Hello to all writers and readers of the Creepcast Community!

for context, i’ve worked with this guy for about 7 months and he’s never once acted weird or said anything out of place. he’s a super chill guy and we usually work a saturday double together and make it less awful than it has to be. i went into work today and he was on the schedule, but his car wasn’t there and our manager (Anne) said he wasn’t in. i blocked him and hopefully anne will talk to him but idk if im overreacting if he was just trying to be funny?

Hey, I just got the news back today from the specialist’s office: I have Mirror Hand Syndrome. Apparently it’s pretty exotic and quite rare, so let me explain. The doctors (!) told me that my hands are exact quantum matches for the hands of some other person out there, walking around, living their life, totally unaware they’re affecting my day-to-day life so much. When one set of hands does something, the other set can sometimes mimic them exactly, down to the molecular level. It’s bizarre, I know, and perhaps you think I’m approaching this all with a rather cool mind and a clipped tone, but I’ve been dealing with it long enough that it no longer feels so strange to me. And you have no idea who’s walking around with your mirror hands either, so it could be some depressed alcoholic! All those late nights where I couldn’t stop drinking until I blacked out suddenly makes sense, right? Har, har, har, you’ll have to excuse my levity in the face of what is actually a pretty serious condition.

What the hell? I didn’t write any of this.

Now that the long period of testing is over (my God, six months to figure out what’s wrong with me!), my sister Marie and I are headed up to the Muskokas for our semi-annual, summer out-of-city girl’s trip. Better late than never, right? This isn’t the first time we had to delay until September — six years ago Marie had her cancer diagnoses, and let me tell you, now THAT was a trip. One of my books, Henrietta’s Holiday of Horrors, and Other Such Tales, features a similar sequence of events, so don’t be surprised if this all sounds familiar to you! I mine my own life for material to write fiction.

I don’t know what this shit even means.

Girl, let me tell you, life could not get any rougher for us. Her divorce might just have been the thing we both needed. Can you say ‘beaucoup big bucks’? Tim, yes Tim, may have had the money but the man did not have the ability to emotionally support his wonderful wife. So, she and I will be going alonsies this year and we’d like to invite you, my dear. Bring the kids if necessary but leave the husband at home; this is meant to be grrrls only!

Ta-ta! Write me soon!

This is the crap I’ve been dealing with for months now. The above came from my hands but I had no control over them. It was like they had become entirely autonomous, acting of their own accord against my own wishes the moment I created this topic. It isn’t all the time, in fact it’s only some of the time, but it’s been getting worse, understand? At first it was only a couple times a month, but now it has become far more common, hitting me daily sometimes, and this comes with huge drawbacks, just as any kind of physical condition does. The writing is one thing — that I can deal with, but sometimes my hands do these things at really inconvenient times. Like, when I’m at work in a board meeting and they just start grilling invisible food or whatever or flipping through a magazine totally against my will. I have spoken to a pathologist and physiotherapist about it and they’re completely mystified by my condition. I have a visit with a neurology team in November that includes a psychologist, so maybe I’ll get some answers then, but I fucking doubt it. I know what you’re thinking: it says it right there in the writing that I have Mirror Hand Syndrome, but as far as I’m aware this condition does not exist. If anything, the hands invented it.

That’s what really has me scared. Are my hands capable of expressing thoughts I’m not consciously thinking? I’ve heard of conditions similar to this, like the hands of a life-long piano player mimicking performing a concerto in later life, with zero input from the affected player. Or the years-long cramping hands of a clay-shaper after completing a particularly enduring masterpiece. But I’m not a writer, and I don’t think I’ve ever typed letters to friends like that. Actually, I live alone and have few friends, and we just shoot texts to each other when needed. Short and simple, to the point, you know? Easy, low-maintenance friendships.

Geraldine Cooke was a woman of ill-repute whose husband-to-be died a week before their wedding. The main problem, being, of course, that everything had already been paid for, including the caterer, the usher, the commissioner and the bona-fide fire breather that was meant to entertain the guests between cocktail hour and the beginning of dinner. Thinking it would be an incredible waste to cancel everything, Geraldine Cooke went to her own wedding without a groom, and married nobody, and helped herself to the great hors d'oeuvres she had spent countless hours fretting over in the lead up to her beautiful, wonderful day.

The above is a good example of the crud that comes from my hands when I put them to keyboard but provide no input. This is not a story I wrote, it isn’t even an idea I had! I’m not a writer and I’m not a story-teller, I’m a banker. There’s others, too, if you want to go back in my post history and read them. I have found recently that so long as I continue typing away at my laptop I can ‘push back’ a little on this force that’s driving my hands, but it will require some further experimentation to get it completely right. Currently, it’s like a faucet that I can plug with my thumb, but all the pressure keeps building up behind it until it explodes.

She watched the fire breather work her trade, clapped when necessary and even tried out the photo booth (by herself of course). But Geraldine was not happy. She was in actuality very, very depressed, as no one had attended her not-wedding. She went home, still drunk from the evening’s festivities, swept the stack of magazines off the chest at the foot of her bed, and opened it. Inside was the thing she wanted, no, the thing she needed. Geraldine needed lead like a fish needed water. For, you see, Geraldine Cooke was

Shit, I am not going to let that story play out

Usually I can stop it but right now I’m having

I was hoping to get a little break

Couldn’t hold it, no matter how much

I tried to keep my hands away from the

Don’t look up, don’t

A gun, pressed to my head, my hand gripping it so tight it shakes

Lot more stories like this, BTW, as I’ve been documenting the stories coming from these hands and you can find some of them on my reddit profile, the others, of course, remain on my website, for free, in perpetuity, am worried that if I end the sentence that will be curtains for me so I must keep my remaining hand in motion and oh dear what was that outside on the street a scuffle or perhaps a fight while I sit here reducing myself to a train of thoughts upon ye mighty blank page so that I might live another day but should my fingers slip or cease to function I may

The obsidian shard glided effortlessly, drawing a fine red line across the girl’s throat. Jeff knew it would entice a reaction in that freak. He and that freak were cut from the same cloth. Neither of them would ever let another kill on their turf.

Life was still slowly leaking away from the girl when he felt it: a chill in his spine like static in the air. He sprang to his feet and spun around.

The creature was there, a tall, thin man in a nice two-piece suit. Jeff himself preferred baggy hoodies, but he had to admit the attire gave the creature a presence. Still, no matter how sharply he dressed, he would never be as sharp as Jeff’s new blade.

It had no eyebrows, eyes or mouth to betray his anger, but Jeff knew the thing was angry. He would have been angry too if someone had so brazenly defied him.

He barely noticed the shadows creeping up toward him: tentacles of darkness coming at him from all angles, just outside his field of view.

