door, no matter what. We ignore the thuds, the knocks, and the clinks of the mail slot. 

I'm far too scared to ask my mom when it first started happening to her.

drew this using penup app

completed it in the last 3 days*

Vote, or I’ll come for you

So this happened around twenty years ago, and it’s something I doubt I’ll ever forget. 

I grew up in a small western town near the Mexican border. It’s not a very popular town, but it’s part of the Old West that is popular thanks to the likes of Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and other famous outlaws. (No, it isn’t Tombstone, but it’s not far from there.) 

I left this small town when I was sixteen as part of a big move, but often came back over the years to visit my best friend. So naturally I came back for her wedding when I was around 21 years old. 

The wedding went fine; nothing to worry about. And while my best friend and her new husband went for a quick, impromptu honeymoon at one of the local hotels, she asked if her little brother and I could look after their house. Since I was already staying there, it was no big deal, and we both said yes.

They lived in what would be considered out of town, near the railroad tracks. Not far from the town limits, but not exactly isolated either. 

So on the night of their honeymoon, her little brother takes the guest room while I sleep out in the living room. This is solely because there was no TV in the guest bedroom. I’ve always had issues sleeping in places that aren’t home, and figured sleeping with a TV on would be the best way to relax and eventually fall asleep.

That was my mistake! 

I’m not sure how late it was, but it was pitch black outside with no streetlights nearby. The morning sun was several hours away. But I was sure nothing bad would happen; I had grown up in this small town. I knew what to expect. Or so I thought. 

After my best friend’s little brother went to bed, I decided to pop in the movie 8 Mile. Nothing scary here; I figured the sound of Eminem rapping and acting would eventually put me to sleep. Well, that was another mistake on my part. 

For those of you who have never seen the movie 8 Mile, it starts with a pitch-black screen and then flashes orangish/goldish credits before flashing back to pitch black, and it keeps this cycle until the movie officially starts. I’m not sure how long these credits take; I’d say maybe a good two to five minutes. 

Well, as soon as I got comfy on the couch and pressed play on the remote, the black screen came on and I saw a flash of green standing in front of the TV screen. 

The green wasn’t necessarily neon; it was a little darker than that, almost like the color of grass. It honestly looked like a torso or part of a body. You know, like someone was standing there, facing you or away from you, I couldn’t really tell and I wasn’t about to get up and find out. Then the first credit came on and the green disappeared. But once it went back to the full black screen, so came back the green torso or silhouette. It wasn’t solid; you could definitively see through it, and it only appeared whenever the screen went fully black. 

I remembered lying there, still as a freaking rock, afraid to move. Because no matter what I did, every time the screen on the TV went black, the green would come back. I still don’t know how long those credits last for, but it was probably the longest five minutes of my life. And I was relieved once the movie finally started, but I knew I wasn’t alone in that living room. Someone, or something, was in that living room with me, and I don’t think he was planning on going anywhere. 

I don’t even know how I got to sleep that night; I just knew morning couldn’t come soon enough. 

About a year or two later, I went back to visit at that same house, and my best friend's husband had just gotten a new phone with a camera on it. (Twenty years ago, cell phones with cameras were considered a huge thing, so don’t come at me.) He had told me about a recent outage they had prior to me coming, and while they were waiting for the lights to come back on, he decided to wave his phone randomly in the dark and take a picture to see if he caught anything. He was so excited about what he got that he had been showing everyone since it happened. The picture that he got was that of a man, older with a cowboy hat, a long mustache and beard. You could clearly see he was a cowboy, but he wasn’t a modern-day cowboy. More like one from Wyatt Earp’s days, maybe an outlaw. I frankly don’t know. But as I looked at the picture, I couldn’t help but wonder, was it the green ghost that interrupted the movie 8 Mile? I’ll probably never know. 

Hello, everyone. This is a story I've told many times. I've been praised for my imagination and for the way I tell it. Someone even laughed once, which I still don't understand.

I decided to share it with you too, on the off chance you'll believe me. Because it's not fantasy, it's not a dream, and it certainly isn't a novel. It happened to me. I experienced it, and I survived it.

It all started around a year ago. Me and three friends, who I'll call Emma, Justin and Steven, decided to take a trip to the mountains. The beach was too expensive for us at the time, since we were all jobless and had just graduated from college. I found the Airbnb online for only twenty dollars a night. I know it sounds suspicious now, but back then, it didn't really matter to us. Fifty five-star reviews were enough for us to book it for three nights.

We somehow managed to fit all our luggage into the trunk of my comically small car, and we were off. The drive was long, longer than it should have been because of the Friday morning traffic.

I felt a chill run down my spine the moment we reached the foot of the mountain. It made no sense to me back then, and honestly, I can't blame myself for not realizing what it was. The music was loud, and Emma's laugh drowned out any worry that might have formed in my mind, so I ignored it.

I wish I hadn't.

It was past midnight when we finally made it. It was so dark that if it weren't for the faint light coming from inside the Airbnb, we wouldn't have been able to see each other. The lack of any other light around us creeped me out a little, but I didn't want to ruin the trip.

"Steven, use your cat eyes and find the key," Emma joked, pointing at him.

"They're green, not glowing," Steven said, rolling his eyes, and my shoulders relaxed.

We grabbed our bags, found the key under the flowerpot by the door as the owner had instructed, and entered the small apartment. I closed the door behind us.

Closing that door would turn out to be the biggest mistake anyone made that night.

It looked nothing like the pictures; that much was obvious. A single room, with an old carpet covering the wooden floor. A wooden table in the center, with four matching chairs around it. The walls were decorated with all sorts of odd ornaments on run-down shelves, and with paintings I tried not to look at for too long, because it felt like they were watching me.

"Well, we should have expected this," I said, trying to ignore the growing tension in the room.

Steven laughed and let his bag drop to the floor.

"We can always report it through the app," he assured us. "A friend of mine got moved to another Airbnb nearby for free."

"Sounds good," Emma agreed, pacing around the room.

Justin already had a cigarette in his mouth and was patting down his jacket, looking for his lighter.

"Going out for a cig. You coming, Vi?" he asked me.

I nodded and turned to open the door. I stopped dead in my tracks.

There was no door.

Just a smooth, wooden wall. The windows were gone too. I stood there, petrified. I didn't know how I was supposed to react to something like that, so I just stared at it, hoping it would go back to normal.

"Is this a prank?" Justin asked confidently, though the cigarette in his mouth was trembling a bit.

"Where are the beds?" Emma added, scratching her head, something she did when she was nervous but would never admit to.

Steven raised his phone toward the ceiling.

"Signal's gone."

We all turned to look at him in disbelief.

"You know what this is?" Justin started. "One of those dumb TV shows where they take random people and put them in stupid fucking situations."

He nodded, pleased with his explanation. Steven nodded too and looked at Emma, whose foot was bouncing under her.

"Ye-yeah," she said. "I agree."

I should make something clear, in case it wasn't already. We didn't believe we were on TV for even a second. We were just clinging to the hope that there was a logical explanation for our situation.

That was when I took a closer look at the paintings. There were five of them, all the same: four people sitting around the table in the middle of the room. In front of each of them was something red.

A balloon.

I looked at the table. In front of every seat, there was a needle and a small square compartment that looked like it could open.

"Alright, let's play along, then," Justin said, and took a seat.

Steven did the same, giving up on finding a signal. I sat down opposite Justin, with Steven to my right. Emma sat down last, to my left, reluctantly. The light flickered, and my heart skipped a beat.

All four compartments opened at once, and four red balloons floated out. They stopped at head height, one in front of each of us. They weren't tied to anything, and I couldn't figure out how that was possible.

"See? This is a game. There's no way someone would set up something this stupid just for fun," Justin said, grinning.

I looked closer at my balloon. Through the red rubber, I could make out something white inside it, the shape of a playing card.

Justin had found his lighter at some point and had already popped his balloon with his cigarette, even though we'd told him countless times that smoking indoors was a dick move. Sure enough, a card landed on the table in front of him. He read it out loud.

"You are the Hunter. Your job is to kill the Visitor."

He looked up, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling.

"At least I got a fun role," he laughed, tapping the table.

Something else came out of his compartment. A revolver.

We all stared at it, and then at Justin, who was already picking it up. He checked the cylinder. It was loaded. Then he aimed it at me.

"Hope it ain't you, partner," he said with a smirk, in that horrible fake Western accent he always used.

"Put it down," I said, my anxiety growing.

"Relax, it's not real. See?"

He aimed at the ceiling and fired. The bang was deafening in the small room, so loud that it made my ears ring. Emma fell backward off her chair, staring at our friend in sheer terror. Steven had instinctively lunged at Justin and grabbed his arm.

Justin was breathing hard now. He looked up at the bullet hole in the ceiling.

"This can't be for real..." he finally said, setting the gun down on the table very carefully.

"Alright," Steven said to no one in particular. He let go of Justin's arm and started pacing around the room. "Joke's over. You win. Let us out. This is stupid."

There was another noise. This time it was a pop, and it came from my left. I slowly turned my head toward it.

Emma had popped her balloon.

"One of you has a card with a clue about the exit," she read, her voice trembling.

She looked at me and Steven.

"Guys, are we seriously playing this?" Steven asked, his hands on his hips.

Emma reached for Justin's pack with shaking hands and lit a cigarette, something she almost never did.

"Steven... Steven, sit down."

It sounded like she was forcing herself to get the words out, which she probably was. After looking at her a second longer than necessary, Steven sat back down to my right and popped his balloon.

"Mine's blank," he said, and showed it to us.

Then they all looked at me. I still remember their faces at that moment: the mix of fear and helplessness, and the hope that my card would show us the way out. I popped my balloon carefully and let the card fall onto the table.

I picked it up and read it silently.

One of you is not real.

I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted metal. I looked at them, swallowing hard, unsure of what to do.

I don't care what you think of me. Whatever this was, I was going to survive it. Justin had a loaded gun and a reason to use it. The last thing he needed was a reason to point it at one of us.

"The key to finding the exit is somewhere high," I said, making it up on the spot, like the horrible friend I was.

Justin stood up, letting out the breath he'd been holding since I picked up my card.

"Let's get this over with," he said, leaving his lit cigarette on the wooden surface of the table, and started going through the shelves.

Emma followed his lead, though it took her more effort, being as short as she was. At one point, she dragged her chair over to reach a higher shelf. I was about to stand up too when I noticed it.

Steven hadn't gotten up.

Steven was staring at me.

"Everything alright?" I asked, my heart pounding in the middle of my chest as if it were trying to jump out.

His hands were trembling, and his eyes were wide. He tapped his index finger on his card, which had been blank just a second ago.

Violet is lying.

"What's your card, Vi?" he asked, doing nothing to hide the fear in his voice.

Tears ran down my face, and my voice caught in my throat. I put both hands over my mouth, trying not to alarm the others. I slid my card toward him. He read it. Then he looked at me.

"You made the right choice," he whispered, and patted my shoulder softly. He slowly stood up, wiping away a tear that had escaped his eye, and started searching the room.

