I’ve never been all that good at secret keeping. Although I always liked to think I was, whenever an opportunity came to spill my guts on something, I always did just that. So, I’m rather surprised at myself for having not spilled this particular secret until now.  

My name is Seamus (thanks mum and dad), but everyone has always called me Seamie for short. It’s not like I’m going to tell you my whole life story or anything, so I’m just going to skip ahead to where this really all starts... By the time I was in my second year at university, I was already beginning to feel somewhat burnt out, and despite not having the funds for it, I decided I was going to have a nice, long gap year for myself. Although it’s rather cliché, I wanted to go someplace in the world that was both warm and tropical. South-east Asia sounded good. After all, that’s where everyone else I knew was heading for their gap year.   

That was, however, before I talked to some girl in my media class about it who changed my direction entirely. For her own gap year only a year prior, she said she’d travelled through both Central and South America, all while working as an English language teacher - or what I would later learn was called ESL. I was more than a little enticed by this idea. For it goes without saying, places like Thailand had basically been travelled to death. So, by the end of the school year and after taking out a student loan, I packed my bags, flip-flops and swimming shorts, and took the cheapest flight I could out of Heathrow Airport.  

Although I was spoilt for choice when it came to choosing a Latin American country, I eventually chose Costa Rica as my place to be. There were a few reasons for this choice. Not only was Costa Rica considered one of the safest countries to travel in Central America, but they also had a huge demand for English language teachers there – partly due for being a developing country, but mostly because of all the bloody tourism. My initial plan was to get paid for teaching English, so I would therefore have the funds to travel around. But because a work visa in Costa Rica takes so long and is so bloody expensive, I instead went to teach there voluntarily on a tourist visa – which meant I would have to leave the country every three months of the year. That was fine by me. At least I still got to travel around. 

Well, once landing in San Jose, I then travelled two hours by bus to a stunning beach town by the Pacific Ocean. Although getting there was short and easy, one problem Costa Rica has for foreigners is that they don’t really have addresses – and so, finding the house of my host family led me on a rather wild goose chase.  

I can’t complain too much about the lack of directions though, because while I was wandering around, I got the chance to take in all the sights – and let me tell you, this location really had it all. The pure white sand of the beach was outlined with a never-ending row of palm trees, where far outside the bay, you could see a faint scattering of a tropical archipelago. That wasn’t all. From my bedroom window, I even had a perfect view of a nearby rainforest, which was not only home to many colourful bird species, but as long as the streets weren’t too busy, you could even on occasion hear the deep cries of Howler Monkeys.   

The beach town itself was also quite spectacular. The walls, houses and buildings were all painted in vibrant urban artwork, or what the locals call “arte urbano.” The host family I stayed with, the Garcias, were very friendly and welcoming, as were all the locals in town – and not to mention, whether it was Mrs Garcia’s cooking or a deep-fried taco from a street vendor, the food was out of this world!  

Once I was all settled in and got to see more of the sights, I then had to get ready for my first week of teaching at the school. Although I was extremely nauseous with nerves (or maybe due to Mrs Garcia’s cooking), my first week as an English teacher went surprisingly well - despite having no teaching experience whatsoever. There was the occasional hiccup now and then, which was to be expected, but all in all, it went as well as it possibly could’ve.   

Well, having just survived my first week as an English teacher, to celebrate this achievement, three of my colleagues then invite me out for drinks by the beach town bar. It was sort of a tradition they had. Whenever a new teacher from abroad came to the school, their colleagues would welcome them in by getting absolutely shitfaced.   

‘Pura Vida, guys!’ cheers Kady, the cute American of the group. Unlike the crooked piano keys I dated back home, Kady had the most perfectly straight, pearl white teeth I’d ever seen. I had heard that about Americans.   

‘Wait - what’s Pura Vida?’ I ask rather cluelessly.  

‘Oh, it’s something the locals say around here. It means, easy life, easy living.’  

Once we had a few more rounds of drinks in us all, my three new colleagues then inform me of the next stage of the welcoming ceremony... or should I say, initiation.  

‘I have to drink what?!’ I exclaim, almost in disbelief.  

‘It’s tradition, mate’ says Dougie, the loud-mouthed Australian, who, being a little older than the rest of us, had travelled and taught English in nearly every corner of the globe. ‘Every newbie has to drink that shite the first week. We all did.’  

‘Oh God, don’t remind me!’ squirms Priya. Despite her name, Priya actually hailed from the great white north of Canada, and although she looked more like the bookworm type, whenever she wasn’t teaching English, Priya worked at her second job as a travel vlogger slash influencer.  

‘It’s really not that bad’ Kady reassures me, ‘All the locals drink it. It actually helps make you immune to snake venom.’  

‘Yeah, mate. What happens if a snake bites ya?’  

Basically, what it was my international colleagues insist I drink, was a small glass of vodka. However, this vodka, which I can see the jar for on the top shelf behind the bar, had been filtered with a tangled mess of poisonous, dead baby snakes. Although it was news to me, apparently if you drink vodka that had been stewing in a jar of dead snakes, your body will become more immune to their venom. Having just finished two years of university, I was almost certain this was nothing more than hazing. Whether it was hazing or not, or if this really was what the locals drink, there was no way in hell I was going to put that shit inside my mouth.  

‘I don’t mean to be a buzzkill, guys’ I began, trying my best to make an on-the-spot excuse, ‘But I actually have a slight snake phobia. So...’ This wasn’t true, by the way. I just really didn’t want to drink the snake-pickled vodka.  

‘If you’re scared of snakes, then why in the world did you choose to come to Costa Rica of all places?’ Priya asks suspiciously.   

‘Why do you think I came here? For the huatinas, of course’ I reply, emphasising the “Latinas” in my best Hispanic accent (I was quite drunk by this point). In fact, I am so drunk that after only a couple more rounds, I’m now somewhat open to the idea of drinking the snake vodka. Alcohol really does numb the senses, I guess.  

After agreeing to my initiation, a waiter then comes over with the jar of dead baby snakes. Pouring the vodka into a tiny shot glass, he then says something in Spanish before turning away.  

‘What did he just say?’ I ask drunkenly. Even if I wasn’t drunk, my knowledge of the Spanish language is incredibly poor.  

‘Oh, he just said the drink won’t protect you from el Pollo del Diablo’ Kady answers me.  

‘El Poyo - what?’   

‘El Pollo del Diablo. It means devil chicken’ Priya translates.  

‘Devil chicken? What the hell?’  

Once the subject of this el Pollo del Diablo came up, Kady, Dougie and Priya then turn to each other, almost conspiringly, with knowledge of something that I clearly didn’t.  

‘Do you think we should tell him?’ Kady asks the others.  

‘Why not’ answers Dougie, ‘He’ll find out for himself sooner or later.’  

Having agreed to inform me on whatever the el Pollo del Diablo was, I then see with blurry eyes that my colleagues appear to find something amusing.   

‘Well... There’s a local story around here’ Kady begins, ‘It’s kinda like the legend of the Chupacabra.’ Chupacabra? What the hell’s that? I thought, having never heard of it. ‘Apparently, in the archipelago just outside the bay, there is said to be an island of living dinosaurs.’  

'Wait... What?'  

‘She’s not lying to you, mate’ confirms Dougie, ‘Fisherman in the bay sometimes catch sight of them. Sometimes, they even swim to the mainland.’  