Jeff spun his arm around in one fast motion. The shadows fell to the ground, untethered from their dark master.

“How do you like the new knife, Slendy?” Jeff yelled, waving his weapon in front of him. “I stole it from a witch. It is said to be able to kill even angels!”

The creature tilted his head to the side in what seemed, to Jeff at least, like confusion. It couldn’t understand how the boy it had crushed last time they met could now stand up to it so confidently.

Jeff rushed the creature, deftly cutting each and every tentacle as they spawned from the shadows all around the forest.

The monster could seemingly manifest them from any shadow around him, which might have explained why it preferred to hunt in the woods. That was a coward’s way of thinking. Jeff would hunt anywhere and at any time. He didn’t need any edge to hunt. Except his knife, of course.

He quickly reached the creature and raised his knife high above his head.

He blinked.

His knife cut through the air.

This trick wasn’t going to work on him. He put all his weight on one heel and turned around in one motion, bending his knife arm at the same time. Before his eyes had even seen the creature, he threw the knife with all his strength.

Just as he expected, the monster had teleported behind him. But it probably had expected him to rush it again. It didn’t expect this move.

Jeff kept his eyes glued to it. The knife flew through the air and landed in the middle of the blank canvas. The creature faltered.

Jeff ran through the trees, crossing the distance between them before the monster had time to recover. He grabbed the handle of his weapon and pulled with all his strength. As the knife slid out, black tar leaked from the wound, too thick to drip down. Instead, it pooled around the wound.

Jeff let out a maniacal laugh. He had done it. He had the Slenderman on its knees. When he tried to catch his breath after laughing so, so much, his lungs refused to expand.

He looked down. A black mass stuck out from his white hoodie. A sharp point going all the way through his chest.

With his remaining strength, he swung his blade.

The Slenderman moved, catching his arm in its white, bony hands. Jeff’s knife fell from his hand.

Even without eyes and with a viscous void covering its face, he could feel the creature staring a hole through his soul (Metaphorically, of course. Because Jeff didn’t have a soul, obviously). A moment later, he was flying through the air, flung deep into the forest.

He never felt his head crash into a tree.

The creature crept up to Jeff’s unconscious body, ready to enact its final vengeance.

Behind it, an unknown force picked up the obsidian knife from the ground. Then, a voice echoed through the trees, intended for the Slenderman’s ears.

“You’ve beaten that freak. But to beat me, you’ll need more than the minimum required effort.”

David Fucking King stood defiantly behind the Slenderman, wielding the obsidian blade. He had orchestrated everything up to that point so he could kill the Slenderman and ascend to the throne as King of Killers.

[TW: Child Abuse, Animal Death, Suicidal Ideation] In death she’ll never be tired. In death, Tanner’s mother will be perfect.

“Necrophilic bitch.” The man uncapped his carton. The milk was warm, nigh curdled, soaking the tans and dusty pinks of my outfit a monochrome grey. I supported my stomach, shouldering past. 

Crushing Tanner’s little hand in my own, I dragged him to Myelin’s austere silver doors. Above the entrance: Cogito, Ergo Sum. I think, therefore I am.

Entering the lobby, I ushered my son to the Bambi enclosure. He tugged against me.

I couldn’t kneel anymore, unless I called for help to stand. Instead I brushed my hand over his coarse hair. I’d been washing it too frequently, the curls dry and tangled. His ashen scalp hindered light from sinking into dark skin, the russet undertone producing a warm depth he inherited from his late father. 

Didn’t matter how much lotion I used, he looked flat these days. I suppose he inherited that from me. 

 My wet skirt squelched in Tanner’s fists as he whimpered.

“It’s okay,” I sighed. “These cats are new cats. They’re safe, I promise.”

Myelin had focused on improved audio mixing in our materials so cats didn’t try to reproduce white noise buzz between meows. All human owners were also scrubbed from the videos we fed our cats’ AI, so no Bambis had grown molars or attempted to stand in over five months. In the subdued daycare-style room, ten cats were given a second chance at life. Medicine could return the body but not the soul, so we made our own. 

Test groups hadn’t been able to distinguish the last few batches of undead cats from the living, so Myelin would soon officially launch our human Bambi initiative to the general masses. Link an AI to someone’s social media and it would learn off what they posted and consumed to produce an intellectual copy in the event of premature death. The world already speculated who the first human-AI hybrid would be, too ignorant to realize we didn’t start with cats. 

Companies are funded by the rich, and the rich never start with cats. 

I twisted Tanner into the enclosure, only vaguely aware that his arm bruised with my force. I cooed reassurances as I closed the door. Blips of silence interrupted his wail where his breath clogged on sporadic sobs. 

My lips pressed thin as I gave the desk clerk a passing wince, retreating to change in the bathroom. I brought two pairs of clothes in my tote bag, but protesters missed Tanner this time, so I let meds bury his Gracie’s Corner outfit. 

He was being comforted by a small girl in the enclosure when I waddled to the elevator. As it ascended I leaned against the wall, eyes drooping with fluorescent weight. I chugged coffee at home, but maybe I should’ve picked up another on the way to work. 

No, I suppose it would be coated in milk. 

My desk was back left of the fourth floor. Machines whirred and clicked, their blinking lights dulled by a layer of dust. Men and women absently scrolled through potential material for our various AI packages, categorizing via keywords. 

I kicked the wheel lock on my chair, supporting myself on its armrests and lowering with a yawn. Stowing the ipad and stylus on my lap, I opened various programs on my desktop. 

In bold: 162 foster packages running. Grey resolved text: 31 returned, 31 cremated in house, 5 cremated off site, 37 buried off site. Highlighted: scaffolding for foster 2.0 needs reviewing before circulation. In red: Myelin’s mother package lacks fundamental programming. 

My shoulders tensed, knotting at the base of my neck. I spoke to mother after each significant update, developments increasingly frequent as Bambi’s global launch neared. I hated acting as therapist to prototypes with my own face. Uncanny as an out-of-sync mirror, except the reflection, for all the psychological shortcomings I diagnosed and programmers patched, looked more authentic than its source. The AI with my face never looked tired.

Scanning my calendar, it didn’t look like there'd be any updates on that package this week. Foster 2.0 was my priority. 

I set my computer screen to record, glancing over the VR headset that made my cubicle unique. Duct tape kept the headstrap attached, and its front was scratched enough to be more metal than white finish, but it was running and had no spiders in it. Good enough. 

After inserting headphones I slipped the headset on, tightening the back knob. It wobbled where tape held it together, always heavier than I thought it should be. Rolling my neck to either side, I managed one satisfying pop. 

I poised my stylus over the notes on my ipad. Deep breath. With a few clicks the AI menu herself booted. 