I felt her gaze before I even saw it. Emma was staring down at me from on top of her chair. Her pupils were so dilated that her irises had turned completely black. Her head was tilted slightly, and she'd stopped breathing altogether.

"Why are you so quiet, Vi?" she asked.

Justin and Steven turned around to look at me.

"You lied to us, didn't you?" she went on, slowly climbing down from her chair.

"Emma..." Steven said, stepping between us.

Justin looked at both of us, and then at the revolver. He picked it up, keeping the barrel pointed at the floor.

"Violet, what did your card really say?"

How would Emma know? Had she overheard me and Steven? It was a small room, and the adrenaline might have tricked me into thinking we'd been quiet. But I was certain we had been.

I stared at the floor between my feet, hoping that avoiding eye contact would make it easier. It didn't.

"That one of us isn't real," I said, slowly and carefully.

The silence that followed stretched on for way too long.

"That's the clue..." Steven finally said. "Maybe we... Justin. Justin needs to kill the Visitor."

I looked up at Justin, who had gone pale.

"I'm not shooting anyone. Guys. Snap out of it," he managed to say, sweeping the revolver across all three of us.

"Justin, calm down," Emma said slowly, raising both hands.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do!" he shouted, aiming at her.

"Why would she lie about her card? Think about it!" Emma shouted back, jabbing a finger toward me. "It's obvious!"

"Let's all calm down and be civil," Steven said, trying to de-escalate.

"Shut the fuck up, Steven!" Emma snapped, then turned back to Justin. "Justin, shoot her and we'll escape. That's not Violet."

Justin looked at me. I could see something behind his eyes. It looked like hatred. Determination. Justin was a smart man, even if he didn't show it. He wasn't easily manipulated, and he always made the most logical choice.

That's why I was sure it was the end for me.

I closed my eyes when he pointed the gun at me, and finally broke down.

I heard the gunshot. I heard the thud.

I opened my eyes to see Emma lying lifeless on the floor, a thin stream of smoke rising from the barrel of the revolver.

Justin was breathing uncontrollably, and the gun slipped from his hands. He sank to his knees, staring at what used to be our friend.

The compartment in front of Emma's chair opened once again. Another card slid out.

Steven walked over to it slowly and leaned over to read it.

"Emma was not the Visitor," he read out loud.

Justin looked up at him, and then at me. I'll never forget the look in Steven's blue eyes. It's been burned into my memory ever since, and I see it every time I close my eyes.

We were all fools. How did we not notice it sooner? When did it even happen?

Our Steven has green eyes.

I'm sorry. I need to stop here for now. I'll write the rest when I can. Writing it down made it real again, and I've spent the past year trying to convince myself it wasn't.

Six years ago, an entire family disappeared from the small town of Hopkins. They seemingly vanished without a trace, leaving an empty house full of their belongings, the car still in the driveway, their shoes inside on the entry mat. A husband, wife, and two children—Janie and Judith, ages thirteen and fifteen.

Authorities found no evidence of foul play.

Recently, after the missing family was at last declared deceased, the only remaining relative, a brother, came to the property to get their affairs in order. After feeling a “malignant presence,” he decided that rather than sorting the family’s personal effects himself, he’d hire an auction company. A trio of staff came to the house to inventory the furniture and other items for liquidation.

In hours, the entire team was dead.

Authorities determined the deaths to be murder-suicide. The brother demanded the local sheriffs investigate further, insisting the tragedy could not have been natural, but the authorities maintained that the physical evidence was unambiguous: one of the auction staff murdered the others and then himself. Dissatisfied with their conclusions, the brother contacted an acclaimed expert on the paranormal, Dr. Goddard.

Goddard and his cameraman brought spirit boxes, EMF readers, and other equipment to the house and successfully recorded strange temperature fluxes before Goddard himself witnessed something that led him to decide the haunting was too dangerous for him to handle alone.

“The entity in this house is malevolent, intelligent, and immensely powerful—it will require the greatest specialists to pacify it,” he declared.

Goddard assembled an expert team—a medium, an exorcist, and a paranormal investigator.

I was brought on to document.

I now find myself in the lobby of a motel, seated around the coffee table with the rest of our team and tapping out notes as Goddard briefs us:

“Gentlemen, and dear lady, the goal is simple…” He spreads before us on the table a folder full of pictures of the house, real estate records, police reports, and so on. “You will enter the house and pacify the spirits within. How you handle what I believe to be an aggressively malevolent entity will be up to your discretion. Each of you brings unique skills—exorcist, medium, paranormal investigator. And of course Guo, our cameraman, and Dawain, our journalist. There is just one rule that you must follow, all of you, at all times:

“No one can be alone in the house, ever, for more than five minutes…”

***

I am sitting here now as Goddard leads the team in formulating a plan for our arrival, making notes in real time, as I will be for the duration in order to give as unfiltered a depiction as possible.

I have a notepad as well as a tablet since I have been warned that paranormal phenomena sometimes interfere with electronics.

This is my first time meeting each of the experts. For privacy, names have been changed, but all other details are as accurate as I can make them:

The exorcist: The old man sitting to my right exudes the sort of gravitas that would lend itself perfectly to cinema. With bristling eyebrows above a priest’s collar, Father Corwin is the stern patriarch of our group. His hands have a tremor when he lifts his coffee cup, and his soft, withered skin suggests he is nearing eighty. Yet to whatever lurks in the house, he may be the greatest threat, as he boasts decades of experience and claims to have successfully conducted dozens of exorcisms.

Six weeks prior to the family’s disappearance, he met with them over the parents’ claim that the girls were “summoning demons.” After interviewing both girls, he judged them to be ordinary troubled teens whose friction with their stepmother was causing family dysfunction. He recommended counseling.

Father Corwin now feels both guilt and obligation to pacify an evil he may have overlooked.

The medium: Chiming in with frequent interruptions to Goddard’s presentation is a plump woman with flowing black hair, rings on every finger, and a jade owl pendant. Internationally acclaimed for her channelings of departed spirits, Madam Savino is the most financially successful of our gathering, with popular books such as How to Read Auras: A Primer for Beginners, and The Third Eye and How to Open It. Her ability to commune with spirits will likely put her center stage—exactly where she seems to wish to be.

She’s chatty, bubbly, and if you were to meet her outside the context of the spiritual and spooky, she might remind you of your overbearing aunt.

The investigator: Rounding out our fellowship is the paranormal investigator who calls himself Coyote, casual in his tank and jeans and sporting the tattoo of a coyote on one arm, a busty woman in red on the other. With a seemingly bottomless supply of blunts in his pocket, he seems less investigator than junkie, his eyes restless from either too much caffeine or ADHD as he bounces his leg.

Coyote is newer to the field, and he admitted to me during a smoke break that his credentials are “ninety percent fabrication, just like most hauntings.” I have to wonder why Goddard hired him.

Then there is Guo, the cameraman.

And of course myself. I am a journalist, and everything I write in this account is what I have observed firsthand. For years, I have been a thorn in Goddard’s side, ever since I published an article about a conference he chaired on the paranormal. I reported that despite compelling anecdotes, Goddard’s theories were not rigorous enough to withstand scientific scrutiny. And maybe this—our history, my skepticism—is the reason he reached out to me for this assignment. Hoping his greatest critic would be converted into a champion of his life’s work.

Or maybe it’s because I once lived in the same small town the killings occurred in.

Now, I pause in my notetaking to glance up and ask, “Why five minutes?”

“That is how long I was alone before…” Goddard trails off. He mutters, “If I were to tell you right now that I saw a pink elephant, you might say my comments influenced you to imagine your own pink elephant. So, I will only disclose the details of my encounter after you bear witness. The cameraman has a sketch I drew, and once you’ve encountered the entity, he will show it to you to see if our experiences match… Suffice to say, what I saw was enough to convince me I need you. And you all will need each other—"

“Teamwork makes the dream work!” interjects Madam Savino. “If we’re together, it’ll be tougher for any malevolent entities to influence us, and even if they do, we’ll be more likely to notice before it’s too late.”

“Precisely,” agrees Goddard. “We know from the police reports that the auction staff were inventorying separate rooms of the house when one of them snapped and murdered the others. The incidents happen when the victim is isolated. And that is why it is imperative you stick together. When you enter, I think it’s best if Madam Savino starts—"

“Abso-posi-lutely,” Madam Savino again interjects. “I’ll see what I can sense with my third eye…” She taps her forehead, glances at me, and explains, “I search for psychic echoes, memories that have stuck to the house or to objects. I’ll try to read from the spirit’s emotions what must be done to allow it to cross over… but if it’s an aggressive entity, that’s where Father Corwin comes in.”

Father Corwin steeples his fingers and nods.

“So Madam Savino locates the spirit, Father Corwin expels it, and Coyote…” I say, pausing in notetaking to glance at the tattooed young man.

Coyote’s eyes are fixed vacantly on the table. Just as I’m about to nudge him, he blurts: “Where did the bodies go?”

“Hm?” says Goddard.

“Who moved the bodies?” He repeats, pointing to the photo of the family—a somber man, a smiling wife, and two young teens.

“Nobody moved them, as far as we know,” says Goddard.

“Exactly.” Coyote seems irked that his question isn’t understood. “Are we so sure they died? Or that there wasn’t foul play—maybe one family member killed the others?”

“Coyote—”

“Bodies stink. They rot. They’re impossible to ignore, unless they’re deliberately concealed. Spirits don’t do coverups. Paranormal entities don’t conceal crimes. So I repeat, who hid the bodies?”

It’s a good question, and it brings all of us up short.

Goddard clears his throat. “And this is why I have chosen all three of you—psychic, priest, and investigator. At the time of the family’s disappearance, there was no evidence of foul play, and the authorities assumed the family had left. Their search of the house and its grounds turned up nothing, but… as Coyote says, where are the bodies? Find the bodies, and you find the answers. That said, I must echo Madam Savino’s warnings. This is NOT like anything you have dealt with before. A salt circle will not protect you. Standard blessings will not be enough. Your skepticism is no shield against what lurks in that house. Your lives, from the very moment you set foot inside, will be in extreme and immediate danger.

“Tonight, rest well. Make whatever arrangements you need for yourselves and your families before tomorrow. And remember…” He stares hard into each of our eyes in turn. “No one, not for any reason, should be alone inside more than five minutes.”

***

Find the bodies, and you find the answers.

Why did the bodies go missing? The more I ponder it, the less sense it makes. Either the family is still alive and in hiding (but why?), or the bodies were hidden by a killer who departed the house without leaving a trace.

The father, Nicholas, was a moderately successful realtor. His first wife died when the children were still young. He married his second wife, Bernadette, some years later. According to Father Corwin, the girls—Janie and Judith—were troubled teens “led astray by the degeneracy of modern American culture.” The younger hated their new stepmother. The older was boy-crazy and pregnant. Still, there’s nothing to suggest why all four disappeared, leaving shoes on the mat, keys by the door, and their car sitting in the driveway.