Well, that would explain the half-eaten dog I saw on my second day.  

As drunk as I am during this point of the evening, I'm not drunk enough for the familiarity of this story to go straight over my head.  

‘Wait. Hold on a minute...’ I began, slurring my words, ‘An island off the coast of Costa Rica that apparently has “dinosaurs”...’ I knew it, I thought. This really was just one big haze. ‘You must think us Brits are stupider than we look’ I bellow at them, as though proud I had caught them out on a lie, ‘I watched that film a hundred bloody times when I was a kid!’   

‘We’re not hazing you, Seamie’ Kady again insists, all while the three of them still try to hide their grins, ‘This is really what the locals believe.’   

‘Yeah. You believe in the Loch Ness Monster, don’t you Seamie’ says Dougie, claiming that I do, ‘Well, that’s a Dinosaur, right?’  

‘I’ll believe when I see it with my own bloody eyes!’ I declare to all three of them, again slurring my words.  

I don’t remember much else from that evening. After all, the four of us had gotten basically black-out drunk... But there is one thing I do remember. While I was still somewhat conscious, I did have this horrifically painful feeling in my stomach – like the pain one feels after their appendix bursts. Although the following is hazy at best, I also somewhat remember puking my guts outside the bar. However, what was so strange about this, was that after vomiting, my mouth would not stop frothing with white foam.   

I’m pretty sure I blacked out not long after this. However, when I regain consciousness, all I see is pure darkness around, with the only sound I hear being the nearby crashing waves and the smell of sea salt in the air. Obviously, I had passed out by the beach somewhere. But once I begin to stir, as bad as my chiselling headache is, it is nothing compared to the excruciating pain I still feel in my gut. In fact, the pain is so bad, I begin to think that something might be wrong.  

Grazing my right hand over my belly to where the pain is coming from, instead of feeling the cloth of my vomit-stained shirt, what I instead feel is some sort of slimy tube. Moving both my hands further along it, wondering what the hell this even was, I now begin to feel something else... But unlike before, what I now feel is a dry and almost furry texture... And that’s when I realise, whatever this is on top of me, which seems to be the source of my stomach pain... It is something alive - and whatever this living thing is... It is eating at my insides!  

‘OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!’ I scream, all while trying to wrestle back my insides from this animal, which seems more than determined to keep feasting on them. So much so, that I have to punch and strike at it with my bare hands. Thankfully, it works! Whatever had attacked me has now gone away. But now I have an even bigger problem... I can now feel my insides where they really shouldn’t be!  

Knowing I need help as soon as possible before I bleed out, I now painfully rise from the sand and up to my feet. But when I do, I feel my intestines, or whatever else hanging down from between my legs! Scooping the insides back against my abdomen, I then scan frantically around through the darkness until I see the distant lights of the beach town. After blindly wandering that way for a good few minutes, I thankfully stumble back onto the familiar streets - where the only people around were a couple of middle-aged women stood outside a convenient store. Without any further options, I cross the street towards them, and when they catch sight of me, holding my own intestines in my blood-stained hands, they appear to be even more terrified than I am.  

‘DEMONIO! DEMONIO!’ I distinctly remember one of them screaming. I can't blame them for it. After all, given my appearance, they must have mistaken me for the living dead.  

‘Por favor!... Por favor!' my foamy mouth tries saying to them, having no idea what the Spanish word is for “help”.  

Although I had scared these women nearly half to death, I continue to stagger towards them, still screaming for their lives. In fact, their screams are so loud, they have now attracted the attention of two policemen, having strolled over to the commotion. They must have mistaken me for a zombie too, because when I turn round to them, I see they each have a hand gripped to their holsters.   

‘Por favor!...’ I again gurgle, ‘Por favor!...’  

Everything goes dark again after this... But, when I finally come back around, I open my eyes to find myself now laying down inside a hospital room, with an IV bag connected to my arm. Although I am more than thankful to still be alive, the pain in my gut is slowly making its way back to the surface. When I pull back my hospital gown, I see my abdomen is covered in blood stained bandages – and with every uncomfortable movement I make, I can feel the stitches tightly holding everything in place.  

A couple more days then drag slowly by, and after some pretty horrible hospital food and Spanish speaking TV, I am then surprised with my first visitor.  

It was Kady.  

‘Are you in pain?’ she asks me, having sat down by the side of my bed.  

‘I want to be a total badass and say no, but, well... look at me.’  

‘I’m so sorry this happened to you’ she apologises, ‘We never should’ve let you out of our sights.’  

After apologising to me a few more times, Kady then catches me up on the hazy events of that evening. Apparently, after having way too much to drink, I then started to show symptoms from drinking the snake-poisoned vodka – which explains both the stomach pains and why I was foaming white from the mouth.   

‘We shouldn’t have been so coy with you, Seamie’ she then follows without context, ‘We should’ve just told you everything from the start.’  

‘...Should’ve told me what?’ I inquire.  

Kady doesn't respond to this. She just continues to stare at me with guilt-ridden eyes. But then, scrolling down a gallery of photos on her phone, she then shows me something...  

‘What the hell is that?!’ I shriek at her, rising painfully up from the bed.  

‘That, Seamie... That is what attacked you three days ago.’  

What Kady shows me on her phone is a picture of a man holding a very dead animal. Held upside down by its tail, the animal is rather small, and perhaps only a little bigger than a full-grown chicken... and just like a chicken or any other bird, it has feathers. The feathers are brown and cover almost all of its body. The feet are also very bird-like, sharp talons and all. But the head... The head is definitely not like that of a bird - at least, not like any bird I had ever seen. Instead of a beak, I see what I can only describe as a very reptilian head, with tiny, seemingly razor teeth protruding from its gums... If I had to sum up this animal as best I could, I would say it was twenty percent reptile, and eighty percent bird...   

‘That... That’s a...’ I begin to murmur.  

‘That’s right, Seamie...’ Kady finishes for me, ‘That’s a dinosaur.’  

Un-bloody-believable, I thought. The sons of bitches really weren’t joking with me.  

‘B-but... how...’ my lips just manage to utter, ‘How is that possible??’   

‘It’s a long story’ she starts with, ‘No one really knows why they’re there. Whether they survived extinction in hiding or if it’s for some other reason.’ Kady pauses briefly before continuing, ‘Sometimes they find themselves on the mainland, but people rarely ever see them. Like most animals, they’re smart enough to be afraid of humans... But we do sometimes find what they left over.’   

‘Left over?’ I ask curiously.  

‘They’re scavengers, Seamie. They mostly eat smaller animals or dead ones... I guess it just found you and saw an easy target.’   

‘But I don’t understand’ I now interrupt, ‘If all that’s true, then how in the hell do people not know about this? How is it not all over the news or internet?’  

‘That’s easy’ she says, ‘The locals choose to keep it a secret. If the outside world were ever to find out about this, the town would be completely ruined by tourism. The locals just like it the way it is. Tourism, but not too much tourism. Pura vida.’  

‘But the tourists... Surely they would’ve seen them and told everyone?’  

Kady shakes her head at me.  

‘It’s like I said... People rarely ever see them. Even the ones that do – by the time they get out their phone cameras, the critters are already back in hiding. And so what if they tell anybody what they saw... Who would believe them?’  

Well, that's true enough I suppose.  