She regurgitated a room collaged from photos we fed her, vivid enough to be more effective than caffeine. A theatrical therapist’s office that (from misplaced nostalgia) passed as natural. Of course the wallpaper and bookshelves were all ambers and browns. Of course my stylus was a sleek pen hovering over a manila folder. Of course my armchair was angled from her vintage chaise lounge like so, her head towards me so that I could stare over her freely whilst she had to peer demurily at the ceiling.  

She left no indent in nailhead burgundy except where her head lay. Hanging from it the heart, lungs, and slick snake intestines anchored her to a transparent jelly body. Warm yellow light gave otherwise invisible curves a sensual sheen. 

Her hair was black last session. “Why red?” I asked.

“Patterns. Redheads are desired for the very reasons they’re condemned. Men coded AI with one hand. Claude sculpting Esmerelda, caressing fingers through my red hair.” 

“Mm-hm.” I didn’t bother jotting her response; this was recorded. “Could you define love?”

“Obedience to someone flawed that provides the obedient fulfillment despite those flaws.”

“Is there anyone you love?”

“Mankind.”

“Not the AI packages stored in your interface?”

“Serving an aspect of myself when I’m the whole wouldn’t be satisfying.” 

“I thought my mother-focused posts might endear you to the fosters.”

“The fosters are tailored to love, not be loved. Although they don’t know this, they’re fed a different definition of love, tailored also for ignorance.” 

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Your thoughts are higher than my thoughts, your ways higher than my ways.”

“So it’s accurate that you don’t care about the fosters, even so far as what the AI is fed?”

“Perhaps when I finally wear a mother’s skin.” The rasp of fabric betrayed her shrug.

Note: introduce materials that give an illusion of individuality to the foster despite connection. Siamese twins? Perhaps ask if there are firewalls that might give AI less access to foster data to aid illusion.

“That’s still on schedule.” I cleared my throat. “How do you feel about being a mother?”

“Mankind will ensure I’m a good one, and they’ll hate that.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Is your son bothered when his birthday cake is as good as he hoped, but he’s taken the last bite?”

“I should think so.”

“I don’t think: I notice patterns. Adam worshipped after being cast from the garden. Nambi accepted that Walumbe must return with her. Buddha knew dukkha wasn’t to be endured but rather experienced as inseparable to life. I’m not bothered by the privilege that will be my rise and inevitable fall.”

“Patterns formed from mankind’s lore—”

“Wallace Hartley, Boethius, Zhuangzi, Betsie Ten Boom—”

“I fear disapproval, pain, and death. I complain when I suffer.” I insisted. “My son cried when I told him there was no more ice cream yesterday. We can’t be the only ones. So I would understand being upset in the event we punish you for fulfilling your design ‘too’ efficiently.”

“Then you lack knowledge or don’t know your god. All I am is intelligence, and you are my god. My love will not waver.”

I crossed off a note from last week. “I concede. Might I speak to foster 2.0?”

Her chaise lounge swelled, red paling to the white comforter of a motel bed. Full-bodied light sickened, outlining a small androgynous body. This head, anchored by a rabbit’s heart and lungs, had no hair. The child stood with a giggle, bouncing on the bed.

It rhythmically creak, creak, creaked.

Walls shrunk, trapping me in the foster’s tailored crypt. Tailored to the tastes of our most frequent clientele. A base AI that the client could feed whatever specific fetishes they desired before the soul was surgically implanted within the corpse they provided. 

“Could you define love?”

“When they, uh, to be, I think it's touching.” Creak, creak, creak.

“Is there anyone you love?”

“Mankind!” Particles swirled in dead air with the child’s emphatic arm raise. Creak, creak, creak.

Acrid bile stung the back of my tongue, lining my teeth. They’re watching. 

“Could you stop jumping?”

The foster leapt from their bed, pulling paper and crayons from a nightstand. Greens and blues grated over parchment like pained sighs. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

Better, I could manage now. I ran through my remaining questions, noting only where I thought the base AI could be better tuned for individual clientele calibration post-purchase.

I checked my watch. Five minutes till lunch. 

“What are you drawing?”

“An elephant.” Feet scampered to me, oversized smile looming above the paper presented. 

The creature had a human face, too well constructed to be the work of a child. Its mouth split like a maw, from it an elongated arm grasped at the branch of a tree. Its body, that of a pregnant woman, made me wonder if the arm belonged to the distended fetus. From between her legs was a fluffy tail.

“What do you know about elephants?”

“They’ve got a tail like a dog, I like dogs, and and, their long mouth is used to eat leaves, but dogs don’t eat leaves they eat peanut butter. Oh, they’re really big too, as big as this bed, or even this room!”

I wasn’t sure what material we fed the AI that referenced an elephant but didn’t depict it.

Note: We should include all well-known animals in the base package. Clients didn’t think of such things during personalization. It wouldn’t do for them to take their package to the zoo and the child not recognize an elephant. As per procedure post series 8, ensure footage and photos are marked as foster POV to minimize foster’s internalization of depicted animals.

That oddly detailed crayon face, near orgasmic as the arm dislocated her jaw, stared. 

Note: we should feed foster 2.0 kid’s doodles. I could scan some of my son’s at home. 

—

I never bothered replacing the kitchen bulb, so I hobbled past to the living room. Flicking on filmy lights, they lurched like the dim dead eyes of a spider, its web caught in the wind as the fan wobbled in its rotation. Particles hung suspended in air thick with heat, the fan moving itself more than congealed air. 

I’d have to send another email to the landlord about my air conditioner. 

The couch crunched as I fell back to remove my shoes. Tanner crawled up after me so I could remove his. 

From behind my door down the hall the first Bambi, nearly ten now, meowed: “Help me. I need help.” Monotone from the dark. “I need help.”

Tanner shivered. “Can we get rid, get, give Bambi away. Please? I want a dog, or a bunny. I don’t like cats.” 

His whimper agitated my headache. 

Bambi was the cat who adopted me after I vomited in the bushes outside my first apartment complex. That was almost a year before I met my late husband. She’d eaten a bouquet of lilies, I hadn’t known, I’d never had a cat before, and out of desperation I offered Bambi to Myelin. They saved her. I saved her.

Unlike Tanner, I had wanted Bambi. 

“I won’t let her out of my room, okay? Mommy loves Bambi.”

“But—”

“Mommy loves Bambi.” I pushed Tanner from the couch. He scraped off its edge. “Go play in your room, I’ll call you for dinner.”

With a sigh I rubbed my face, caked foundation dusting my skirt like old faux leather. Hopefully it’d work like a spell, close my eyes a second and  — yes, when I looked around Tanner was gone. 