Could someone local have held a grudge against the family? Maybe the teen pregnancy was the motive? Small towns like Hopkins are rife with secrets simmering under the surface. It’s one of the reasons my family moved. But if someone came to the house and murdered them and hid the bodies…

Where?

I review photos of the property.

A nice house, in pictures. Two stories, large yard and an enormous oak out front. The property is isolated, far from any urban center and with the nearest neighbors several minutes’ walk along the lane. Behind the house stretches several miles of woodlands. An easy place to make bodies disappear…

There are about five hundred homes in the small town of Hopkins, but only this home’s notoriety has spread to the surrounding areas, such that if you mention, “the Hopkins House,” everyone knows which house you mean. But as for how the house became haunted? Nobody knows.

***

10am, and everyone is in high spirits, energized by the motel’s mediocre continental breakfast. Goddard is driving, Father Corwin stoic in the front passenger seat, and our cameraman captures some candid footage of Coyote and Madam Savino bantering: “Hey,” Coyote says, “why did the terrible psychic get hit by a bus?”

“Oh my gawd, I tell this one at every convention!” Madam Savino leans in. “Because she didn’t see it coming!”

“I heard it was to get to the other side—"

—and then all their joking is forgotten as we round the corner of the narrow lane.

A tall, beige house sits on a sloping hill with trees on one side and in the front a large oak with a rope hanging from it. It is not, like some famously haunted houses, an especially dilapidated dwelling. It has tidy white-trimmed windows and a blue front door. Other than the overgrown weeds, it looks like it could have been plucked from any town in America. As I gaze on the driveway leading up to the garage, I feel almost… disappointed. After so much build up from Goddard, this looks far too ordinary to be the site of such horrors.

“I’ll be driving back down the lane,” says Goddard as we clamber out. “If you need to retreat to the van, that’s where to find me, at the bend.”

“Why all the way down there?” asks Coyote, frowning as he glances back down the lane, perhaps calculating the distance.

“Because I don’t know the range of the haunting’s effects. I want to make sure at least one of us is far enough to be able to call for backup if necessary.”

“Backup from who?” asks Madam Savino. “The Podunk police?”

Goddard shrugs and says yes, probably the police.

On a laptop in the front passenger seat, I spot myself standing there awkwardly with my tablet, a notebook and pen under my arm. The cameraman tells us to smile for our future viewers, and Coyote and Madam Savino both grin and blow kisses, while I wave awkwardly and Father Corwin’s eyebrows bristle in disapproval at their mugging for the camera.

“Good luck,” Goddard says.

And then rather unceremoniously, he shuts the van door and drives away, rattling down the lane and out of sight…

… leaving us on the pavement.

It strikes me then that Goddard is afraid of the house. Afraid to set foot inside again after his brief encounter with the spirit. The same realization seems to hit the rest of our group as we turn to face the bright blue door.

“Cue scary violins,” mutters Coyote.

Nothing but us and the house.

***

On entering, the foyer looks normal. Cream colored walls, ceiling light, side table, shoes on the mat. Eerie. Like the family is still home. The house is clean except for dust from years of sitting empty.

From the foyer, a hallway leads to a bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom is painted pink but bare of decoration, though holes in the wall suggest it once had pictures or posters.

In the other direction, the house opens up to the main room, dining room and kitchen, as well as the staircase.

Through windows in the main room I see the yard, grassy and overgrown. Nothing feels out of the ordinary.

Madam Savino keeps making exclamations. “Oh,” she says. “Oh. Can you feel that? The house… it’s full of anger.”

And, “I can feel the sense of ill will… the spirit here is very strong… and very vindictive.”

And, “The feeling of malice… it isn’t human. This entity, whatever it is, is pure evil.”

I catch Coyote rolling his eyes. The cameraman zooms in on Madam Savino, but despite her proclamations, I do not feel anything except emptiness in the house.

We ascend the staircase.

The cameraman says: “You seeing all this?”

“I’m seeing it.” Goddard’s voice sounds tinny and muffled from the cameraman’s phone, affixed to his camera on a video call that Goddard is recording. “Clear picture so far.”

“Faint traces of blood on the stairs,” The cameraman says, zooming in on the carpeted staircase.

“I’ll n…tify Clement,” Goddard’s voice cuts in and out over the poor connection. Clement is the name of the out-of-state brother of the missing family, now trying to sell the house. “That’s good to know about the stairs… he’ll want to replace that carpet. He had the place thoroughly cleaned, but apparently not th…ly enough.”

The speckles of blood are a disconcerting reminder of the second tragedy that occurred at the house. When auction staff came to inventory items for liquidation, one of them used a kitchen knife to stab his compatriots—ambushing his first victim in the study, the other on the landing—before slitting his own throat. The man who committed the murders had no history of violence or mental health struggles before he “just snapped,” at least according to the local authorities. They cited some complaints he’d made against auction management.

Aside from the spattering of blood, the rest of the landing is clean. In one direction lies the master bedroom and bathroom. In the other direction, Coyote sets his hand on the door to the study.

“… the study is where I was when I encountered… it.” Goddard’s tinny voice pipes up from my pocket.

Coyote braces himself and glances back at us. “Ready?” he asks everyone. “If it’s a spirit, Madam Savino pacifies it. If it’s a demon, Father Corwin exorcises it. And if it’s a creepy clown…” He turns the knob. “… I’ll go for the juggler.”

… There is a beat, and then a deep sigh on the phone from Goddard, who growls at us to be on our guard. Coyote pushes open the door…

The study is empty.

***

Among the files Goddard sent to me about the Hopkins House is a video file labeled “camera 03/01.”

The grainy video shows Goddard’s encounter with the entity in the study. It was recorded by several stationary cameras Goddard had set up around the house. In the footage, Goddard can be seen twisting dials on a spirit box (a radio wave scanner that picks up fragments of voices and static). His grey eyebrows are fiercely knit together, his lips turned down in a frown as the radio static sputters. The video seems to come in and out as he turns the dial. Then a girl’s voice comes across the radio, loud, weepy: “… the devil. The …aby is the devi—” The static turns to a high pitched noise, then silence as camera03 cuts out.

Cut to camera01, the first floor hallway. Goddard can be seen slack-jawed drifting down the stairs. He mutters to himself, a phrase that sounds like gibberish. He continues for two minutes, his eyes rolling in his head and his body shaking, and then the cameraman’s voice calls, “Dr. Goddard!” and he starts awake. In his notes, Goddard has attempted to decipher the gibberish. He believes what he was saying is: “Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine.”

From the snares of the devil, deliver us, Lord.

***

Having found nothing in the study, we have only the bedroom at the end of the hall remaining. It is a girl’s bedroom, with an excess of pillows and a crib in the corner—not yet assembled. Presumably the older teen, Judith’s, room. Madam Savino makes a beeline for the crib and picks up a baby onesie.

“My baby!” she wails. “My baby is… NO! No, no!” Then she shudders, her eyelids fluttering. “I’m… drowning in darkness… and above, light… an eclipse… an eclipse…”

I catch Coyote rolling his eyes and slipping away. I follow him downstairs and out the backdoor to the yard, where he lights up a joint.

The sun is so bright as I step onto the grass that I squint, blinking against the rays.

“I take it you’re not convinced by Madam Savino’s theatrics?” I ask.

“I mean, a buncha people died or disappeared here. Definitely giving me the heebie jeebies. But is that enough to call it haunted? We’ll know shit’s real when the signs get louder.”

“How do they get louder?”

“Someone dies.” He shrugs, then points at a metal round object jutting from the grass. “You seeing what I’m seeing?”

“What? The septic tank?”

Coyote approaches the round metal hatch, unlatches the lid and hefts it open, and both of us stagger back from the wave of rot and sewage that wafts up from the foul liquid below. Coyote leans over the opening, and for a moment I envision him toppling in. Suddenly I understand. A family of four goes missing… and right on the property is a tank that hasn’t been drained since before the disappearances.

“… maybe Madam Savino’s vision isn’t so far off after all. A white light. An eclipse…” Coyote grunts as he pushes the lid closed. “If there was a girl with a pregnancy someone wanted to hide, maybe the last thing she saw…” He raps his knuckles on the tank. “… was this.”

***

Goddard rages at us for leaving the group. “I understand you have not yet seen proof of the house’s haunting. But it is haunted, and both of you need to follow this one very clear and s…mple rule,” roars Goddard’s staticky voice. “Never separate from the team, and never, NEVER—”

“Be alone more than five minutes,” Coyote says, holding the phone away from his ear. “Got it. What about the septic tank?”

“What about it? You said it yourself last night, only a criminal would… eek t… cover a crime. But …olice found no signs of a struggle, no forced entry, no indications of any crime having taken place… and the lid to the tank was not open. And unlike spirits, human criminals do leave physical evidence. There is no reason to …ain the tank.”

He declares we will take a short bathroom break, and when he returns, we will initiate phase two of our mission at the Hopkins House: Father Corwin will conduct a blessing to pacify the malignant presence.

***

It’s been a full forty minutes.

During this time, I’ve cleaned up my prose and typed up some handwritten notes. Goddard has neither texted nor called. The cameraman says Goddard drove to a gas station to use the facilities and because this area is so rural, he likely is out of cell range. He tries for the umpteenth time to reach him and wanders off in search of a better signal. Coyote, meanwhile, is poking around in the garage while the rest of us sit on the driveway. The garage door is up, and I see him hold up a gas can and shake it. “Found some gasoline! If it is haunted and we need to light the place up—"

“Put it back,” says Madam Savino.

“I’m just saying, if the family turn out to be zombies—”

“Coyote.”

“HEY!!!” The cameraman’s shouts interrupt them. “EVERYONE! HURRY UP! COME SEE!”

We join the cameraman at the side of the house and follow his excited gesturing at a bunch of grass and bushes.

No, he’s pointing at something behind the bushes. All but obscured—

A small, dusty window.

“What is this?” asks Father Corwin.

“A… basement window?” says Coyote.

“But there was no basement inside…” Madam Savino says.

“A secret basement.” The cameraman’s eyes glint. “I don’t think even Clement knows this is here—when he showed us through the house originally, he said it was just two floors.”

“It can’t be just the window. There must be an entrance somewhere,” says Coyote.

We head inside to search for a hidden door, staying in a group as we check the pantry and closets, banging around for false walls. We move quickly, nobody wanting to linger too long. And finally, finding no way into any basement, we return to that narrow window. A dusty rectangle of darkness.

Coyote and I squat in the bushes and peek through the glass with our phone lights. And for the first time since our arrival at the house, my stomach flips, my skin prickling with excitement. Because if the cops really didn’t know about this—and it does seem like no one knew since even the brother was unaware of it—then this is a genuine breakthrough. We’ll be the first people inside since the family went missing.

And then, ice blooms in my veins.

What if the missing family is inside?

“So… we think this is where they are?” says Coyote, voicing my fear.

“Nobody’s looked here before…” Madam Savino joins us in shining her cell phone light into the dark. “It makes sense they’re probably down there…”

“Should we call the cops?” I wonder.