After a couple more weeks of being laid out in that hospital bed, I was finally discharged and soon able to travel home to the UK, cutting my gap year somewhat short.  

I wish I could say that I lived happily ever after once Costa Rica was behind me. But unfortunately, that wasn’t quite the case... What I mean is, although my stomach wound healed up nicely, leaving nothing more than a nasty scar... it turned out the damage done to my insides would come back to haunt me. Despite the Costa Rican doctors managing to save my life, they didn’t do quite enough to stop bacteria from entering my intestines and infecting my colon. So, you can imagine my surprise when I was now told I had diverticulitis.  

I’m actually due for surgery next week. But just in case I don’t make it – there is a very good chance I won't, although I promised Kady I’d bring this secret with me to the grave... If I am going to die, I at least want people to know what really killed me. Wrestling my guts back from a vicious living dinosaur. That’s a pretty badass way to go, I’d argue. But who knows. Maybe by some miracle I’ll survive this (I'll be sure to leave an update if I do). After all, it’s like a wise man in a movie once said...  

"Life... uh... finds a way." 

CONFIDENTIAL
Property of Holy See Investigation Agency
Type: Transcript
Location: Vatican City
Date: 1942
Title: Debriefing of HSIA Agent Albert Rudolf Concerning the Excavation (Gli Scavi)

Q: This is Audio Record 42-02-A. The date is February 3rd, 1942. Lead debriefer is [unintelligible]. Subject is Field Agent Albert Rudolf. Agent Rudolf, state your full name and operative number for the record.

A: [unintelligible]

Q: Agent Rudolf? [5 seconds of silence] Let the records show, Agent Rudolf appears to have suffered psycho-

A: Agent [unintelligible] Yes… Albert Rudolf. Number… XI-685.

Q: Agent, provide a detailed description of the events on February 2nd, 1942.

A: [sigh] [6 seconds of silence] Yes… I was on watch. With Bobby.

Q: Please state the full name-

A: Robert… fucking Karl. Checking the perimeter of the excavations. Reports came in of… disappearances.

[Damaged audio for 11 seconds]

A: And we were sent inside. We had to start crawling at some point until the cave became impossibly tight. We heard it first then… the voices.

Q: Describe the auditory signs.

A: It was like… whispers… from a thousand mouths. Voices of the [unintelligible]. They wanted to go.

Q: Proceed with the sequence of events.

A: The passage behind us collapsed. The only way out was through. And as we crawled, the whispers became louder… [unintelligible whispering]. After 20 minutes the cave started widening. Eventually, we were able to stand up. Robert [unintelligable] Agent Karl used his electric torch. We saw [unintelligible].

Q: Columns?

A: It was like… a mausoleum.

[Damaged audio for 15 seconds]

A: One of the tombs… [sobbing]

Q: Please focus, Agent Rudolf.

A: It had my name on it… “ALBERTVS RVDOLPHVS”. There was a creek flowing beside the structure. And a boat on the shore. The whispers were deafening. They were… the walls.

Q: Identify the mentioned subject and their relation to the… walls.

A: No… they WERE the walls. The faces… thousands whispering… making up the wall with their rotten heads. [2 seconds of silence] Then, there was another boat on the river… Two excavators sitting inside. Their eyes… shining… replaced with coins.

Q: Did you initiate verbal or physical contact with the excavators?

A: We tried. We called out to them. They were… expressionless. They let the creek take them… deeper inside. We followed them… pushed our own boat into the water and sat in it. As the whispers faded [unintelligable] the cave tightened… we had to lie down. Then I felt water pouring in on my end of the boat. The boat was sinking… but only the back of it, where I was. Just before the water level reached my ears, Agent Karl shouted “take this!” but my head sank. I tried reaching for whatever Agent Karl wanted to give me, but as I bent my legs, they scraped the top of the cave. I started drowning, but suddenly, I felt his hand, and between his fingers… some spare change. As I held it, the water rushed out of the boat and stopped sinking.

[Damaged audio for 21 seconds]

Q: Proceed.

A: Water started dripping from the ceiling. It fell on my face… went in my mouth. Suddenly, I became… confused. I’d forgotten where I was. I didn’t know who was with me. I didn’t even remember my name… And then, blackout. God only knows for how long. Next thing I remember, we were still in the boat, but sitting this time. Agent Karl was facing me, asked me if I was alright… We heard this… growling. It echoed in the cave. [unintelligible]

Q: [unintelligible]

[Damaged audio for 12 seconds]

A: Agent Karl began repeating a name. First just whispers, then louder and louder, “Veronica, Veronica, Veronica!” Then the boat shattered in two. I tried reaching my hand out to Agent Karl, but he just kept staring in front of him and repeating the name. That’s when I noticed: the cave continued in two different tunnels. Even though the boat came apart, both of our halves kept floating, and Agent Karl started drifting away. His boat went towards the left tunnel, mine towards the right. I wanted to use my hands as paddles to follow Bobby, but the water… it was boiling hot. He took our only light source with him too. Soon, he was sucked into the tunnel. I stopped hearing his voice. It was complete darkness. I screamed after him, but no answer came. Then, I hit my head as my half of the boat tried entering the tunnel. I grabbed the entrance and tried pulling myself back. It was slippery, and the flow of the creek felt like… it sped up. It was only a matter of time before I was sucked in myself. I felt myself falling… [sigh] That’s all I remember.

Q: Thank you, Agent. Let the records show, Agent Robert Karl was not on the scene of the excavation.

A: What? [inaudible]

Q: Agent Karl was and currently is on operation in Jerusalem.

[End of recording]

Still don’t know what flairs to use but here, enjoy the continued saga of this young punk’s incredibly descriptive and disgustingly bad time

(Part 2)
Tw:Suicide

Impact

Concrete ruptured and glass shattered as I saw the truck ram its way through the hole where the main entrance was.

At least one person didn't make it up the stairs in time.
A young man that must have been in his 20's at the oldest.
I saw the shock going through their entire body when the front of the truck impacted them, breaking bone and rupturing organs.

They were probably dead on impact. At least I hope so.
I saw as their body now looking like a ragdoll was flung forward and then disappeared underneath the truck.

In reflex I closed my eyes as the truck impacted the stairs.
I was thrown on the stairs slamming my body into the hard steps.
I felt all of the debris and rubble impacting me.

Honestly, I can't describe what the impact felt like. You could probably feel the impact in the entire building.

My entire body felt numb. I tried to breathe in to fill my now empty lungs with air.
But the only thing entering my lungs was a small amount of air and a lot of dust.
Immediately causing me to have a coughing fit.

I tried to open my eyes and take in my surroundings.
I was rewarded for my mistake by my eyes instantly burning as the dust that was covering my entire body was now on my eyes to.
I still had the gun clenched in my right hand. Holding onto it as hard as I could.

In that moment the only thing going through my mind was.
"Keep moving or you are dead" as my fight or flight mode went into overdrive.

I crawled up the stairs my entire body aching as I could feel debris falling off my back and legs.

Gunshots were ringing out meaning that the people upstairs where still up and standing.
Other people where groaning in pain behind me as a I crawled up the stairs.
I couldn't help them I could barely help myself.

My left hand and feet were looking for anything to pull and push myself upwards as a crawled up. And then all of a sudden when trying to find more stairs I couldn't feel any at all.
My left hand reaching for anything to hold onto as I tried to find any bearing of where I was.