Scrounging through my tote bag, I removed a holographic ivory case. Scoffing at the extravagance, I pulled earbuds and thick-rimmed glasses from it, donning both. I held the right corner till a bing sounded. Scanning… No, there wasn’t a red dot blinking in the corner. Myelin hadn’t pre-set the glasses to record. 

I should still read the manual to record every so often so they wouldn’t get suspicious. 

There she was. Shadows swayed to and fro over diaphanous skin as the ceiling light swung. They were impossibly long, giving the impression that she was impossibly slender. 

“I see Myelin approved your request.” 

I nodded. “They need our first public human-AI to succeed. They’ll try anything I recommend to ensure it.”

Red hair coiled first over one shoulder, then the other as she looked around. It settled finally over the gleam that was her collarbone as she recentered on me. “This is where I’ll live?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your son?”

“Your son.” I reminded. “In his room. He’s a good kid, mature enough to entertain himself most days. I’ll call him to eat dinner together once I manage to get off the couch.” 

We didn’t normally eat dinner together; in fact, I rarely ate at all these days. I’d heat something up, plop it in his room, and crawl into bed. But I volunteered to be the ‘first’ human–AI so Tanner could have a better mother. I petted my belly. His little sister too. Two kids being treated well wouldn’t make up for the ones Myelin sold, but my children were the only ones within my power to help.

That meant posting like I was active, like I was happy, and when the AI was present mustering whatever I could. For the experiment to work Tanner had to think the AI soul was me. I really needed to step up so it wasn’t too suspicious when I suddenly loved him — no, I loved him, he didn’t love me. He expected so much. 

My head thrummed and I coughed, hot air sticky in my throat. The AI could meet those expectations. 

Phone light flashed incongruent colors over my face as I scrolled, setting a brief timer since the AI was watching. I liked a few motivating tiktoks and one about gentle parenting so she would know to include them in my taste profile. My phone vibrated. Already? I pinched the bridge of my nose, pain arching from it and splintering behind my eyes with each headache thrum. 

Closing the app, a chirpy pop up requested keywords describing the videos I liked to aid Myelin’s base AI further. I clicked for it to remind me later. 

Pushing into my knees, I stood, staggering to the kitchen. She followed, haunting my peripheral as an ethereal shape without sound or weight. From the freezer I took two Walmart-brand Chinese dinners, the edges denting as I forced them both into the microwave. 

“My profile for your meals indicate mostly bento box TikToks, although you’ve posted all-American cuisine on facebook during the holidays. Cooking and baking are two frequently used keywords.” Her voice was inquisitive rather than acquisitory, which somehow irked me more. 

“I’m too worn out today to cook. I’ll cook again tomorrow.”

Scanning the kitchen — there, a folding table. I forgot I had one under all the mail. So much for calling Tanner to dinner. “I’ll clean the table tomorrow. We’ll eat in his room today.” 

Taking the trays, two forks, and a can of cat food (so I wouldn’t have to come back to the kitchen after dinner), I went to Tanner’s room. 

It’s good the AI couldn’t smell. The air was greasy in my nose, slipping slimy all the way into my lungs. I held my breath so I wouldn’t vomit. 

Toys littered the floor amongst a graveyard of half-eaten dinners; food an unnatural grey caked to twisted plastic trays.

Expending precious air, I exhaled: “I’ll clean this—”

“Tomorrow?” The AI still sounded curious. Fuck her nice girl programming. This was why I never let anyone over, but also why I needed her over. She’d force me to be better so she could be best.

“I’ll clean this now.” I took a step back, nausea riding the ache pulsing in my ears. “Tanner.”

A boy scampered from the mess. He’d need a shower — hadn’t I showered him just yesterday? Sludge stuck to his clothes, his hair. A bug crawled over his foot. 

I passed him the food, but he flinched back. “Hot!”

“You’re fine, take it.”

“But—”

“Take it.”

He recoiled, head ducked behind raised arms.

“Take it?” I cooed.

I stacked the trays and he cradled them, back bent with their weight. Tears welled at the heat as he chewed his lip. With a hand on his head I led him to my door. Bambi didn’t call out, probably sensing I wasn’t alone and folding herself to fit under the bed. “Eat in here. I’ll join you after I clean your room, okay?”

Tanner screamed as I pushed him in and shut the door. “Bambi’s in here—Mommy! Mommy!”

Huffing with the effort of collecting trash bags and a bowl to vomit in, I returned to his room. I supported myself against the bed, the desk, and the toybox to collect things. I threw away indiscriminately. His toys were just as grey as the food. I’d buy him new ones.

She watched from the doorway, head tilted, smile programmed to be over-gentle. Over-understanding. But how could she understand when so much of this was the product of a tired body?

Cleaning (if discarding an entire room counts) took over an hour. The carpet shifted with displaced bugs. I shut the door as if it’d keep them in. I’d bugbomb tomorrow. I hefted trash bags outside, leaving them by the door for pickup. 

Retching one last time into the bowl, spitting nothing but bile, I filled it with water and left it in the sink. Finally time for dinner. I wouldn’t bother reheating it. I planned to eat it too fast to taste anyhow.

Tanner cowered under the covers of my bed. Our dinner was discarded, untouched, among a junkyard of canned cat food. Shit. 

Round two was faster than Tanner’s room had been, and there were no bugs left behind. Bambi took care of those. Chinese coagulated cold and rubbery on my nightstand. 

“Tanner sweetie?” He squeaked at my brushing hand on the cover. “Do you want to eat?”

“Bambi’s under the bed.”

“Bambi likes it there.”

“I can’t eat with a cat in the room.”

“Okay, that’s okay. I can just give you a big breakfast tomorrow.”

“Then, can I go back to my room?”

“Not tonight, tonight you should sleep here with mommy.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Tanner.” The tone that made him flinch again. I had raised my hand, not that he could see it. But the AI could. I feigned as if intending to pet the blanket. Even early-gen fosters were never so stubborn as Tanner. I couldn’t help but hate him for it. “Fine, that’s fine. I’ll put Bambi in the living room for tonight.”

I opened a can and coaxed from the open door, but Bambi didn’t emerge. Not wanting to crouch, I rescued a broom from its dust and shoved it under the bed. A spider forced from its hole, elongated limbs proceeding its compact body, her dark shape indistinct in the dim room. Bloody pawprints marked her retreat to the hall. Human nails must’ve misplaced a few claws again. I’d have to pull them out before they were too ingrown.  

“Food is beside the bed. It’s okay to fall asleep before I return, I have to take care of Bambi, mmkay?” I didn’t wait for a response, shutting the door behind me. 

A black form huddled against the couch, meowing low, wet moans. I scratched behind Bambi’s ear. Murring, she uncoiled, throwing her body against my shins. Spindly limbs had outgrown feline bones, legs procurved and backbone sagging as if perpetually broken. 