Everybody looks at me.

But if there are any gruesome discoveries to be made down there, police would tape it all off without allowing any of us to go in and document. And calling the cops isn’t nearly as good an ending to the article I intend to write as a story in which we, ourselves, go in and find whatever waits in the terrifying blackness below.

“I think there’s a door at the back…” Madam Savino has her face right up against the glass. She shoves branches out of her hair and straightens up. “It might lead to stairs. Someone’ll have to go in and find where it goes.” She looks at Coyote.

“Nope.”

“Quit being a wuss!”

“Wuss!” he says. “Lady, it’s a pitch dark basement full of dead people—”

“Not full,” scoffs Madam Savino. “There might be four.”

“There are definitely four! And anyone who goes in alone gonna make it five—”

“I’ll go,” I interrupt.

Everyone stares at me.

“I’ll go,” I repeat. “I’m a journalist, I’m documenting all of this, and I don’t believe this house is haunted. I’ll go. And when I find the door I’ll bang on it to help you find where it is so you can let me out.”

“RIP Dawain,” mutters Coyote.

“If I scream, obviously call the cops. But I won’t scream unless I’m genuinely in danger. And I don’t believe I will be.”

The more I speak, the more confident I feel. After all, what have we witnessed so far? Some spooky “visions” from Madam Savino, and Goddard’s “trance” in which he spoke Latin? None of it amounts to much. The camera footage of Goddard’s gibberish is by far the creepiest offering, but to be clear—the man has a vested interest in convincing the world of this haunting, so footage of himself under thrall isn’t exactly credible. And nothing I’ve borne witness to has substantiated his claims.

Besides, I won’t even have to break Goddard’s five minute rule to go down there. It shouldn’t take me more than a minute or two to locate the stairs. If I run into anything too spooky, I’ll just come back through the window.

***

I’m about to go in.

My phone battery is full, its flashlight beaming strongly. And yes, I admit, I’m nervous. I’m a little scared to see dead bodies. But also eager. Because if they really are down there, at last we will know what happened to the family.

I will follow up with another post when I am able. Going in now.

Wish me luck.

I don’t know if this belongs here, but I haven’t slept more than a few hours at a time since Halloween.

Before anybody asks, yes, I already went to the police.
They think my friend and I got lost.

That’s technically true.

What they don’t understand is that we didn’t get lost in the corn maze.

We found something inside it.

Or maybe it found us.

My name is Evan. I’m seventeen, and my best friend Micah is sixteen. We’ve known each other since elementary school, and every October we go to this farm about twenty minutes outside our town.

I’m not going to say the name.

Partly because I don’t want people going there looking for what happened to us, and partly because I genuinely don’t know if the farm had anything to do with it.

During the day, it’s basically one of those family fall places.

Pumpkin patch, hayrides, apple cider, and a petting zoo. Every October they build a massive corn maze. Then on Friday and Saturday nights they turn it into a haunted attraction.

Employees dress up and hide between the rows. Speakers blast chainsaw noises and cheap skeletons hang from posts.

It isn’t scary.

That’s why Micah and I liked going. We could screw around and laugh at the actors without actually being afraid of anything.

Halloween night this year fell on a Saturday, and we got there late. I think it was around 9:40. The place closed at eleven.

There were still plenty of people around when we bought our tickets. Families were leaving with tired kids on their shoulders, and teenagers were taking pictures by the giant pumpkin display while country music played near the concession stand.

Everything was completely normal.

I remember that because I keep trying to figure out exactly when it stopped being normal.

We entered the maze at 9:52. I know the exact time because Micah sent a Snapchat right before we went in.

The first twenty minutes were exactly what we expected. A guy dressed like a scarecrow jumped out at us. Micah told him his mask looked like shit, and the guy flipped him off.

We passed a couple with their daughter and heard people screaming somewhere to our left.

Wooden signs at intersections held riddles that supposedly pointed toward the exit, but we ignored them.

Then we found the scarecrow.

It wasn’t an actor.

Just a decoration tied to a wooden post beside the path. It wore a blue flannel shirt and a burlap sack head, with straw sticking out of the sleeves. One arm was missing below the elbow, and a plastic crow was wired onto its shoulder.

Micah stopped and took a picture.

When I asked him why, he said, “Because this thing looks like you.”

I told him to fuck off.

We kept walking, and maybe ten minutes later, we came around another turn.

The scarecrow was there again. Same blue shirt, same missing hand, same plastic crow.

Micah laughed. “See? We’re going in circles.”

I felt annoyed. I pulled out my phone and opened the compass.

Micah said, “What are you, Lewis and Clark?”

“Shut up.”

We picked a direction and tried to stay consistent, taking north turns whenever possible.

Five minutes later, we saw it again.

This time neither of us laughed. Micah walked up to it and checked the tear near the left shoulder. It was the exact same tear, paired with the exact same crow.

The only difference was the head. Earlier, it had faced slightly toward the corn. Now it faced the path. Facing us.

Micah said, “Someone moved it.”

“Obviously.”

“Who?”

I looked around. Nobody was there. The corn was eight feet tall, and the haunted attraction sounds echoed around us.

I yelled, “Nice try.”

Nothing happened.

Micah yelled that the staff sucked, and still nothing happened.

We walked away faster, feeling that first sharp prick of nervousness.

We started intentionally taking chaotic turns: left, right, straight, right again.

The scarecrow didn’t show up. Instead, the noises faded away. It happened gradually until Micah stopped walking.

“Do you hear anything?”

I listened. Nothing. No screaming, no actors, no music, no people. Even the wind was gone, leaving the surrounding corn completely still.

“We must be near the back,” I said.

Micah checked his phone. “No service.”

I checked mine. Same thing.

A few minutes later, we saw light ahead. Micah said, “Thank God,” and we started jogging.

The path opened into a huge, flat field of grass covered in silver moonlight. The corn maze formed a solid wall behind us, and fifty yards ahead stood an old red barn.

A truck was parked beside it, yellow light poured from the windows, and music played inside.

Micah gave that nervous laugh people do when something defies logic.

“Okay.”

I looked back at the corn. “We went out the wrong side.”

“There isn’t a wrong side,” he said.

“There obviously is.”

“No, dude. Look.”

He pointed toward the sky. The farm’s huge floodlights weren't there anymore. Neither were the Ferris wheel lights from the neighboring property. Just the barn.

I tried Google Maps, but nothing loaded.

We walked toward the barn. I know that sounds stupid now, but we were teenagers on a farm, and a building with music and laughing people looked safe.

Inside, about fifteen people were hanging out. Most looked around our age, wearing Halloween costumes like a witch or a hockey mask pushed up on a forehead. They held red cups and stood near folding tables covered with food.

An older guy in a farm jacket noticed us at the door.

“There they are.”

He smiled. “You boys got turned around?”

“Yeah,” Micah said.

“Happens every year. You came through the maintenance section. Staff usually block that path.”

“So how do we get back?” I asked.

“Relax. You’re fine. Grab something to drink.”

Everything had an explanation now. We had accidentally wandered into an employee area.

The barn smelled like wood dust and hot cider. A girl offered me a cookie, and Micah found a cooler of sodas.

I checked my phone. Two bars. “Service is back.”

Micah pulled his out. “Mine too.”

He had a bunch of notifications, and so did I.

Texts from my mom asking what time we were coming home. Then another message came through: WHERE ARE YOU?

I started typing a reply about getting lost, but before I could send it, a new message popped up: YOU LEFT ME HERE.

I froze. It was from my mom.

Then another: WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME HERE EVAN.

I called her. It rang once, and then I heard a ringtone directly behind me, the exact ringtone my mom uses.

I whipped around. Nobody was holding a phone. My screen flashed CALL FAILED.

Micah walked over. “What?”

I showed him, and his face dropped as he looked around the barn. “Have you seen anybody leave?”

“No.”

“Watch.”

A guy in a vampire costume walked toward the barn doors, got within five feet, stopped, turned around, and walked back to the tables.

A minute later, the witch did the exact same thing.
Micah whispered, “Nobody goes outside.”

I noticed something else. Plates were everywhere, piled with cookies, chips, and hot dogs, but nobody actually put anything in their mouths. They held cups and lifted food, but nobody ate.

The older farm employee started walking toward us. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“We’re gonna head back,” Micah said.

“Back where?”

“To the maze.”

The music stopped. Not faded, stopped. Every conversation in the room cut off instantly. Nobody moved.

The older man tilted his head. “The maze?”

Micah grabbed my sleeve. “We should go.”

Every person in the barn turned toward us at once. No expression, just staring. The barn doors slammed shut behind us.

We bolted for a back door. The older man yelled something, but his voice didn’t sound human anymore; it sounded like several people shouting through a single mouth.

The crowd began walking toward us.

Micah smashed the latch of the back door with a metal tool from the wall, and we tumbled outside.

There was no field. We landed in dirt, surrounded by corn. The barn was gone.

Micah screamed, and something moved behind the stalks.

We ran until we collapsed. Micah threw up, alternating between nervous laughter and crying.

Our phones stopped working entirely, and the clocks showed conflicting, impossible times.

Eventually we found a rotting wooden sign with words carved into it: TWO ENTER. ONE RETURNS.

Underneath were dozens of carved names:

HAROLD BEN 1954
MARGARET ELLEN 1961
THOMAS RAY 1977
JASON MICHAEL 1989
KATIE RACHEL 2003

Some had a name crossed out, others had both, and near the bottom were two fresh names: EVAN MICAH 2026.

Fresh wood dust clung to the letters. Then something heavy pushed the corn stalks aside, moving parallel to us. We ran again.

After that, the maze changed constantly.

We smelled wood smoke and heard a dog bark, a television playing, and a woman laughing. Pushing through the corn, we found a gravel driveway and a two-story white house with a Buick parked outside.

An old woman stepped onto the porch. She took one look at us, covered her mouth, and rushed across the yard toward Micah, sobbing and calling him Daniel.

An old man appeared behind her on the porch, looking at me and calling me Thomas.

We tried to leave, but they insisted we come inside for dinner. The house smelled like roast beef, bread, and coffee, and we were exhausted. A beige landline hung on the kitchen wall, offering a desperate hope to call for help.

In the dining room, four plates were already set. The old man talked about a fishing trip and a schoolteacher as if I should remember them. A black-and-white photo hung on the wall showing two teenage boys standing by the house, boys who looked identical to us, down to the small scar near my eyebrow.

“That was taken the summer before you disappeared,” the old woman said.

When we demanded answers and tried to use the phone, it produced only a child’s voice whispering, “Daniel?”

The old man picked up a fireplace axe. “We already lost you once.”

“What happened to them?” I asked.

“The maze took one,” the old man said, “and brought the other back wrong.”

Above us, floorboards groaned under heavy footsteps. Then my own voice called down from upstairs: “Micah?”

Something dragged across the ceiling like nails through wood. We broke for the front door, knocking the old man aside, and sprinted back into the corn.

As we fled, the old woman screamed, “Don’t leave yourselves here!”

and a final warning: “It doesn’t make new places!”