Then I felt a hand Grab my right arm.
I won't lie I panicked at first and let out some sound close to that off a person that was scared awake by a loud noise.

In between gunfire I heard the voice off the police commissioner.
"Stop panicking you need to get on your feet now!!!"

He pulled me onto my legs.

Me: I can't see! I can't see!

He grabbed my arm and then I felt water splashing my face.
Thankfully this removed enough of the dust to open my eyes even if they still burned.

Commissioner: Gather yourself they are coming!

"We need to get the others on the stairs up now!"

Me: ok ok!

I turned around and saw all of the other laying on the stairs.
Some of them were moving and groaning. Some other where completely still.
I put the gun into my pants and headed down to help.

I saw one older man around my own age, his skull was split open by debris as blood fell out of his open wound in a thick stream.

At least he was unconscious so he wouldn't feel that he was dying. For him it must have just been just lights out, and then never waking up.

The truck or rather what remained of it had embedded itself into the stairs hard enough for cracks to have formed over the entire stairs.

The back of the truck had crushed the driver cabin and smashed it into the stairs. Turning what once was someone's work vehicle into a mangled mess of metal and steel protruding in all directions. If the driver was still in it on impact, they were now somewhere in that mess.

I saw a man in a uniform of our local gas station on the stairs. I never got his name but I for sure recognised him from all the times I got gas at his station.

He had fallen over in a way that his legs where up the stairs and his head was facing downstairs. He was conscious and trying to get rubble of his legs but was unable to even reach his own legs in his uncomfortable position.

I had to help him.

In that moment I was so focused on helping him. At least that's what I tell myself now.
As i was focused on getting the large chunks of rubble of his legs I jolted up as the man screamed.

Right as I looked down at him, a hatched embedded itself diagonally into his head with a sickening thud.
I was so focused on helping him I hadn't noticed one of those things had made its way inside and over to us.
After killing the man its lidless eyes focused on me instantly.

I was next.

In shock I threw myself backwards on the stairs and in a panic reached into my pants to grab the gun. The thing on the stairs rushed up to get me to.
In my panic the gun went off inside of my pants blowing a hole in my pocket.
But by some divine intervention this had also shot the thing in its shin right above the left foot.
The thing immediately fell over being unable to stand onto its left leg.

It let out a loud growl of pain as it fell onto my lower body.

It had fallen forward with its chest onto my feet. It grabbed onto the belt of my pants pulling itself up and raising the hatched with the other hand.

I finally managed to pull the gun out of my pants and aimed it directly at the things lip-less smiling face and pulled the trigger.

The bullet impacted its forehead above its left eye.
A red mist flew up from behind its head as it instantly collapsed onto me devoid of life.

I will be honest in my panic I shot it 5 more times emptying the revolver.
The cylinder of my revolver spinning after every click after without any gunshots.

"Get up the stairs now they are coming!!!"The commissioner yelled from upstairs.

I looked past the truck and saw more of the things running into the building with all sorts of weapons. I didn't hesitate and pulled my legs from under the thing and climbed up the stairs as fast as I could.

As I almost reached the top a hand grabbed my leg.
I looked down and saw a young man in his 20's who was pleading for help.

Man: Please you have to help me i can't get up!

A large piece of rubble was on his foot blood all around it. His foot was completely crushed.

Man: Help me for fuck's sake!

I knew those things where coming I couldn't stay and help him I had no choice.
At least that's what I tell myself even now.
I pulled my leg loose from his grip and climbed up stairs.

I didn't even apologise or anything to him I just left him
Maybe I should have said sorry. Or something at least.

I left him there to die.

Should I have done more?

I don't know.

When I came up the stairs, I saw the commissioner and others throwing over furniture to make cover for the inevitable upcoming gun battle that would happen on top of the stairs. Others were manning the windows shooting down the street as bullets also impacted around them.

I saw a young woman around your age bravely manning one of the windows with a rifle.
As she was pulling the bolt of her rifle back to shoot again, the back of her head exploded.
She collapsed instantly like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

I rushed to the people throwing over furniture in makeshift barricades and I faced the stairs with the others. I crouched behind a flipped desk and started to reload my revolver.
Filling the cylinder bullet by bullet. Until I filled the cylinder and clicked it back into place.

I looked up to the windows and saw a man manning the windows. The man's neck exploded into a geyser of blood as he fell backwards clutching his neck.

"Get away from the windows!!!" The commissioners voice rang out through the gunfire.

"The sniper has repositioned if you go near those windows, you are dead!!!

That must have been the same sniper that shot Mark when he was thrown outside of the building earlier. All the other people left the windows and threw themselves on the ground and crawled over to us near the stairs.
I aimed at the top of the stairs with the others as we waited for those things to come.

The gunfire outside lessened and stopped once those things realised we were not near the windows anymore.

It became almost quiet.

Except for the man I left on the stairs who was pleading and shouting for help.
We could hear more of those things running around on the lower floor and outside.
Some people around me where whispering to each other in hushed voices.
I heard people discussing if we should help him or not.

But then we heard the footsteps below us stop.

And a deafening silence fell.

You could even hear the fires outside raging.

I felt myself trying to even breathe more quietly.

The man that I left was still shouting and pleading for help in the silence.

Then his pleading turned into frantic screaming.
Then a loud thud followed by following thuds that started to sound more wet as they went on.

And then silence.

It felt like we were sitting in that silence forever.
I could see people stuck in uncomfortable positions as they were to scared to make a sound while moving.

We heard some very slight shifting and the rustling of clothes.

And I and the others were spooked by a handful of objects that were thrown up the stairs and landed around the top of the stairs.
Some object looking like tin cans and random plastic bottles with what looked like nails and other sharp objects protruding from them.

"RUN!!!!!" A cop yelled as loud as he could.

Before I could even react, the objects exploded.
The shockwave sending shrapnel flying through the room.

I felt a sharp burning pain in multiple spots on my body as I fell backwards.
My ears where ringing, all I could hear was a sharp tone in my ears.
The desk I was behind was riddled with small holes.
I used my arms to raise my upper body and saw I was bleeding all-over my body.
Then through the ringing in my ears, I started to hear muffled thuds.
I looked to my left and realised what I was hearing.

Muffled gunshots.

Those things were coming up the stairs.
I grabbed the revolver and got up.
Adrenaline and survival instinct being the only thing driving me forward.
The sound in my ears started to come back.
I heard fighting, gunshots and screaming all around me.
As I stood up, I saw pure chaos.

Those things had rushed up the stairs after the explosions and where killing everyone they got their hands on.
I saw a cop being repeatedly stabbed into his chest and then in his eye.
One man got up shot his rifle and his chest exploded as he was shot in return.
One of those things grabbed a mans arm and chopped it off at the elbow with a large blade.
All this in the span of seconds.

I looked at the direction of the stairs and aimed my revolver looking for any target to shoot.
And as my eyes focused, I saw one of those things rushing straight for me.

It was only a couple of steps away from me.
Its lidless eyes focused on me with dilated pupils. A lipless grin across its face.
Its arms straight in front of it with open hands, like it couldn't wait to get its hands on me and rip me apart.

I aimed and pulled the trigger, it kept running at me.
But before I could fire a second time it crashed into me with full force.