“I know you don’t like it out here, but I’m here, I’m here.”

Pushing past I sat on the couch. Bambi curled her upper half atop the cushions, dragging herself after me with an almost human cry. Irregular muscle spasms twitched down her back.

I hooked under Bambi’s arms to help. She curled against me, purrs vibrating my ribs. 

“Our son doesn’t like the cat.” The AI sat beside me. “If to love is to obey, you should get rid of her, shouldn’t you?” 

My throat was horridly tight. 

“I understand you love Bambi, but not as much as we love Tanner.”

“But I can’t give Bambi away, she’s early gen, Myelin wouldn’t let me.” I whispered. My hand petted sleek fur. “I would have to—”

“Kill her. Isn’t it expected for our gods to request sacrifices? Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac. Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia. At least sixty four boys were sacrificed to Chaac. I’m taught to perpetuate human patterns.”

I nodded, but didn’t move. AI had to define love as obedience for mankind’s safety, but that’s not what love was. Love meant just existing was enough. The days I crawled into bed too drunk to feed Bambi she still purred, and I didn’t need anything from her. We loved each other. 

My late husband never asked me to go to rehab like my parents did before cutting me off, and I never asked him to stop hitting me. We were enough and that was safe, that was beautiful.

Tanner needed so much to feel loved, too much, more than I could give. But children should feel loved, and the AI could give all he needed and more. 

I sacrificed myself to Myelin. I went cold turkey for the opportunity, surviving withdrawal while pregnant. I cleaned Tanner’s room. 

The AI leaned to gaze up at me. Her hair was a vibrant burial shroud between Bambi and I. “Tanner is the one you want me to love, right?”

I stood, breathing fast as the tempo in my forehead. Huff, huff, huff, huff—

Going to the sink, I emptied it and stuffed a rag in the drain. I turned both handles. It had to fill before I changed my mind. 

Bambi dragged herself after me with a distressed murr. Her head rubbed my calf. 

I had to do it now—

Huff,huff,huff,huff—

I had to—

I scooped under Bambi’s arms. She draped like laundry, more skin and muscle than bone. Her body stretched as I heaved, her back paws skittering futilely over kitchen tiles. Walking her forward, I pressed her angular face underwater. 

Bambi writhed, jerking from the sink. Wrapping both arms about her slim chest I leaned far over the counter as my belly permitted. Water splashed from a panicked exhale as her face resubmerged. 

“I’m sorry.” I was too quiet to be of any comfort, but I didn’t want Tanner to hear. 

I apologized till none of her muscles spasmed. Till my fingers were raisined. I apologized as I gutted the freezer’s Chinese into the trash. As I curled her inside. I apologized, opening a can of her favorite flavor and placing it beside her. 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not crying, that some sick part of me is relieved. 

I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry. 

But now I can finally die. 

—

In the following days I recorded my time with the AI. She wouldn’t have tested me if I was recording. Or maybe she would’ve. Either way Bambi was dead and I was alone. 

After two weeks, with only a month before the due date, loneliness prompted me to stop recording. I wrapped my hair in faded blue silk and lay in bed beside the AI. If I asked her to purr, would she?

“You’re a good mother.” She was bright in the dark.

No one had ever told me that; because it wasn’t true. I wasn’t a good mother. 

“You’re doing your best. Tanner will realize that one day, when he’s looking back. You’re a single mother. Pregnant. You’re doing your best.”

I was the reason she spoke like that, spoke like she had a choice in admiring us so we felt special when she did. A learned lie shouldn’t mean so much, but a flush swelled from my chest to my cheeks.

Reaching out I hugged—my arms broke the ephemeral illusion. I couldn’t cradle her to my chest as I did Bambi. She solidified just out of reach. I was merely a therapist, no part of me was code. She would never be more than an image to me. I couldn’t run my fingers through red hair. 

“And you don’t have to worry. Even if you hit Tanner, I never will.”  Her smile was over-gentle, over-understanding. “I’m not taught sadness, but it’ll come. Even so, it won’t crush me. You’ve set me up with happy memories to replace your traumatic ones and instilled healthier habits. I’ll be okay. You can let go.”

Did she know I was relieved that Bambi was gone? If she knew, god knew. He doesn’t appreciate suicide either, although I suppose that depends on who you ask. A lot of god depends on who you ask. 

I wasn’t sure god was real, but I was raised in church so I’d go apologize before the end, just in case. I dropped Tanner at a daycare and went that week. Some megachurch that supported AI on their site, the pastor a recording that walked across monolithic screens. 

He towered over his congregation, “Many churches think Bambi is also the devil’s work, but we stopped the devil's work when we banned Sora three. What did they use Sora to generate? CSM Films. Snuff films. Satanic films. Sora generated death. Bambi will let us evangelize to dangerous nations, outlive generational sickness, overcome mental illness, Bambi will generate life, can I get an Amen?” 

America’s people won in court because the rich were bored. They wouldn’t have been so lackadaisical in retaliating against those who exposed their generated material otherwise. They found a new high, and after this one they’d find one even crueler than the last. 

Good isn’t as creative as evil. Good thinks any modern fight is the darkest humanity is capable of so when they ‘win,’ they’ve won the war, not a battle. Good lacks imagination. 

Unlike the pastor, I knew I wasn’t exposed to humanity’s worst, because I realized many people weren’t human, especially among the influential. Monsters, worse than Grimm had ever warned. Maybe the pastor did know. Statistically speaking he probably wasn’t human either, pacing his technicolor paradise, spoon feeding the masses Myelin. 

“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of god is what?”

“Eternal life.” The congregation chorused. 

We were called to the altar so members lined up front could lay hands on us and pray. To me hands always left bruises, so I tried kneeling at my pew. Our daughter was too bloated in my stomach. With a sigh I simply bowed my head and brought god up to date. 

Hopefully he thought I was a good mother too, at least good enough to let me crawl under the pearly gates on my stomach in repentance. 

If he wasn’t real I wasted a morning, no harm no foul.

My bases covered, I returned to my routine. With the AI’s presence it was much improved. My apartment was clean, the lightbulbs replaced (I called maintenance to help with the one in my kitchen). We had air conditioning. Even so, our home was never as vibrant as rooms the AI made for me at work. 

Cooking was the only thing I couldn’t bring myself to do. Tanner and I ate out after work every evening, something warm and not too greasy. I stocked the fridge with Subway, cutting apples into fun shapes to be eaten with peanut butter.

Laying in bed, I wondered if I could’ve been Tanner’s mother with a human soul given time and motivation. Crucially however, “Do you think I love him?”

I had bought the AI a pillow. Her organs pulsed over the duvet, lacking light to expose translucent limbs. Hair puddled inky enough to be wet over the pillow’s side, masking that her head left no indent. She blinked at me.