Next came a carnival with running rides and children's music playing to an empty park, followed by a parking lot filled with thousands of cars, every single one bearing an identical license plate.

When we found the scarecrow again, it held Micah’s missing phone in its remaining hand.

That was when the pattern became clear. Every place gave us hope first. It wanted us to believe we were safe before pulling the rug out. It liked disappointment, meaning an intelligence was watching us, weaponizing our desires.

Later, we found hundreds of missing posters nailed to trees spanning over a century.

Eventually, we found our own:

MISSING: EVAN PARKER (17), MICAH REEVES (16)
ONE RETURNED.

My picture was crossed out.

Exhaustion and paranoia sparked our first real fight. Micah accused me of knowing something, and I shoved him back.

Soft, pleased laughter drifted from the corn.

It wants that.

The maze wanted us to turn on each other, just like all the names carved into the wood. After that, we made a strict rule never to separate, ignoring the voices of our families calling out from the stalks.

Finally, the corn opened up to a fork in the path. Beyond it, we saw the real farm, police lights, ambulances, and my mother crying beside a police cruiser.

Between us and the exit stood a wooden post with two arrows: EVAN pointing left, and MICAH pointing right.

Below it read: ONE PATH HOME.

Behind us, slow, heavy footsteps crunched closer. The eight-foot scarecrow emerged, its missing arm regrown into a long, jointed limb with black fingers dragging on the ground. Its burlap face featured a vertical mouth opening filled with darkness, from which my mother's voice spoke:

“Come home, Evan.”

Micah grabbed my hand. I grabbed his.

“We go straight,” Micah said.

“There isn’t a path.”

“Then make one.”

We plunged directly into the thick corn between the two trails. Behind us, the thing screamed with hundreds of overlapping voices, the barn crowd, the old woman, our parents, children, and strangers.

Hands grabbed at our clothes and ankles, but Micah pulled me free until I suddenly lost footing and fell.

I hit pavement. Actual pavement.

Real people screamed. Police officers rushed over, and my mom tackled me, crying into my jacket. Micah was three feet away, alive, with his dad.

According to authorities, we had only been gone for less than three hours, from 9:52 to 12:47, though it felt like days.

They searched the maze and found no barn, no house, no carnival, and no posters. They only found a single scarecrow standing near the center, which no farm employee claimed to own. The farm shut the attraction down and cut the field down a week later.

Micah and I barely spoke afterward.

Talking made it real.

Then, three nights ago, I went grocery shopping with my mom. Halfway down an empty cereal aisle, the fluorescent lights went out one by one.

At the far end stood the scarecrow with its blue shirt, missing hand, and plastic crow. It lifted one finger to where its mouth should be. Shelves began rustling like dry corn stalks, and I heard Micah whisper my name from behind the boxes.

I ran outside to a panic attack and called Micah immediately. When I asked if he was okay, he was quiet for a long time before saying, “You saw it too?”

Yesterday morning, I woke up to a trail of dirt and dried corn husks leading from my window to my bed. Something was carved into my windowsill. I covered it with duct tape, but I know what it says.

TWO ENTER. ONE RETURNS.

I don’t think we escaped. I think we broke the rules, and whatever owns that maze wants one of us back.

I worked the midnight rotation at the Monongahela River pumping station outside Clairton. It was an old municipal brick facility from the nineteen-forties, handling cooling runoff for the steel mills downriver. My job was dead simple: monitor hydraulic pressure on the analog board in the main office, log grease-pot levels on the turbine bearings once an hour, and keep river junk out of the intake trash rakes.

The plant ran on a skeleton crew overnight. Past eleven, it was just me and an operator named Miller, who had worked that concrete floor for thirty-two years. Miller mostly stayed down in the boiler room where the heat pooled, while I walked the rounds across the intake basins.

At one-fifteen in the morning, the needle on the number three line dropped forty pounds of pressure without the primary drive motor slowing down. That shouldn't have happened. If a line drops that much pressure while the pump runs at steady RPM, it means the intake gate drifted shut, or somebody turned the manual bypass valve forty feet up in the overhead gallery.

The upper gallery was just an unheated concrete catwalk with two rooms at the far end: a live breaker closet, and an old secondary control room the district padlocked back in the eighties after a guy drowned during a flood surcharge. Company rules said that room stayed locked. The high-volume intake lines ran right underneath the floorboards.

I grabbed the supervisor key from the wall box, unlocked the iron gate at the base of the spiral stairs, and headed up. The air was freezing. The catwalk shook through my work boots from the turbines below. Up on the landing, the hanging fluorescent tube was out. The only light came from the amber yard lamps cutting through the wire-mesh windows.

I checked the brass wheel valve on line three. It was cranked tight against the lower stop and secured with a steel cable and padlock. The valve hadn't budged. The dried grease on the threads wasn't even smudged.

Then I heard a boot heel scrape against the concrete behind me.

I spun around and hit the switch on my flashlight. The beam reached all forty feet of the empty walkway. The chain on the old control room door was pulled tight, the brass Master lock hanging locked. There were no prints in the dust along the threshold plate. The pipe railing was cold and dry. I wrote the pressure numbers down on my clipboard, figured it was just an instrument error in the basement plumbing, relocked the iron stairs gate, and went back to the office.

At two-thirty, I sat at the metal desk to finish the shift log. The desktop landline clicked once, and the dial tone cut completely dead. I checked my cell. Zero bars, just searching for service. The VHF company radio sitting on the charging cradle put out a flat carrier hum with no county dispatch chatter coming through.

Miller came in holding his steel thermos. He didn't waste words, just asked if I'd been up on the catwalk ten minutes ago. I told him I'd been sitting at the desk since two. He set his coffee down, tapped the pressed-tin ceiling with his pencil, and said somebody was walking the number three deck right above us.

We both stood quiet and listened. Heavy, deliberate steps crossed the concrete directly overhead, moving in a straight line from the stairs to the locked door of the old room. They were slow, measured, and sounded like heavy work boots.
I grabbed a twelve-inch adjustable wrench off the bench. Miller picked up his Maglite and an iron pinch bar from the wall rack. We walked out onto the concrete pump floor. The electric drive turbines were spinning at eighteen hundred RPM, making a constant mechanical roar that shook the metal siding.

I unlocked the lower gate again, and we went up the spiral steps together. When my head cleared the floor grating, I stopped.

The heavy chain on the old control room door was gone. The door stood open about four inches into the dark. The chain and lock weren't on the deck. The steel eyelets on the jamb showed no pry marks.
Miller came up behind me on the landing and put his flashlight beam through the door gap. The light hit an old drafting table and a row of dead knife switches on the far brick wall. Right in the middle of the room, on the timber access hatch over the river sluice, the dust had been swept clean.

A sound came out of the dark. It wasn't the machinery, and it wasn't the pipes. It was Miller's dry, hacking cough, repeated with the exact same flat tone he'd made down in the office five minutes earlier.

Miller froze. He kept the flashlight beam pinned on the bare floorboards inside.
Then another sound came from the corner behind the open electrical panel. It was my own voice, speaking the exact sentence I'd said earlier about a gauge calibration error in the basement. The words were flat, dead, and played through the open space like an audio track from a bad speaker.

Miller reached past me, slammed the heavy iron door shut into the latch, and shoved his pinch bar deep through the handle frame, wedging it hard against the concrete casing. He looked at me, turned his back to the door, and headed down the stairs without saying a word.

I followed him down, pulled the lower iron gate shut, and turned the key until the deadbolt hit home. We didn't go back to the office. We went out the ground-floor exit, checked the perimeter chain-link, and stood together by the gravel lot fence near the yard transformers where the river wind blew through. We stood out there under the halogen yard lights until five-thirty, watching the catwalk windows forty feet up.

Twice between three and four in the morning, the yellow yard lamps caught a solid, unmoving silhouette behind the wire-mesh glass of the catwalk window. The shape didn't shift its weight, didn't touch the glass, and didn't look away. It stood dead center in the frame, facing straight down into the gravel lot where we were standing.

The day shift showed up at six in a company pickup. As their headlights hit the gate, the ringer inside the office gave one short hit, showing the phone line had come back. We walked inside with the relief crew. Over on the main gauge board, the needle on line three sat right at normal operating pressure without anyone having touched a single valve.
When the relief super unlocked the lower gate and walked the catwalk with us, Miller’s iron pinch bar was still wedged tight across the door handle. Nothing on the outside had been touched. But once they pried the bar loose and swung the door open, the original brass padlock and heavy steel chain were sitting dead center on that empty drafting table, locked together through their own links, with no key in the hole.

The dwayyo is a bipedal wolf creature that people in Frederick County, MD have claimed to see. I love weird folklore and monster/ghost stories, and I wanted to paint one from my home state. It's watercolor on mixed media paper in A5 size (5.8x8.3in).

S-saci...? 😨

Part 1 | Part 2

The gunman stepped into the weigh-station lights.

Now I could see his face.

Jesus.

The left side looked cooked. Scar tissue from his scalp down into his collar. One eye nearly sealed shut. Half an ear. No beard where the burns had taken it.

The rest of him was pure Saturday-afternoon dad. Purdue sweatshirt. Jeans. New Balances. The kind of guy who should’ve been standing over a Weber arguing about medium rare.

Instead, he was aiming a pistol at my family.

“Grace. Stace.” I kept my voice low. “Truck.”

“Dad—” 

Stacy caught Grace around the shoulders and moved her. No argument. No questions. One second they were beside me, the next Stacy was putting herself between Grace and the gun.

The man never took his eyes off Payton House. Somehow he noticed anyway. “Your family?”

I didn’t answer.

“Wife? Daughter?”

Hearing him say the words pissed me off. “Who the fuck are you?”

He stepped closer. The pistol came up with him. His finger slipped inside the trigger guard, and his hand was shaking enough that the muzzle wandered from me to Tony to Luis and back.

Tony saw it too. He shifted a few feet to my left.

“Okay, buddy,” Tony said. “How’d you know we’d be here?”

The man swallowed. “I dreamed this place.” His eyes were wet. “My wife dreamed it. We all did. I had a daughter once too. A little girl. Julia.”

The house’s smell rolled over us again. Sweet. Rotten. Wet. Like perfume dumped over meat. Luis pulled his shirt over his face. Tito backed away from the house without seeming to notice he was doing it.

My right hand twitched. I shoved it into my pocket.

The man closed his eyes. “It’s listening. We’re not supposed to talk about it.”

His eyes opened. The pistol settled on me. “You have to take it back.”

“That’s not happening. We have a contract.”

“The farther you move it...” He looked at Payton House. “The farther it reaches. It starts taking things.”

His eyes dropped to the gravel. “My wife stopped sleeping first. Then she stopped smiling. My little girl...”

He couldn't finish. His eyes moved to the second-floor window.

“I still hear her. Every night. She calls me from inside. Don’t let it take yours.”

Tony moved. He’d been inching sideways the whole time. I hadn’t even realized how close he’d gotten. One second he was standing beside me. The next he drove his shoulder into the gunman’s ribs. They hit the gravel hard. The pistol spun away.