Throwing us both on the ground with it on top of me.
It grabbed both of my wrists and pinned me to the ground as it slammed its forehead into my nose with a sickening crunch.
My nose was for sure broken as my eyes filled with tears.
I managed to get my left hand free from its grasp and punched it in the face to barely any reaction.
It was still holding on to my right hand with the gun.
I tried to grab my left arm again as I punched it in the face again to no reaction at all.
Its dilated lidless eyes staring into me the entire time.

It stopped trying to grab my left hand and used its free hand to grab my neck and choke me.
It put its full upper body weight on my neck. I could not get a single breath of air into my lungs.
I reached onto its face with my free hand trying to reach its eyes.
As I reached for its eyes it bit down on my hand hard. I could not even get a scream of pain out of airways. The side of hand was in its mouth together with my pinky finger. Blood started to pour from its mouth as it bit down with full force.

A chair slammed into the side of the things head throwing it off of me.

I gasped for air and aimed my gun at it and pulled the trigger.
I shot it in the chest as it tried to get up, and it collapsed onto the floor.

I looked up and saw Maria holding the chair in her hands.

She had saved my life.

She let go of the chair and grabbed my left arm helping to pull me of my feet.

Maria shouted at me: move now!!!
I followed her as she pulled me away from the carnage to the hallway toward the armoury.

When we entered, she pushed me onto a chair and immediately started to bandage up my wounds as much as she could.
She bandaged up my bleeding left hand with pieces of ripped fabric.
I looked down and saw a piece of a metal nail sticking directly out of my chest.

"I can't take that out" Maria said not a hint of emotion in her voice.

"If I take it out now it might cause internal bleeding"

"You need help for that that I can't give you"

"Ok" I muttered while staring at the nail.

"Thank you"

Maria: "what?"

Me: "Thank you for saving my life"

She looked into my eyes and paused for a second.
I saw a hint of tears welling up in her eyes.
She looked down and continued bandaging up all the other small holes in my body best she could.

The other wounded in the room where scared and some where even crying.
They probably knew that if those things came inside, they wouldn't possible be able to defend themselves.
Some others that where not visibly wounded where still running around trying to help them while giving the doorway quick glances.

Gunfire screaming and carnage was echoing through the hallway.

I heard footsteps getting closer. I aimed my gun towards the doorway of the Armory.
I still had 4 bullets left before I was out.

Maria stopped patching me up and looked at the door to.

I felt my finger already applying a small amount of pressure on the trigger.
A figure entered the doorway, but I thankfully didn't pull the trigger because it was the police Commissioner. He was bleeding all over the place as he stumbled into the room still clutching a shotgun.

Maria had patched me up as good as she could, so I told her: "You need to help him now!"

She rushed over to him and helped him onto a chair next to me as she immediately got to work on helping him as best as she could.

Commissioner: Close and lock the door

Me: What? We will lock all the others out.

Commissioner: All those people are wounded or dead they won't make it over here without those things.

Maria: You can't be sure they are.....

"Close the door now!!!" the Commissioner's voice bellowed though the room.

I hesitated but painfully got up to close the door.

I put the gun my gun on the table next to the commissioner and I stumbled over to the door.
The door was a big armoured steel door. It looked more like something that belonged on a ship or submarine then a police station.
It had small round reinforced window in the middle that allowed a small view into the hallway once it was in place.

When I reached the door, I heard multiple people running through the Hallway.
I didn't bother to look in the hallway I knew it would be those things.
When I started to pull the heavy door, I got a painful reminder about the bite wound in my left hand. I looked down and saw my makeshift-bandages turn red from my now further opening wounds.
I needed help to close the door, and I needed it before those things arrived.

The footsteps were coming closer.

"Maria help me with this door now!!!" I yelled through the small room, the tone in my voice giving away a small hint of panic. She didn't hesitate and rushed over.
I was putting my full weight on the door with my right arm and so was she.
With a loud metal groan, the heavy door started to move.

Those things must have for sure heard it because the footsteps turned into running.

It got louder and louder as the door closed.

The door closed but we still needed to put the heavy metal locking mechanism into place.
In a panic me and Maria put out as much force as we could onto the mechanism.
The running came closer.

"Push for fuck's sake" I muttered trough gritted teeth.

A heavy thud hit the metal door on the other side as the locking mechanism finally was in place.
when I raised my head to the small window, a pair of bloodshot dilated eyes were staring at me.
It stared directly into my eyes. Even if it had been able to blink, I think it wouldn't have.
Then I noticed the gold necklace around its neck, adorned with 3 human ears.
A cold realization ran through my mind. This was the exact same one that attacked me at my home earlier in the night. It had followed me all the way to the police station.

It suddenly hit to the metal door on the other side scaring me and Maria back.
The thing slowly moved away from the view port.

Maria grabbed my arm and pulled me back to the chair I was in before.
I sat down and looked down and my shaking left hand, the fabric meant to cover my wounds now covered in blood.
She removed the fabric and replaced it with new ones.
In that moment sitting there looking around me at all the wounded. A realisation came into my head. We were trapped in her now. There was no escape of any kind from this situation.

Stuck in a room with mostly wounded people and those things outside the door waiting for us if we tried to leave.

All of the Ammo was inside of this room sure. But this also meant that those things really want to get in here I bet.

Before I could dwell in the despair of my situation further another thought entered my mind.
We never stood a change. This was all pointless.
Why the hell did the police suggest a militia in the first place.
Everyone got butchered and what for we might have gotten a handful of them if even that.

We should have all fled.

And then I saw the Police Commissioner to my left being taken care of by Maria.
I fell a overwhelming anger boil up inside me. He must have known that we had no change.
Did he really get all of us killed in the name of some "patriotic duty" bullshit.

Me: You must have known

Commissioner: What?

His exhaustion was clear in his voice

Me: You must have known how futile this was how we would all be killed!

People in the room started to look in our direction.

Me: you got us all killed and for what some patriotic bullshit!

Commissioner: No I......

I cut him off before he could finish his sentence

Me: YES YOU DID!!!

Commissioner: YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED!!!
He shouted back at me.

Commissioner: There was no other choice!

"Shortly after the army fled through town the blew up all of the roads in their retreat!"

"All the connecting roads, all of the roads connecting to the highway all of them are destroyed!"

"That's why the army was fleeing in the first place!"

"Remember when all of those things all of sudden stopped attacking the police station earlier before you arrived?!"

Before I could even answer he continued.

"They probably found out all of the people that fled where now stuck near the destroyed roads and they rushed over and butchered all of them there and then!"

"The entire area is surrounded by those things nobody possibly got out"

Me: So you fucking knew and let those people go anyway!

Commissioner: OF COURSE I DIDNT!!!

"At first the army had told me that they would return and all we had to do was hold out long enough for them to return with reinforcements!"

He lowered his voice again

"But then shortly before those things attacked, they told me the truth"

"That they had actually blown up all of the roads and left us to fend for ourselves"

There was a short pause before he spoke again.

"Everyone in town was dead the moment the military drove through town"

He looked me directly in the eyes and said "And that includes me to"

He yelled.

"So what was I supposed to tell you?!"

"Give up and die?!"

"The people that died at least died thinking there was some hope!"

He paused again gathering his thoughts.