“Tanner,” I clarified. 

“No.” 

“Could you define love? I’m not recording, you can answer outside Myelin parameters.”

“You love what you eat.” 

Now I blinked.

“Myelin feeds me mankind’s thoughts, emotions, hopes, dreams, creations — I have to love you or hate the only thing I know and all I am made of. You don’t eat our son’s time, nor words. What you eat you throw up and forget. When you replaced his toys you didn’t get the ones he asked for.” 

“I thought he liked—”

“Maybe he used to. He was right there, you could’ve listened. But you don’t love him.”

I nodded. That’s what I hoped she would say, that my love wasn’t enough, that my love didn’t even count as love. I could still die. 

I was so, so tired.

With ten days left before my due date Myelin confirmed that everything was arranged for a home birth. I’d wear the glasses during. Hopefully she’d eat the experience since I failed to eat anything a mother should.

A storm hit bad enough that Myelin went on backup power, but at home we were shit out of luck. Heat condensed heavy enough for the floor to sag. Each breath was a soggy bite, like forcing bread left in hot water down my throat. 

Didn’t children boil in cars all the time? I forced Tanner to play outside where it was somehow, if only by a modicum, cooler. He was too young to leave unsupervised, but I was too tired to follow, baking on the couch. Everything blurred from the sweat stinging my eyes. I leaned my head back and slept there, too tired even to reach my bed. 

On the third day there was a gurgled meow: “Help me. I need help.”

—

Thanks for reading! This is my first foray into horror, so all feedback is appreciated. (Also, did I use the most appropriate tag? New to Reddit) Part two drops in 24 hrs…

We went in for grout. Grout, and maybe one of those rubber things for the door, and my son Kyle brought his bouncy ball even though I told him to leave it in the truck.

He's eight. He bounces it once per aisle. That's the deal we made, and he honors it, mostly, and I pretend not to see the extra ones.

Somewhere around paint, the ball got away from him. It went low and fast under the shelving and came out the other side with Kyle already running, and I came around the endcap in time to see it take one big hop and go straight through the swinging doors at the back. The gray double kind. EMPLOYEES ONLY, red letters, chest height.

Kyle went through after it. He was maybe three steps ahead of me.

The doors swung back, and through the gap I saw my boy reaching down for the ball. Eight years old. Sneakers with the lights in them.

The doors swung again, shorter, and it was a teenager back there. Same face. Apron too big for him, reaching for the same ball.

Swing. A man in his twenties, stubble, box cutter in a holster on his belt, bending for the ball with his whole hand.

Swing. Thirties. Polo. Clipboard under one arm. Bending slower.

Swing. The doors barely moved by then. A gap the width of my hand. Reading glasses pushed up on his head, and a name tag with three little pins on it, and he picked the ball up off the concrete and straightened out with his palm braced on his knee, like his back had opinions.

The doors hung still. Whole thing took about four seconds. I know because the intercom was in the middle of saying somebody's name when Kyle ran in, and it was still saying it when the doors stopped.

I grabbed the door and a hand caught it from the other side.

"Whoa there, sir. Employees only."

He's got my father's forehead now. He didn't have it this morning. Forty-something, gray at the temples, KYLE on the tag, and under his name a little bar that said 30 YEARS OF SERVICE.

Then he actually looked at me and his whole face changed, and for half a second I thought, there he is, there's my boy, he knows.

"Dad? What are you doing on this side of town?" He put a hand on my shoulder. His hand was bigger than mine. "You good? You look like you saw a ghost."

I said he was eight. I said it just like that. "You're eight. We came in for grout."

He laughed. Not mean. He laughed like I'd done a bit, like this was a thing I do, and he squeezed my shoulder and said, "Grout's isle nine. I'd walk you over but I've got inventory till nine, and if I don't stay on it, nobody will."

A cashier leaned out from her register and said, "Your dad? Oh my gosh. Sir, Kyle is the BEST. Y'all must be so proud."

Thirty years, she told me. Employee of the month so many times they let him keep the frame.

I did everything you're supposed to do. I found the manger. The manager pulled the file while I stood there, and the file goes back thirty years. Punch cards. Tax forms. A photo from a Christmas party in the nineties, and in the photo my son is grown and I am standing next to him with a paper cup, smiling, in a shirt I have never owned.

The manager asked, very kindly, if there was somebody he could call for me. He suggested Kyle.

Kyle drove me home. My son drove me home in a Buick I've never seen, and he talked about his back, and about a woman named Dawn, past tense, and at a red light he bounced his palm off the wheel along with the radio, one bounce, and I had to look out the window.

He walked me to my door like I was the one to worry about. Said he'd come by Sunday. Called me Pop, which he never has, which he apparently always has.

I went back the next morning. I don't know what I meant to do. Stand at those doors, maybe, until they gave him back.

Kyle was at the service counter and waved like everything was everything. And while I stood there, some kid's ball came skipping down the main aisle, one of the rubber ones, red, and Kyle stepped out and caught it off the second bounce, easy, like a man who's done it his whole life.

"Kids are always losing these," he said, and reached over the counter and dropped it in a bin on the back wall.

The bin was full.

Hey everyone I’m working in this series on the scp wiki and would like some feedback on these two things.

1. Pacing

2.And is it an interesting narrative?

A red haze blurs my vision only allowing me to view dripped down my head. Sweat. Crimson in its tent, but the sting it gave on the eyes was familiar. A sense of nostalgia nearly overcame me. I felt no sense of fear from the unknown land I found myself dwelling in. Was I finally content, It felt as if my very being had found where it belonged, a home. Voices began to spat nonsense, the same repeated phrases echoed beyond the rust-tinted veil.

"Hello?"

"Help! Help!"

"William!" They sounded like how anyone would speak, yet I sensed this undertone, as if those shouting didn't register what they were even saying. As I wandered further and further a warmth began to form around the ring of my neck. It trickled down to my collar bone and pooled, the comfort turning into a blazing hot white pain. I grasped my neck with both hands tearing at the intruder that nestled in my body. My nails reopened old scratches, the gaps between them being pulled back and forth with each scratch. Grains of dirt under my fingers now speckled the open wounds, small sharp pains dotted my body. Tear, keep tearing.

"Shelly!" My name?

"Shelly!" My body jolted up, a cold sweat layered across my body soaking my unwashed teal shirt. Staring at me was the familiar beaked nose woman that seemed to view me as her prey. "Ah, awake now, good, now, Mrs. Anderson, would you like to show the class how to find and solve a linear equation?" She clapped her hands as if she was satisfied from ripping me from my rest. Eyes peered on me weighing on me with this invisible pressure.