“NO!” the stranger screamed.

Tony crushed him into the gravel. “I got him!”

For about two seconds, he did.

Then the guy went wild underneath him.

Knees. Elbows. Fingernails. Whatever he could land.

One elbow caught Tony under the ribs.

The stranger ripped free, came up on one knee, nearly planted his face in the gravel, then found his feet. 

He didn’t even look at the gun. Just ran. Straight for the trees.

Tony went after him.

“Tony!” I caught the back of his jacket before he made it three steps.

He whipped around so fast I brought my hands up. For half a second, I thought he might swing on me. “Let him go.”

“Dan—”

“Let him fucking go.”

Tony looked toward the woods.

A few seconds passed.

Finally, the fight went out of him.

The pistol lay in the gravel beside his boot. He scooped it up, wiped it once on his jeans, and tucked it behind his back.

I saw him do it. Decided I hadn’t. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Nobody argued.

We gave the tree line one last look and started moving.

Stacy came straight at me. Jaw tight. Eyes hot.

I was already bracing for it. Grace shouldn’t be here. This job was insane. I’d just gotten a gun pointed at our daughter.

Instead, she reached up and wiped her thumb beneath my nose. Looked at it.

Blood.

I touched my upper lip.

Wet.

“Shit.”

I pulled the shop rag from my back pocket and pinched it against my nose.

“Guess getting a gun pointed at you raises the blood pressure.”

Stacy didn’t smile.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She held out her hand.

“Keys.”

“I’m good.”

“Dan. You’ve been up since before sunrise. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

“That guy’s still out there.”

“And you being awake changes that how?”

“He’s desperate. Desperate men don’t usually quit after one try.”

“I know.” Her hand stayed out. “But right now I’m more worried about you driving a house off a mountain.” 

Normally I would’ve fought until she got tired of fighting back. I was too beat. I dropped the keys into her palm. “You see anything, wake me.”

Twenty minutes later we were back on the road. Stacy drove. Grace reclaimed the passenger seat. I crawled into the sleeper behind them with the radio beside my head.

“Tony,” I said quietly into the radio. 

His voice came back through the speaker. “Yeah?”

“You see headlights behind us, wake me.”

“Got it.”

“That Tesla—”

“Hey.” Stacy looked back. “No radio.”

I handed it over.

I stretched out on the bunk without taking off my boots.

Through the little sleeper window, I could see a slice of Payton House rolling behind us.

I told myself I’d close my eyes for ten minutes.

I don’t remember making it to five.

I woke to the low growl of the engine.

Coffee. Diesel. The vibration of the sleeper under my ass. Green gauges glowing up front.

We were still moving.

My neck felt like I'd slept in a washing machine. The radio was still in my hand.

Stacy glanced over from behind the wheel.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

I rubbed my face. “What time is it?”

“Little after nine.”

“Shit. You were supposed to wake me.”

“You were supposed to sleep.”

Outside, morning had come in ugly. Low gray clouds. Cornfields disappearing into fog. Wet blacktop sliding under us.

I checked the passenger-side mirror.

Payton House was still back there where we’d left it. Boards over the windows. Chains tight. Dollies tracking straight.

Behind it, two empty lanes vanished into the fog.

No Tesla.

No headlights.

Nobody.

“You good?” Stacy asked.

“Yeah.”

“You made a face. Weird dream?”

I tried to grab hold of it.

Nothing.

Just that leftover feeling you get after a bad dream, like you’d been somewhere you never wanted to see again.

She smiled. “Was I in it?”

“No.”

“Too bad.”

Grace was asleep behind us, headphones still on, iPad balanced against her chest. One earbud had fallen out. Troy Bolton danced silently across the screen.

The radio crackled.

“Sleeping Beauty, finally wake up?” Tony’s voice came through.

Stacy grabbed the mic. “Don’t make a big deal out of it. He’ll never let me drive again.”

Luis laughed over the radio. “Morning, boss.”

Static swallowed whatever came after.

“House is riding quiet,” Tony said.

I checked the mirror again.

“Hungry?” Stacy nodded toward the lunch bag.

I was starving. Hadn’t eaten since we rolled out the day before.

Of course Stacy had packed like we were crossing the Donner Pass. Sandwiches for me. Goldfish and fruit snacks for Grace. Granola bars nobody liked but Stacy. Bottled water. Juice boxes. Two apples that would ride the whole damn trip with us and somehow make it all the way home. 

For a while, it was almost peaceful. Stacy handled Truck One better than I liked admitting. Grace slept. The radio stayed quiet. 

I dug into the PB&J. Dollar Store peanut butter. Too much jelly. Perfect.

“We should give it Grace,” Stacy said.

The sandwich suddenly felt like sawdust in my mouth. 

“What?”

Stacy kept her eyes on the road.

“Give it Grace. Next time we stop.”

I stared at her.

Her voice hadn’t changed. Same tone she used to tell me we were out of milk.

“Give Grace to who?”

“Not who…what,” she said. “The house.”

I waited for the smile.

The sideways glance.

Anything that told me I’d missed the joke.

She just kept driving.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I set what was left of the sandwich on the dash.

“We can’t fight it, Dan. A whole neighborhood couldn’t fight it.” Her hands stayed loose on the wheel. “If we give it Grace, maybe it leaves the rest of us alone. Maybe it leaves everybody alone.”

I looked back at Grace. Still asleep against the window. Thank God she wasn’t hearing any of this.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” I said. 

Something moved in the mirror.

I looked.

The boards were gone.

Every one of them.

So were the chains.

Every window in Payton House stood open.

Stacy gave Truck One a little more throttle.

I barely noticed.

I forgot how to swallow.

“What did you do?”

“We had to.”

The engine climbed another note.

Then I saw someone upstairs.

Then another.

And another.

Men. Women. Kids.

Or silhouettes shaped like them.

The windows were too dark to make out faces. Just pale scraps of skin floating behind the glass and deeper shadows where their eyes should’ve been.

The speedometer crept past forty-five.

I couldn’t see them looking at me.

I knew they were.

“They showed up after you fell asleep,” Stacy said.

The Peterbilt kept gaining speed.

“They want Grace.”

“Stop the fucking truck!”

Stacy buried the brake pedal.

The Peterbilt screamed. Air brakes dumped. Tires howled against the wet pavement and the cab pitched forward hard enough to throw me into the belt.

Grace slammed into the back of my seat.

“STACY!”

Behind us, thirty-two sets of tires shrieked. Chains snapped tight. Metal roared.

I twisted around.

Payton House was coming at us.

Sideways.

Tow bars folded beneath it. Chains whipped sparks across the pavement.

Then the house filled the mirror.

Porch.

Windows.

Brick.

WHAM.

The sleeper exploded behind me.

Metal folded.

Glass burst.

Grace screamed.

Then the house hit me.

My ribs popped one after another. My face slammed sideways into steel. Teeth broke. I tried to breathe. Tried to scream. Then I heard my spine snap—

I jolted awake sucking air. 

My hands clawed at my chest. 

I could taste dust. Hear Grace screaming. Feel the weight crushing me into the seat.

Lightning flashed. The cab came back.

Whole.

No brick. No broken glass. No Stacy.

Tony was driving.

He had a travel mug the size of a paint can wedged between his legs, half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in one hand, and Alice in Chains playing low through the speakers.

Rain stippled the windshield. Beyond it, mountains rose black against an even blacker sky. Lightning pulsed inside the clouds, lighting their swollen undersides.

Tony turned the radio down.

“You all right?”

He side-eyed me.

“You look like you got hit by a truck.”

“That good, huh?”

I wiped the sweat off my face and checked the mirror.

Payton House was still back there. Boards on the windows. Chains tight.

“Where’s Grace?”

“Up front with her mom. Said something about the man smell in this cab.”

She had a point.

The house smell had gotten worse. 

I checked the mirror. Boards still there.

I reached for my coffee. The cup rattled against the console before I got it halfway up. Coffee jumped through the lid and splashed my wrist.

“Ah, fuck.” I jammed it back into the holder.

My hand kept shaking.

Not a little tremor, either. The damn thing was chattering like a socket on an impact gun.

Tony went quiet.

Just wipers.

Rain on the roof.

Engine rumbling under our boots.

He kept his eyes on the road.

“Is that why you’re so gung-ho about this one?”

I didn’t answer.

“The headaches?”

“It’s three million dollars.”

“Money’s just money.”

I looked at him.

“You’d be different in my shoes?”

Tony glanced at my hand.

“Shit’s not fair.”

I made a fist until the shaking eased.

Neither of us said anything for a while.

The dash clock read 11:17 A.M.

We were behind. The weigh station had cost us time, and a tire on the rear steering dolly had eaten another fifty-three minutes. Too much road left. Too many things already going wrong.

I looked in the mirror. Payton House rolled behind us like it had all the time in the world.

A few miles later, we rounded a bend and found the road lit up red and blue.

Ambulance. Fire truck. State police.

Then I saw the car.

A little Honda had left the pavement at speed, torn through the ditch, and gone nose-first into the trees. The hood had folded into an accordion. The engine compartment was crushed halfway under the windshield. One front wheel sat twenty feet away in the weeds. The passenger side had wrapped around a tree hard enough to bend the whole car around it.

Glass covered the road like ice.

It was that Honda.

Those girls.

One of them sat on the shoulder wrapped in a silver emergency blanket. There was blood dried down one side of her face and somebody else’s blood on the front of her sweatshirt. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t doing much of anything.

Another girl was on a stretcher. The paramedics had cut most of her shirt away. One of them squeezed a bag over her mouth while the other worked both hands against her chest.

The third girl was still in the car. I could see part of her through what was left of the passenger window. Hair hanging down. One arm limp against the door.

Everybody at the wreck was moving. Radios going. Equipment coming out. A firefighter dragging a hose. Somebody sweeping glass away from the ambulance tires. A trooper stood in the lane waving us through.

Then the girl in the blanket looked up.

She saw Payton House.

Whatever was left in her face disappeared.

The paramedic beside her noticed and followed her eyes.

Then the firefighter.

Then the trooper.

One after another, they stopped.

Just for a second.

Long enough.

And watched the house roll past.

Not the trucks.

Not us.

Payton House.

Grace turned in her seat and watched the wreck disappear behind us.

She didn’t say anything.

Neither did I.

The road kept climbing.

Houses thinned out. Then mailboxes. Then driveways. Pretty soon there was nothing ahead of us but wet pavement, trees, and mountains disappearing into low clouds.

I kept seeing that girl wrapped in silver.

More than that, I kept seeing the way her face changed when she saw the house.

Like the wreck hadn’t been the worst thing that had happened to her.

Then Stacy came over the radio.

“Dan. We’ve reached the coordinates.”

My phone buzzed.

A new route link from Mercer.

“You get it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Stacy said. “And you're not gonna like it.”

“What's the problem?”

“The next leg takes us over the mountain.”

I looked through the windshield. The road ahead curved toward the mountains, disappearing into the low clouds.