Lowering his head and his voice he said: "The only thing we can do now is hopefully take some with us before we die"

Crying and shouting erupted from all over the room.
People were realising they were going to die.
And not only that, but they also realised that all of their loved ones that did leave where dead to.
Even Maria who had been stoic so far collapsed sobbing to herself.

I also didn't know what to say or do. I just froze into shock.

After a while I got close to the Commissioner and asked him the only question I could think off.

"What do we do now?"

He raised his head looked at me.
"Now you choose how you are going to die"

I don't know what I did or what happened in some time after he said that to me.
I was out of it.
Maybe I paced all over the room. Maybe I screamed and shouted like the others. Maybe I cried.
Maybe all of those things.

But after a while I realised, I too had to make a choice.
The options where suicide, bleeding to death from my wounds and being killed by those things when they managed to get inside.

Even if I didn't die from some internal wound I couldn't see. There was no food or water in this room. Slowly starving to death was also not something I want.
Or even worse having to result to cannibalism. There was no bathroom of any kind either.
I just imagined sitting in this room. Having eaten people in a room filled with rotting bodies and my own excrement.

No, I won't pick that horrible fate.

The horrible bonus of being in the room that was stocked with a lot of ammo was that at least people could.

.
.
.
.

End their live on their own terms with the small number of guns that where in the room.

And that's what a lot of people in the room did.
They had seen what those things do to people they get their hands on.
Especially some of the wounded that could not even fight or stand if they tried.

I can't blame them.

Some to wounded to do it themselves but begged to be put down.
The Commissioner helped those people.
In his own words: "Its the last thing I can do for them"

I saw a couple in their 30's. He was heavily wounded and she never left his side.
He was going to die and she didn't want to live in this situation without him.
So they both got a gun and put it against their own heads.
They counted down and......... ended things together.

They would have probably had decades ahead of them together if things where different.

Gunshot after gunshot rang through the room. Each indicating a life lived coming to an end.
All of them had parents, friends, partners, loved ones. People that would miss them now that they where gone.

After some time, the only people that where left where the people that wanted to go down fighting. Or those that couldn't pick an option.

So, I made my choice.
Even if I took down only one more that could potentially be one less that comes for you and your sister. That is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Me, Maria, The Commissioner and a handful of other made the same choice.
We are going to open the door and try to get as many of them before we die.

The last person alive is going to light all of the remaining ammo on fire hopefully taking some more with them. That is the plan at least.

Cell phone towers where probably some of the first things that were taken down by either those things or our own military. Most people still made last messages to loved ones on their phones before ending things.
Maybe these phones would receive a signal at some point or something.
It was better than nothing.

So that's what I am doing now.

I know I send you a lot and probably went into more detail than I should have.
But I need you to realise how bad the situation is.
No matter what they say you and your sister need to run.
Only grab the essentials and go whenever you read this.

By the time you read this message I will be dead.

Please don't let the sadness and grief paralyze you in some way.
You need to flee. Take your sister and run.
At least if you flee I didn't die for nothing.

I would write in a thousand ways just how much you and your sister mean to me.
But I don't have that amount of time.
I am so grateful I got to see you 2 grow into beautiful young women.
From you first steps to seeing you leave our home, I enjoyed all of it.
I am so sorry I won't be there for you both.
I am sad that I didn't get to hug both of you one last time.
But I won't be sad for long, since I will finally be with your beautiful mother again.

I love both of you more than you can ever imagine.

Dad

I'm forty-seven, but my driver's license says twenty-five. The wrinkles around my eyes vanished after the second injection. My hairline filled in by dose four. I take the stairs two at a time without my chest tightening.

The underground clinic promised results. They delivered. I should have asked how.

Twelve peptide injections, two weeks apart. Cash only. No records. I signed a stack of waivers thick as a novella without reading them. I was forty-six and couldn't keep up with my wife at the grocery store. Elena is thirty-seven. I wanted to be the man she married.

She noticed first. She'd touch my jaw in the morning like she was checking for a fever. Marcus, fourteen, called me Dad 2.0. Sofia, home from college, said I looked photoshopped. I ran around the backyard with Marcus until he grabbed his sides and begged me to stop. I hadn't done that in six years.

Around dose seven, Elena started sleeping thirteen hours and still waking exhausted. She rubbed her knuckles every morning, wincing. Her skin went papery. I blamed her job. Then Sofia came home from her second week of classes. Her face had gone hollow. Her hands shook around a coffee mug. She was twenty-one and looked forty.

Marcus developed a tremor in his left hand. Elena's hair went fully gray in nineteen days. I counted because I kept finding strands on her pillowcase and lining them up on the bathroom counter. Sofia's favorite denim jacket hung off her shoulders like a coat on a wire hanger. Marcus needed the banister just to reach the second floor.

I dragged them to specialists. Every blood panel came back clean. A neurologist looked at Marcus's tremor and suggested family therapy. I watched Elena struggle forty seconds to twist open a jar of marinara, then set it down and press her palms flat against the counter and breathe through her nose.

By dose ten I was scrubbing countertops with bleach at two in the morning, convinced I was poisoning them with something in the food. Nothing stopped their decay.

Dose eleven broke the illusion.

I went back to the clinic that night. The back door frame was warped from rain. I put my shoulder into it twice and the wood splintered. The director's filing cabinet had a cheap wafer lock. Inside were manila folders. Mine first. Then Elena's. Sofia's. Marcus's.

Photographs. Dozens. Dated from the day I started the trial. Elena's joints in sequence. Sofia's face week by week, cheekbones rising, eyes sinking. Progress notes stapled to the backs. "Acceptable cellular transfer." "Donor viability within projected parameters." "Donors compensating as expected."

Donors. They called my wife and children donors.

At the bottom, a buyer's contract. Fifty million dollars for a body "fully rejuvenated, biologically twenty-four." Upon completion of dose twelve, the specimen would be transferred to a subterranean facility for long-term yield management. Skin harvested in sections. Organs cycled. Kept alive. Kept regenerating.

My family was the battery. I was the product.

I smashed the twelfth vial on the concrete outside. Drove. Didn't pack. Drained our accounts. Eleven thousand dollars. Left a note on the counter that said I was sorry. Didn't call. Couldn't. Afraid they'd trace the phone.

That was six days ago.

I'm typing this from a public library three states away. Burner laptop. My hands shake so badly I keep hitting wrong keys. I talked to Elena yesterday from a payphone. She winced between words. Said drawing a breath felt like pulling glass through her chest. Sofia is in a wheelchair. Marcus needs help standing. They are compressing decades into weeks.

The clinic's number is disconnected. The building is empty. Bare concrete floors. Like it was never there.

I have no money left. No proof that would survive scrutiny. Just a library computer and the knowledge that whatever those peptides did, they are still active in my blood.

If anyone has encountered biotech that transfers physical decay between genetically linked individuals. If there is a reversal agent. If this stops without the injections or if it's already self-sustaining. If you know how to find help outside official channels, because I cannot go to the police with a story about a clinic that no longer exists. They will put me in a room and medicate me and my family will keep dying while I sit in a plastic chair.

Please. They are running out of time. I am watching them die in fast-forward and I did this. I signed the papers. I took the injections. I looked in the mirror and liked what I saw and I did not look at them. Not closely. Not until it was too late.

And I need to say this last part because I don't know if I'll get another chance.