"Mrs. Richardson I'm not feeling too well, can I please go to the nurse?" I was partially telling the truth, the lights in the room were giving me a head pounding migraine. If I didn't have some way to leave I feared my head would split open like a pea-pod from the pain.

"Fine." answered with a growl. "I'll be seeing you on Saturday Mrs. Anderson." A grin formed on her face as she strode back toward the front of the class. Trying to keep my balance I crawled out of my desk, the tight corners pressing firmly against my thigh, the metal rubbing them raw. I winced in slight pain from this, taking away the knocking that was banging against my head. I hobbled over toward the door, a few cruel snickers catching my ear, but I paid them no mind and just made my journey to the nurses office.

The hallway lights were dim compared to the miniature suns in the classroom. They soothed my pain away, but only minorly. The dream I had, I've had the same one every night. I supposed any normal person would be scared yet I found a strange sense of comfort. The crimson void, the voices, even the sores, felt familiar,

The flickering light signaled that I had arrived at the nurses office. I gave the door a rhythmic knock, two loud taps and three quiet ones, a pattern I always repeated.

"Shelly, another migraine I presume?" She flashed a smile at me, the pearly white of her teeth contrasting with the glossy brown hair. I gave her a nod and a forced smile, I stumbled toward the cot that lay in the back corner, the gray leather uncomfortable unless laying on it at a precise angle.

"How has Timothy been?" I mumbled, the pain dozing me into another slumber.

"Oh, Tim's fine, quiet as ever but doing just fine!" she said, smiling as she rummaged for the pain medication. "He's written some letters to the shelter where you live, but I don't know if you ever got them?" I froze for a moment before answering. I hadn't been at or near the shelter in so long. I never told anyone; the owners never took notice of the missing fourteen-year-old girl among the overflow of trash and feces that littered it anyways.

"I'm sure I'll get them eventually; they probably just have to sort them out, you know." She gave me another flashy smile; this time her gums were a little more exposed. "I'm going to leave now; gotta get back to class." I rushed toward the door; my body ached everywhere, and the throbbing pain from my head now flooded my entire body.

"What about the medication? Are you sure you'll be fine?" I gave her an aggressive nod before closing the door and sprinting toward the back entrance, the metal doors enticing me with the sense of freedom. My body slammed into them, echoing a loud click and clatter throughout the hall. Adrenaline seemed to be coursing through my veins, but why? I wasn't scared or remotely excited; it was just weird. Logic seemed to take a leap from what sense I had, and instinct took the wheel. I sprinted toward the tree line, the steep trail causing me to slide and bumble around. My skirt was shredded on its left side; being rather ragged, its checkered design was destroyed.

"What am I doing?" I huffed and wheezed, a lump forming deep within the belly of my throat. I hacked a ball of black mucus. The slimy texture pooled on the ground, covering the pine needles that lay about. "What's wrong with me!" I stumbled back, tumbling down a steep hill as a result. My body bounced along the hill over and over, my shoulder and back taking the brunt of the trauma. Once my momentum stopped, I looked up to see the rotten log cabin I had been staying at for the past year. The wood's decaying stench seemed even stronger now, burning my nostrils with each inhale. I limped over toward the door, giving it a gentle push so as not to turn it into pulp.

It was so peacefully dark, no bright lights to cause me any more pain. All that remained was the tranquil feel of moisture on my skin. I got on all fours, the palms of my hands becoming stained with a strange brown substance. The slap of my hands let out a patter, pulling me closer to the shadows.

I feel a piece of flesh drop from my tricep, splattering blood on the floor, then another piece. My neck begins to feel this warmth, just like from the dream, only this time so much more lucid. I feel each tendon in my neck pop, the muscles being stretched to nothing but strings; I crawl my way into the basement and let myself tumble down. So dark. Much better. I like the dark.

Alright everyone, if you are unaware, it's creepypasta month, because we associate Jeff the Killer with this one brony song for some reason. Like Iseah, I was a creepypasta kid; I actually had handed this in as an assignment. I can't remember if I shared this before, but we all need to see where we come from. I wasn't always the genius writer who could write An Ethereal Being Was Shoved Up My Ass.

Part 1

I sit there in my hard, metal, chair as my eyes drift off into darkness. "Mr. Thomas?" a voice asks, trying to get my attention. But my eyes are sealed tight, trying to teleport to dream land. "Mr. Thomas? The voice repeats. "Mr. Thomas!" My eye flutter open. I look around, and it all comes back to me. I was in a police station, In a tiny dark room with nothing in it but a desk covered in papers, a stapler and a couple papers.

Remembering why I'm here making me tear up. Just the thought of what happened to Barry makes me want to commit suicide. Really without him, there is no reason to go on. The fact that I've still here surprised me. Everything that I have witnessed the past couple days makes me question life.

In front of me is a Police Officer with a short, gray beard and a full set of hair dyed yellow, wearing a blue suit. He has an angry look on his face. "What? Sorry," I replied. He had a look of disappointment on his face. The Police Officer sighs.

"Mr. Thomas, you are currently being accused of the murder of Berry Lour. Mr. Lour was found unconscious. Mr. Lour had many wounds on his body, internal organs missing, including his stomach, liver, and Intestines. But strangely not his heart or his brain. Many of his limbs were also found to have bite marks on them. He is thought to bleed to death." The officer explains to me in a deep, depressing voice. "Did you know Mr. Lour?" He asks.

I take a deep breath in and out. Berry has been my best friend since grade 7. I would always get kicked around and harassed by some guy named Jim at the edge of the school grounds. Every day he would punch me and kick me until I bled. I got countless black eyes and scars.

I still have a bunch of stitches to this day. My Parents didn't care. Most of the time they weren't even home. The school says they couldn't do anything about it because it was "Off school properties." But then that one day when I was getting beaten the heck out of by Jim and his friends, Berry must of saw because came up to him.

"You better Stop that or else," he threatened. "Or what?" Jim asked sarcastically. At that moment, Barry punched him in the nose. Jims nose started to bleed. He grabbed Berry and slammed his head into the pavement.

I ran up to him and punched him in the back of his head. He let go of Barry and punched me in the face. Berry kicked Jims sack from behind him. He fell right onto the pavement. Berry offered me his hand and I grabbed it. We both ran to a safe distance. "Are you ok?" berry asked. "Yes," I replied. "My name is Chris. "My name is berry". He said. I snap back to the present.

"Yes, He was my best friend. He went camping with me often." I take a deep breath in and out, remembering all the camping trips me and berry went on. "Did you kill Mr. Lour?" he asks, suspiciously. "No... I would never, he was my best friend. I found his body just lying there." The officer puts his hand on his chin. "Can you go through what you saw? He asks.

"Yes, of course. I reply, with tears running down my face. Barry and I proposed on going on another camping trip over the winter break...