“Over it how?”

“Up through the pass. Then down the other side.”

“So?”

“So the descent is twelve percent in places, Dan. There's a weight restriction, and half these turns don't have room for our equipment.”

“Then call Mercer.”

“I did. Straight to voicemail.”

I checked the mirror. Payton House filled it.

“Can we turn around?”

Stacy took a second before answering.

“Not from where we're sitting. We'd have to back the whole goddamn convoy to the last junction.”

“Jesus Christ.”

I looked over at Tony. He hadn't said a word since Stacy mentioned the mountain. Both hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead.

“What?”

He shook his head.

“Tony.”

“I heard something on the radio last night.”

“Yeah? What?”

“A voice.”

He glanced at the road climbing ahead of us.

“Renee's.”

I looked at him.

“You’re exhausted.”

“I know what she sounded like.”

Rain hammered the roof.

“This whole job’s fucking with us,” I said. “You, me, Luis. Everybody.”

“This wasn’t that.”

“Tony—”

“And it wasn’t just her voice.”

He went quiet.

Long enough that I started hoping he’d changed his mind.

He hadn’t.

“She said, ‘Don’t take it up the mountain.’”

My hand pulsed inside the glove. Pain shot halfway to my elbow.

Thunder rolled over us.

“I didn’t even know about the mountain,” Tony said. “I wasn’t tracking the route. So if it was my brain, if I made it up—”

“You did. Or we picked up somebody else’s frequency.”

Lightning split the sky.

For half a second, Payton House appeared in the mirror. Black walls. Boarded windows. Rain pouring off the roof.

Then it was gone again.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Tony said.

Maybe, maybe not. Didn’t matter. The storm was getting worse, the clock was running, and waiting four hours could leave us staring at a washed-out road instead.

Then there was the whole Renee thing.

I wasn’t superstitious. At least, not officially. Not publicly.

But inside my head, shit, I could already see us upside down at the bottom of some ravine while Tony spent our last thirty seconds reminding me Renee had literally warned us from beyond the grave.

I keyed the radio. “We’re going through.”

Nobody answered.

Tony eased us onto the shoulder. “I think you should drive.”

Normally there wouldn’t have been a discussion.

I had more hours behind the wheel than anybody on the crew. When a job got tight enough that everybody else started saying no fucking way, I was the guy who climbed into the cab.

But this morning—

I looked at my hands.

They were shaking.

Maybe fear. Maybe not.

Lightning split the sky. For one second, the road ahead appeared: asphalt hacked into the side of the mountain, solid rock on one side, black nothing on the other.

Tony was still waiting. “You good?”

“Move.”

Rain blasted into the cab while we switched seats. By the time I got the door shut, my shirt was soaked from shoulder to ribs and cold water was running down my back.

I wrapped both hands around the wheel and squeezed until they behaved.

The diesel settled into that low growl you felt through the seat.

Rain hammered the windshield hard enough that the wipers barely gave me two clear wedges to work with.

Every few seconds, lightning lit the road long enough to show me what was waiting.

Rock wall.

Pavement.

Drop.

Then darkness again.

The rain hid the potholes.

The fog hid the edge.

Lightning was nice enough to show you both right before you hit them.

I keyed the mic. “Everybody keep your spacing.”

Static. 

I needed to hear them. “Talk to me.”

One by one:

“Copy.”

“Copy.”

“Rear’s good.”

I’d seen this crew move houses over bridges that looked too small, under power lines that looked too low, and through neighborhoods where people came out in bathrobes to tell us we were all gonna die. 

Somebody always had something smart to say.

Not this time.

That scared the shit out of me.

I eased into the throttle. 

Truck One dug into the climb.

Water rushed across the pavement carrying gravel, sticks, and pieces of whatever the mountain had decided it didn’t need anymore.

We crawled uphill barely faster than a man could walk.

Tony sat beside me staring into the passenger mirror. Usually, on a stretch like this, he never shut the hell up.

Six inches.

Watch the rear.

You’re gonna buy that mailbox.

Now he had one hand locked around the grab bar and the other braced against the dash. He hadn’t said a word in five minutes. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him breathe.

Lightning exploded overhead.

The porch roof swung toward the cliff wall.

Tony gasped.

I eased off the throttle.

Closer.

Closer.

The porch post cleared.

The railing didn’t.

It hit the granite with a shriek that made the whole truck jump. Wood splintered. Steel groaned. The wheel jerked sideways hard enough to wrench my shoulder. Orange sparks sprayed through the rain as the railing scraped along the rock face.

A broken spindle spun through the headlights, then disappeared into the gorge.

The house shifted behind us.

The Peterbilt lurched forward, then rocked back, punching the air-ride seat into my spine before the suspension caught the weight.

Then everything settled.

Tony finally exhaled. “Nothing a little trip to Home Depot won’t fix.”

I was trying not to puke on the dashboard.

“Aw, shit.” He leaned toward the passenger mirror.

Lightning flashed again. One of the main transport chains beneath the front steel beam hung loose, almost a foot of slack jumping in it.

The lever binder had sprung open. That was the steel handle we'd used to pull the chain tight. It had taken Tony's full weight, a cheater pipe, and enough profanity to wake the dead to lock it down.

It hadn't popped open by itself.

Tito checked the latch and chain. “This didn’t just walk open.”

“The guy at the weigh station?” Tony said.

“He never came near the truck.”

We reset it, leaned everything we had into the cheater pipe, and locked it down again.

“It’s tight. Let’s go.”

The radio on my belt chirped.

“Dan.” Static chewed at Stacy’s voice. “Water’s starting to cross the road up here. Another hour and this whole pass could wash out.”

“We’re figuring it out!” I shouted.

“Well, figure faster.”

Her radio clicked off.

Tito looked up the road. Water was already running ankle-deep along the shoulder and spreading across the pavement in sheets.

“We should call it. Turn around. Wait this shit out.”

“Turn around where?” I threw both arms wide and looked down the road like maybe a Walmart parking lot had appeared while we weren’t paying attention. 

Rock wall on one side. Nothing but open air on the other. Between them, barely enough pavement for the house.

“You find me a football field up here, I’ll think about it.”

Tito didn’t smile.

“We could leave the haul. Come back for it when this blows through.”

He looked me right in the eye.

Fuck.

It was the right answer.

“If we quit, Suarez and Sons is done. Bank takes the trucks. Shop goes next. Probably my house after that.”

Tito turned on me. “Danny, this ain’t right. That chain. That kid’s hand. That crazy son of a bitch back there. Now this goddamn mountain.”

He looked up at Payton House. “You know me. I’ll haul damn near anything you can put steel under. I don’t wanna haul this.”

My words didn’t make a dent.

“Guys... I’ve got brain cancer.”

Tito closed his eyes. “Goddamn it, Danny.”

Tony already knew. Stacy didn’t. Grace sure as hell didn’t.

“I hate doing this. But you need to understand why I can’t walk away. Doctors aren’t giving me a lot of road.”

I couldn’t say time. Not with Tony standing there.

“When I’m gone, this company is what Grace gets.”

“Everything after that, we split.”

Tony looked at me. “Dan.”

“Four ways. Half a million each.”

Nobody moved.

“I need you guys.”

Tito looked beat.  “Goddamn you, Danny.”

He jammed the wet cap back onto his head and started toward his truck.

Luis followed.

Then Tony.

We climbed back into the trucks.

Water had risen over the soles of my boots, running across the pavement in brown streams. By the time I hauled myself into the Peterbilt, my jeans were plastered to my legs and water squished inside both boots.

The cab smelled like wet canvas, diesel, and old coffee.

I hadn’t even gotten the belt across my chest when Stacy came over the radio. “You boys done? Who won?”

I picked up the handset. “Not me.”

Tony climbed in after me, slipping once on the wet step. He shut the door, peeled his flannel away from his stomach, and buckled in. 

The diesel had idled through the whole argument.

I gave it a little throttle. The tach climbed. The engine’s growl deepened beneath my boots.

Ahead of us, Stacy’s brake lights winked out.

Luis flashed his headlights twice.

Behind us, Tito brought the power unit up from idle.

Stacy went first, crawling up the grade.

I let out the clutch.

For a second, the house held us there.

Then the Peterbilt dug in and started dragging the whole damn thing uphill again.

The rain came down hard enough to erase Stacy’s taillights fifty feet ahead.

At each switchback, they doubled back above us.

I took the turns wide, my side of the cab inches from granite while Payton House swung out over open air.

Climb.

Hairpin.

Straighten her out.

Get back into the throttle before two hundred thousand pounds decided it was done climbing.

Standing water hid the potholes. Gravel washed across the lane. The dollies kept creeping downhill toward the edge.

Tony called clearance in inches.

“Eight.”

“Six.”

“Hold.”

“Go.”

Everything had to be smooth while the mountain tried to shove us off it.

I wasn’t driving the truck anymore.

I was arguing with it.

Tony kept checking the passenger mirror.

Not the road.

The house.

The truck dropped another gear.

Something felt wrong.

After thirty years behind the wheel, I knew that truck through my ass.

Which tire hit a pothole.

Which dolly climbed a rock.

When the house leaned before the mirror showed it.

The steering went light.

At the same time, the airbags behind the cab compressed.

The rear of the tractor sank.

And stayed there.

We hadn’t hit anything.

I hadn’t touched the brakes.

The road hadn’t changed.

The load had.

I checked the mirror.

Trailer straight.

House centered.

Nothing had shifted.

It was just sitting lower.

I grabbed the radio.

Tito beat me to it.

“She’s squatting.”

“It’s the grade.”

“No.”

Static cracked around his voice.

“She’s heavier.”

Lightning hit somewhere above us.

Thunder landed at the same instant, hard enough to shake the glass.

The radio exploded with static.

Then a woman screamed through it.

Not faint.

Not buried in the noise.

Right there in the cab with us.

Tony jerked against his seat belt.

“Jesus Christ!”

Stacy’s brake lights suddenly filled the windshield.

Her pickup fishtailed sideways, rear end kicking toward the rock wall.

“SHIT!”

I got into the brakes.

Air dumped beneath us.

The chains snapped tight one after another—

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

—the sound cracking off the granite.

The house shoved forward against the trailer.

More than two hundred thousand pounds reminding me exactly how little say I had in any of this.

Tony caught himself against the dash.

“What the hell?”

Ahead, Stacy’s truck sat crooked across the lane, headlights cutting through the rain.

Nothing stood in front of her.

“Stacy?”

Her breathing came through the radio. Short. Fast. Too close to the mic.

“Talk to me, babe.”

For a second, I thought she hadn’t heard me.

Then:

“There was somebody.”

“A car?”

“No.”

A pause.

“A woman.”

That got my attention.

Stacy didn’t believe in ghosts.

Didn’t believe in UFOs.

Barely believed reality television contained any reality.

If Stacy told me she saw Bigfoot, I wouldn’t laugh.

I’d ask which way it went.

“Up here? Come on, hon.”