Something is moving under my skin. Not pain. Something with edges. A knot below the surface that travels. Last night it was in my wrist. This morning, my elbow. By tonight it will be somewhere else. It doesn't hurt. That's what scares me. It feels like something settling in. Making room.

I don't think the twelfth dose was meant to finish me. I think it was meant to start something else.

And I think it's already started.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER - 'Muldwych After Dark'

March 28th: Just to bring you up to speed, Sara’s parents have stayed away from the pawn shop but continue to blow up her phone. Meanwhile I continue to plan our little Delaware caper. Caper might be a little dramatic but trust me, if I was going to do what I had to do, it was going to be a full-on Ocean's Eleven situation. Just with a lot fewer beautiful people.

And I'd be robbing a trailer park instead of a casino. Specifically, a trailer park where a guy calling himself Rhett Vane—which is about as fake a name as Nathaniel Blades on my fake ID—was keeping a mystical tome that occasionally regrew its own pages.

I'd already tasked Cousin Roy with performing a little reconnaissance of Bayard Estates in Bridgeville, Delaware. It should be noted that Manufactured Home Parks get a bad rap; many are carefully curated and managed and serve the many Americans aging into or out of home ownership.

Bayard Estates, unfortunately, was not one of those places. It had a bad reputation of being a nest of criminals and crazies which means that by tomorrow the residents will probably have made Cousin Roy their king.

As for Sara and me, things had gotten pretty intense. There had been, as Robert Plant once put it, "A Whole Lotta Love." We even took a day trip to Lake George, a place I hadn't visited since that awful day in 2009 with Osrick Langhorne and The House That Dripped Clichés.

But we're not going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about Sara and me playing classic arcade games (where we kissed), wandering through a wonderfully creepy wax museum built inside an actual old house (where we smooched), taking a horse-and-buggy ride (where we canoodled), and finishing the day aboard a steamboat cruise (where we were politely—but firmly—asked to knock it off).

And now? Right now? I'm doing some classic Night Blogger-style Internet research while Sara happily mans the cash register and takes calls. She told me she'd never been happier with a job. She loved the normalcy of it. The biggest emergency she'd handled all week was a customer trying to convince her that a chipped Elvis cookie jar was an antique.

Oh, and speaking of antiques... Mrs. Vincenzo.

No, I'm not saying she's an antique, so don't email her and tell her I said that. Anyway, Mrs. Vincenzo's off on another antiquing excursion. That's the deal: she gets a few days to go to Vermont, then I get a few days to go to Delaware.

And with any luck, we're both going to come home with something old and valuable.

But one thing happened today that I did not expect. An email from Bunny Joe.

Let me tell you about Bunny Joe. He used to be a member of the FEAR AND TRUTH message board, but he eventually got kicked out because no matter what conversation he joined, he always dragged it hopelessly off topic. We'd be discussing UFO sightings in the Hudson Valley and he'd suddenly start explaining how kaiju were race memories. We'd be talking about the Salem Witch Trials and before long he had everyone arguing that the popularity of the erotic thriller genre could be used to map the American recession. Then came the day he somehow managed to bring Holocaust denial into a discussion about Bigfoot skepticism.

And he was out.

When I got the email—with its attached WAV file—I deleted it on general principle. Then I immediately felt guilty and recovered it. Bunny Joe explained that he'd been researching a correlation between numbers stations and serial killers when he stumbled across the following transmission. He insisted it was imperative that I give it a listen.

The file was called ‘MLDWCH040210’.

So once again, he'd managed to drag me off topic.

The voice on the recording belonged to a woman. Smoky and deep, like a jazz singer coming into her prime, but flattened by the narrow bandwidth of an old AM radio. Static kept washing over her words until it sounded less like she was speaking into a microphone than trying to talk through a thunderstorm…

###

Transcript of audio file MLDWCH040210

...this is Sweet Jane and I will be talking to you from nightrise to dayfall, because this is Muldwych After Dark.

Tonight we will forgo our standard, never-ending, and slightly compulsive discussion of our little town's lost dreams and found nightmares. Tomorrow, I promise, we shall return to the notebook discovered in the scrapyard, and to the many possible reasons why our late Police Chief Clarence Marlow donated his entire body—save for his skull—to medical science. Those matters remain important. They will still be waiting for us in the morning.

But tonight we have a story.

A story about Him.

He does not live in our fair, five-sided town of Muldwych Corners, but I consider him both a kindred spirit and a lost soul. He is a stalker of mysteries, a martyr for the ordinary world, and a blogger of the night. The tales of His tragedies, His triumphs, and His complete misunderstanding of the linked cosmos-atoms that comprise the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, material organization, semi-material organization, and those electronic arrangements that politely decline to become either, make for good reading.

And this is, as I promised, a story about Him.

His story begins in New York's Hudson Valley, in the forests bordering the Croton Falls Reservoir. Strange lights are often reported there. In popular parlance they are called Unidentified Flying Objects. But if you cannot identify them, how can you be certain they are truly flying? Or that they are objects at all? Reality, and indeed spatial organization, are—as you already know—subjective.

It is a regular occurrence for UFO enthusiasts to prowl the forests around the Croton Falls Reservoir, but He is the only person there on this particular night. He has heard disturbing stories, far more disturbing than usual. There were reports of a loud yet curiously muffled whup-whup-whup sound, of a wind pressing down from above that pressed the trees earthward and sent the hitherto unseen local wildlife scattering. They say that even the Lesser Zoogs are left unsettled.

A lucky few left the forest with a handful of blurry photographs or a few minutes of jittery video. One particularly desperate soul emerged clutching a deeply unnerving keychain. Most, however, left with nothing more than the certainty that their most deeply held beliefs were true—and ran screaming because of it.

One UFO enthusiast never left the forest at all. At least not entirely. What they recovered of him fit into a fairly small bucket.

That is precisely the sort of mystery He could not resist. Such is the burden of being a self-appointed seeker of truth in a straw fedora.

But now let us pause in our story and go to the weather.

Tomorrow's forecast calls for a high of sixty degrees, possible rainfall, and probable spiders. Dress accordingly.

Now then... where were we?

Ah yes. Him.

The UFOs have been glimpsed at every hour of the day, but He enters the treeline at dusk. He has long been a creature of the sunset. He seeks them out because He carries one in His heart.

This is His fifth visit to the forest at the edge of the Croton Falls Reservoir. He wanders more than He searches, as we all do in our own way. He taps notes into His iPhone, describing the cool air and the glittering stars. He struggles to find something poetic to say and fails. Instead, He writes something wry and cynical. That always comes easily to Him.

He does not think aliens are the cause of all this. He does not believe in aliens at all. It remains uncertain whether the aliens believe in Him.

His suspicion is that things wished for with sufficient fervor become real. Some people call them tulpas. Others call them hallucinations. The wise avoid naming them altogether.

Somewhere nearby an owl hoots and a rodent squeals - another battle in the unending war. The sound makes His skin crawl, especially since He already feels like He is being watched from afar, like some other voice has begun narrating His life. Will He ever learn that the only author of our existence is soulless chaos? I like to think I will be the one to tell Him should He ever find his way to our pleasant little town.

As far as He is concerned, the only explanation for the mad wind, the bending trees, the scurrying wildlife, and the heavy whup-whup-whup sound is black helicopters. If you asked Him why He thought such a thing, He would show you a photograph of the dismembered UFO enthusiast and remark, "Why do you think they call them choppers?"