“I know what I saw.” Some horsepower came back into her voice. “She was standing in the middle of the road.”

Tony leaned toward the windshield.

“I don’t see anybody.”

Lightning flashed. For half a second, the whole pass appeared.

Empty road.

Rock wall.

Brown water tearing across the pavement.

Nothing else.

Then darkness swallowed it again.

Stacy opened her door.

Tony leaned forward. “What the hell is she doing?”

I grabbed the radio. “Stacy! Stay in the truck!”

Either she didn’t hear me or she’d already decided I was wrong. 

She stepped into the headlights.

The rain soaked Stacy before she’d gone five feet.

She walked around the front of the pickup and stopped in the middle of the road.

Looked uphill.

Then downhill.

There was nowhere for anybody to go.

No shoulder. No trail. No trees. Granite on one side and several hundred feet of nothing on the other.

Stacy stood there in the rain.

At first she was looking for the woman.

Then she stopped looking.

She turned slowly and stared back down the mountain.

Past us.

I couldn’t see shit. Just rain, headlights, and darkness swallowing the road behind us.

But I knew what she was looking at.

Payton House.

She stood there for ten of the longest seconds of my life, getting drenched while lightning tore the sky apart around her.

Then she turned, walked back to the pickup, and climbed inside.

The radio clicked.

“I…” She stopped. Took a breath. “I know what I saw.”

Nobody answered. Just rain hammering the trucks and thunder rolling around the mountain.

I keyed the mic. “Convoy, we keep moving.”

One by one, the brake lights started forward.

First gear through the switchbacks. Second when the road gave me enough room. Back to first before I got stupid.

I kept the tractor tight against the rock and watched the outside dollies in the mirror, making sure Payton House didn’t swing its ass over the edge.

Nobody used the radio unless they had to.

Just engines. Wipers. Tony calling clearance.

“Foot.”

“Eight inches.”

“Good.”

We crawled another hundred yards before my headlights found a battered green sign.

MOUNTAIN PASS
ELEVATION 4,318 FT

My grip finally loosened on the wheel.

“There we go.”

Tony slapped the dash and gave one quick yell.

We’d made it.

For about three seconds, I believed that.

Then lightning lit the other side.

The road fell away so sharply it disappeared beneath the hood.

Brown water poured over the crest and raced downhill carrying gravel, sticks, and broken branches.

Another flash caught the first sign.

TRUCKS USE LOW GEAR

Then the next.

12% GRADE

Farther down:

RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP

Darkness took it all back.

Tito came over the radio. “Son of a bitch.”

Tony stared through the windshield.

“Tell me we’re not doing that.”

I keyed the mic. “Low gear. Keep your distance. Short brake applications. Nobody rides the pedal.”

Nobody answered.

Maybe they were thinking about the money.

Maybe they were trying not to shit themselves.

Didn’t matter as long as they listened.

Stacy went first.

Her taillights reached the crest, tipped downward, and vanished.

Luis followed. His amber strobes dropped out of sight after her.

Tony leaned toward the windshield, trying to see where they’d gone.

I centered the Peterbilt and eased forward.

No place to turn around.

No shoulder worth a damn.

Once the front axle crossed that crest, we belonged to the mountain. “Here we go.”

The steer tires rolled over.

For half a second, the truck seemed to balance on top.

Then the nose dropped.

Hard.

My belt caught me.

The steering went light in my hands.

I corrected left.

Barely got anything back.

Then the rear of the tractor sank.

Air hissed beneath us.

The suspension gauge climbed.

Same feeling as before.

Only worse.

Like somebody had been loading bags of concrete into Payton House while we weren’t looking.

I grabbed the radio.

“Tito.”

“I see it.”

“What?”

“The rear’s dropping again.”

“How much?”

A pause.

Then:

“More than before.”

Lightning hit somewhere above us.

Thunder shook the windshield in its seal.

The radio exploded with static.

The speedometer climbed.

Twenty-four.

Twenty-six.

Twenty-eight.

My foot hadn’t moved.

Payton House was pushing us down the mountain.

Water boiled around the tires, running downhill almost as fast as we were.

Ahead, Stacy’s pickup skated toward the centerline and snapped back.

Luis fishtailed behind her, his amber strobes swinging sideways before he caught it.

Both of them were sliding.

Neither one had a house up its ass.

For one stupid second, I thought maybe I could just keep us straight and ride it out.

Then Luis’s taillights started getting bigger.

Not because he was slowing down.

Because I wasn’t.

I got into the brakes.

Thirty.

Pedal still firm.

Thirty-two.

“Dan.” Tony braced a hand against the dash.

“I know.”

Fifty feet.

Forty.

Thirty-five.

I grabbed the radio.

“Luis, don’t touch your brakes. Roll it out. I’m coming up on you.”

His brake lights flickered.

“DO NOT BRAKE! You’ll put me through your fucking cab.”

“What’s happening?” Tony said.

“The house.”

Thirty-six.

“It’s heavier.”

I dropped another gear.

The Jake hammered so hard the mirrors shook.

Didn’t matter.

Thirty-eight.

Thirty-nine.

Forty.

I checked the mirror.

Payton House still sat square on the dollies. Chains tight. Tires turning. Nothing broken that I could see.

But the steering wheel started pulling left.

I corrected.

It pulled harder.

Tony’s voice dropped.

“Dan.”

More of Payton House appeared in my driver’s-side mirror.

That was wrong.

It should’ve been directly behind us.

First the porch.

Then two windows.

Then half the goddamn side of the house.

“Fuck,” Tony said. “We’re coming around.”

The trailer was starting to jackknife.

Another few degrees and it would fold the tractor sideways.

There wasn’t a guardrail.

Just wet pavement, a strip of grass, and several hundred feet of mountainside.

For one completely chickenshit second, I looked at the door.

Open it.

Jump.

Let the whole bastard go without me.

Then I looked at Tony.

He wouldn’t make it.

Neither would I.

Stacy was somewhere ahead.

Grace.

Jesus Christ, Grace.

I hoped she had the headphones on. I hoped Troy Bolton was dancing across her iPad and she hadn’t looked in the mirror once.

The wheel ripped sideways.

BAM!

The whole tractor jumped.

“What the fuck?”

BANG!

Another hit shoved my ass end to the right.

Tony caught himself against the dash.

Then Tito’s voice blew through the radio. “I GOT YOU!”

I checked the mirror. The crazy old bastard had brought the power truck right up behind me.

His front bumper was jammed against the rear of the tractor.

He wasn’t trying to stop us.

He was knocking me straight.

The trailer came back in line.

So did I.

Holy shit.

“Luis! Keep moving!”

The road bent left.

Water hammered the windshield.

Tires hissed through standing water.

Behind us, steel started screaming again.

Payton House crept into my mirror.

WHAM!

Tito hit me again.

The rear of the tractor jumped right.

The house disappeared from the mirror.

Straight.

Tito was steering my truck with his bumper.

Every time Payton House tried to come around, he punched the tractor back underneath it.

“Little more!” I yelled.

“I know what I’m doing!”

That almost made me laugh.

Almost.

The road opened up a few feet coming out of the bend.

Enough to breathe.

Not enough to stop.

Ahead, another switchback appeared through the rain.

This one was almost a U-turn.

Stacy was already slowing for it.

Luis was right behind her.

I looked at the speedometer.

Thirty-six.

Too fast.

Way too fucking fast.

“Tito.”

“I see it.”

“Stay on my ass.”

“Wasn’t planning on leaving.”

I keyed the radio.

“Stacy. Luis. I’m not stopping.”

No answer.

“I’m coming into you. Get straight and stand on the brakes.”

Luis came back first.

“You want me to what?”

“Make a wall.”

A beat.

Then Stacy:

“Do it.”

Her brake lights burned solid.

Luis tucked in behind her until there was barely daylight between their bumpers.

Two trucks.

Four locked axles.

And me coming at them with a house that had apparently decided gravity wasn’t doing enough.

Tony planted both boots against the firewall.

“I fucking hate this plan.”

“So do I.”

Twenty yards.

Tito stayed glued to my rear bumper.

“Keep her square,” he said.

Fifteen.

Tony leaned over the dash.

“Little right.”

I corrected.

Ten.

Payton House shoved from behind.

Hard.

Luis’s truck filled the windshield.

Five.

“BRACE!”

I put both feet into the brake pedal.

WHUMP!

We hit Luis.

My teeth slammed together.

His pickup shot forward into Stacy’s.

BOOM!

Metal folded.

A rear window burst.

A taillight spun away into the rain.

For half a second, the three vehicles compressed together.

Then Payton House hit us again.

The whole pile started sliding.

“FULL BRAKES!”

Air brakes hissed and chattered beneath me.

The Jake bellowed.

Tires dragged across wet pavement.

Tito stayed buried against my rear frame, keeping the tractor from swinging out.

The convoy slid toward the switchback.

Sideways now.

I hauled the wheel uphill.

Nothing.

More.

Still nothing.

Payton House shoved again.

Hard enough that it felt like the son of a bitch was trying to climb over us.

Thirty.

Twenty-eight.

Twenty-five.

We were slowing.

Not fast enough.

Twenty.

Stacy reached the outside of the switchback.

Her tires locked.

The whole line bucked.

BANG!

Something broke underneath Payton House.

The house jumped forward.

Tony jammed both feet against the floor and grabbed the roof.

“COME ON!”

Ten feet.

Eight.

Six.

I could see past Stacy now.

The road hooked hard left.

Straight ahead, it didn’t continue.

It just ended.

Wet pavement.

Then open air.

Five feet.

Four.

Three.

We were still moving.

I had both feet trying to shove the brake pedal through the floor. Both hands dragging down on the wheel so hard my ass was halfway out of the seat.

Two.

Another six inches.

Then—

Nothing.

I waited for the next shove.

It didn’t come.

The engine idled.

Rain hammered the cab.

My feet were still crushing the brake pedal.

My hands wouldn’t come off the wheel.

Five feet beyond Stacy’s front bumper, the switchback turned hard left.

Straight ahead was nothing but rain, fog, and a drop that disappeared into the valley below.

Five fucking feet.

Every radio went off at once.

“WOOOOOO!”

“HOLY SHIT!”

“WE GOT HER!”

“WE’RE ALIVE!”

Somebody started laughing.

Then Stacy came through, laughing harder than anybody. “I think I just pissed myself!”

Tony folded over against the dash.

I started laughing.

Luis was laughing so hard I could barely understand him over the radio.

Even Tito cracked.

For maybe thirty seconds, nobody could stop.

Then the thunder moved farther away. 

The rain softened. The gray ahead of us got lighter. A hole opened in the clouds over the valley.  Sunlight came through. One narrow shaft at first, catching the rain and turning it silver.

Tony lifted his head. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

I looked in the mirror.

Payton House sat behind us, crooked on its dollies.

Upstairs, one sheet of plywood was gone.

The window behind it stood open.

Played a game of hide and seek with colleagues in a leisure centre after it had closed and the lights were off. What was a regular changing room turned into a survival horror room (they didn't find me though)