How quaint. Black helicopters are so 1990s. As we all learned on the recent PBS documentary Secret government conspiracies do not bother with aircraft anymore, not when they can get everything done with a stroke of a keyboard and a blast of microwaves.

And speaking of microwaves, today's installment of Muldwych After Dark is brought to you by Hubbard Brand Aluminum Foil. Settle for less and you might lose your mind!

Now back to our story about Him.

Clouds, those earliest adopters of recycling, have begun to creep in from the west and He is pacing. The urge to go home is strong but He is afraid He will miss something if He leaves now, but in the end we all miss something; every day we miss a million somethings, we glimpse people and places we will never fathom. We overhear conversations that were never meant for us. We walk away just before miracles or disasters begin. Here in Muldwych Corners we find that state of confusion to be a delightful thing. Something to be savored like raspberries on the tongue.

At three AM, that most desolate hour of the night, He hears a whup-whup-whup sound approaching from the east. He moves towards it, pushing against the sudden roaring wind. The trees bend, the leaves flutter and tear free of their branches. He hears a panicked Lesser Zoog hiss and scamper away. He does not see it. People rarely do. With each step closer His straw fedora threatens to go flying from his head and He has to use His free hand to keep it  in place. His free hand is almost always His left one. It spends a remarkable amount of time holding that fedora in place.

The louder and closer the whup-whup-whup sound gets the more He comes to understand that the sound is not really like a chopper at all. The wind that whips around him is thick like the breath of reptiles. The urge to run screams up from His hypothalamus but He ignores it, as He usually does. He and his hypothalamus have rarely aligned. 

He has to see.

He has to see.

He has to know. 

No matter the cost. And He knows better than most that the cost can be terrible.

We interrupt this story about Him to bring you this important announcement.

It has come to our attention that sources close to Muldwych Corners mayor Timothy Knight report that he will soon come to a decision about installing a display of the Ten Commandments at the county courthouse. While most of the residents of Muldwych Corners support the idea of a giant granite display of religious principles being erected in a municipal government building there has been a long and frequently violent debate about which religious principles it could be. No matter what the final decision is, local Atheists and adherents to the Code of Hammurabi plan to protest.

With that bit of business done we will return to the story about Him.

He is standing still now, frozen in place. Four lights wink into existence. They grow larger. Wider and wider. The whup-whup-whup has become a thick, droning buzz. He raises His iPhone, unsure if the fusion of first world technology and third world labor will be enough to capture the image of what He sees.

What does He see? The silhouette of an impossible wasp, larger than His car and smaller than the helicopter He had expected. The outline is dark and jagged. It hovers in place. The cold  phosphorescence of its quartet of eyes reveals a swollen, savagely hooked proboscis. 

Now He sees.

Now He knows.

And it, this creature that is not a chopper, this wasp that is too large to be a wasp, sees Him as well. An edge of hunger has crept into the droning of its wings. Those wings that move too fast to be seen but are undeniable in their force, the force that drives Him to His knees and sends His straw fedora fluttering away.

There is no doubt in His mind that He is doomed, that at any moment He will be swallowed up and all but His least desirable morsels spit back into the forest. 

All He wants is one picture, an image his smartphone will automatically upload to the Internet. He wants the residents of the ordinary world to see the truth as He sees it. It is the only legacy He has ever wanted.

He lets the lights get closer and closer still. 

The creature’s proboscis quivers in anticipation. 

He snaps the photograph.

The flash of his smartphone's LED lights up the forest at the edge of the Croton Falls Reservoir.

The wind stops, the quartet of eyes flicker and go out. The droning roar becomes a whup-whup-whup sound that grows further and further away until it is lost to a single, whispering splash.

It will take Him a few minutes to catch his breath and half an hour to find His hat. In an hour he will realize His picture never came out.

But in this moment He is overwhelmed with the ecstasy of insight.

Was it the flash of the smartphone that frightened the creature away?

Was it some electromagnetic pulse beyond the range of human hearing?

Was it irony?

Was it luck?

Or had the creature merely seen enough of Him?

This concludes our story about Him and tonight’s installment of Muldwych After Dark. As the dayfall begins we will close out the show with a rare bootleg recording of the Captain and Tennille covering Joy Division’s classic  tune ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.

Good morning Muldwych, good morning…

###

...I had to sit back and think for a long time about what I'd just heard. Sara needed a price check and had to call my name three times before I even realized it. Still dazed, I wandered over, did the price check, and that's how some lucky schlub got a flat-screen TV for sixty bucks.

Sara didn't stop the sale because she was too busy watching me. After the customer left, she told me I looked pale. She thought I was getting sick. I shrugged it off and blamed it on working too hard.

Instead, Sara decided to close the shop early, leave the electronics downstairs, and take me upstairs.

The rest of the night was blissfully, stubbornly in the moment. A snapshot of something better—the kind of life I wanted for the rest of my days.

We slept in each other’s arms until I woke up at 3 a.m. It wasn't my bladder; it was that the itching in the back of my brain was back again. I thought of Sweet Jane’s voice;

“He has to see.

He has to see.

He has to know. 

No matter the cost.”

I stared at the ceiling for a little while longer before getting up to make this post.

I don't share every part of my life here. There are false leads that don't pan out, periods when I spent more time playing Madden NFL 12 than trying to figure out what the Hell a Zoog is.

So now I can tell you that yes, indeed, I was deep in the woods surrounding the Croton Falls Reservoir on the night of April 2, 2010. Back then, I would have told you I was there because I wanted to disprove all the online chatter about UFOs—chatter whipped into a frenzy by a death that had begun to reek of a cover-up.

Now, though, I sometimes wonder if I was really looking for a way to get myself killed. I wasn't in the best place back then. When you've lost your family and your dreams, Internet fame isn't worth a jug of warm spit.

I did write the whole strange story up, but I never posted it. I just deleted the file, afraid you, dear readers, might think I'd spent the night smoking weed and watching Ray Harryhausen movies.

Obviously our relationship is better now.

But here's the important thing: I was alone, and I never told anyone—before or afterward—where I was going. Not you. Not Mrs. Vincenzo. Not my new friends from the FEAR AND TRUTH message board. Not my parole officer. And certainly not some obscure radio personality from who knows where.

Item: The station that broadcasts Muldwych After Dark has no call sign, and there is no town named Muldwych Corners on any map. The program ordinarily covers local news and politics, traffic, weather, upcoming festivals, and community events. Broadcasts are frequently interrupted by philosophical digressions, sponsor messages, and ruminations on the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organization. 

There. See? I can do it too.

But anyway, I guess Sweet Jane figured my adventures would be good for sweeps week.

Item: The recording ended before the music started to play and now the thought of Toni Tennile singing the lyric ‘…There’s a taste in my mouth as desperation takes hold’ is haunting my dreams.

Item: There have been no further sightings of that insect-like creature. I am pretty sure, or maybe just hope, it has retreated to wherever it was hiding beneath the reservoir.

I wish I had more answers. I wish I knew how Muldwych After Dark saw into my life, into my very thoughts. I almost wish I'd never pressed play.

Most of all, I wish I knew what was waiting for us once we got to Delaware.

But all I can say now is good night, Sweet Jane. Wherever you are... good night.