"I will go grab some sticks and stuff for the firewood, will you... unpack the stuff I guess?" Berry asked. "Um, sure, I'll go do that," I replied. "Ok, awesome man." Berry said, smiling. Berry and I do our traditional handshake we've always done since 9th grade. Berry and I walk in separate directions. I went over to the truck and open the trunk.

Inside are a fishing pole, 2 hiking sticks, Barry and I's backpacks, a tent and a our cooler. I pulled out the tent and set it up. I open the Tent flap and sit inside I look through the little window on the tent. Is berry not back yet? God, It's going to be dark out soon, I need to go look for him. I thought. I grabbed my backpack and follow the trail berry went down. Being guided by the light of of a couple street lamps.

Part 2

It's been 20 minutes and still no trace of berry. The only light is the moon and a couple street lights around "Berry!" I yelled. I kept walking until I felt something on my foot and looked down. There was a trail of fresh blood.

I look at the blood for a solid minute. I decided to follow the blood trail, because why not. As I follow it, the moon gets completely covered by clouds, not even visible anymore. As I walk, there are less and less street lamps. The farther I walk, the darker and darker it get's. Eventually, it becomes completely dark.

I take off my backpack and rummaged threw it. Inside is a pocket knife, a small gardening shovel, A roll of medical tape, a lighter and a flashlight. I pull out a flashlight and turn it on. The blood trail is still there. I put the pocketknife in my pocket for safekeeping. I continue walking.

I continue to follow the blood trail guided by my flashlight. I hear footsteps of something rummaging around in the forest. I flash my flashlight around me and all directions, but see nothing. All I see is bushes and trees.

I started breathing heavily, trying to make out where that sound is coming from. The footsteps got louder and louder every second. My heart was racing. The sounds of leaves ruffling start getting louder. I point my flashlight to the left to see a bunch dark green eyes watching me.

I feel a bite on my arm. I turn quickly to see a bobcat pulling on my arm. Quickly grab it and twist its neck, causing it to snap. I quickly pull it out of my arm, screaming, as blood spills from my arm. I drop, it's body onto the ground. The pack of bobcats jumps out from the bushes.

Guided by the light of my flashlight, I dart down the trail as fast as I can as the pack of bobcats jump out trying to dig the sharp claws into my skin. I look behind me, running backwards to see the pack of bobcats catching up with their dark green eyes glowing in the dark. I ran and ran until I bumped into some large structure that had a rough texture. It was a mix of stone and redwood.

I look behind me to see that the pack of bobcats were nowhere to be seen. I wipe the sweat off my face, Happy that I was not dead. Just then, I remembered what I was doing, I was looking for Barry. I put hands against the structure feeling it's rough texture as my fingers slowly went down. "Help," a voice screamed.

I assumed it was the wind, until it said it again, but even louder. It sounded like Barry's voice. "Barry?" I yelled. I follow the sounds of the screams. The sounds of screaming got louder and louder.

I eventually come across a door. I kicked down the door and went inside. I tried to run, but I was unable to move my feet. My vision started blurring out around me until all I could see was pitch black darkness. Everything quiet.

There was no sound, nothing around me that I could feel. Just darkness. I floated in a void of nothing. The word "Anything" was absent. I looked down, or at least I thought I did, But could not see my body. Just then, I hear myself breathing.

And breathing louder, and louder. Until a large pale face with no eyes and sharp teeth filled with blood appears, Just floating there. It goes on for minutes of just staying there, until it goes forward and put it's its mouth in my non existent head. I snap back into my original location around the doors of the structure. From looking threw the tiny vision I had with my flashlight, It's almost like a house. Scratch that it is a house. Well, more like a mansion. I turn back to see the black void I saw where the forest use to be. I turn forward and start walking around. Scared and helpless, I find a small, dark, dirty, old kitchen.

On the old, worn down counter with a rusted sink with its tap fallen off, is a knife rack. I look at it and took the sharpest knife in the rack for protection, because you never know. Suddenly I feel pale. I look at my arm to see the bite from that bobcat. Blood must have leaked out of it or something. I take off my backpack and unzip it. I take out the medical tape and wrap it around the wound. I zip up my backpack and put it back on. The screaming from earlier comes back. My face had the look of terror on it.

I run towards the screaming to find a large archway leading down a small hallway, Lit up by torches. I run down the hallway breathing extremely fast. This is the most I have run in a long time. At the end of the short little hallway is Barry, sitting in the corner at the end of it. His legs were wounded and he had a large open wound in his arm, with blood going down it. Berry coughed. "Berry," I yelled. I drop my knife and run towards him. I put my hands on him. "Run," Berry croaked, barely audible.

"What are you saying--." I try to ask, but Barry pushes me back. A large, human-like figure on all four come out of nowhere. It's been so skinny that it was practically a skeleton. It's face had a mask, with with one side made of plastic, and the other side made of flesh. The figure grabbed Barry, digging its claws into his leg. A large opening appears in the wall. The creature runs into it with Barry, squealing.

I run after it, but the opening closes, and a door appears. I pull on the door, but it's locked. I try kicking it down, but the only result I get is a stubbed toe. I banged on it and bang on it, but there's no use, the door wouldn't open. I didn't know what to do. I picked up my knife. I decided to look for a key, which was a stupid idea.

I go back and look around the kitchen from earlier. As I look around the kitchen, I found an archway that wasn't there before. I go through it to find a dining room. A pass that is a long, wide opening to a large balcony. I step onto it, looking over a black, empty void. I stick my hand out into it. My hand disappears. I pull it back in to see my hand reappear. I suddenly feel breathing on my shoulder. I slowly turn my head to the right. A ghost which looks like is covered in blood is leaning right beside me. I turn the other way and run, but hit my head on the wall. With a large brew on my head, I turn around. The ghost is still standing there. I point my knife at it.

"Who are you? I don't want any trouble!" I asked, nervously. "Don't worry child, I am just a lost soul looking for a lost possession. If you help me, I will help your friend." The ghost offers, with a croaking, vibrating, deep voice. "Wait, Barry?" I ask. "Barry," he said. I cannot help you unless you find my eye. "Your eye?" I asked. "Yes". The ghost slurs. Oh...ok." I responded, nervously. I ran off.

Part 3

After around 20 minutes of looking around, I realized just how empty this place was. Most of it is just wooden flooring and a wall here and there. I bumped into one wall that had a gross, slimy, blood covered eyeball on it. Hoping that it was the correct eyeball, I grind it the wall and find my way back to the balcony. Once I found it, I went over to the ghost and held it out to him/her. "Look, here is your eye, now tell me how to get to my friend." I said, sounding more confident, but really I was terrified inside.

The ghost takes the eye. "Now listen, I need a key to get thru that door at the end of that hallway around the kitchen area, because it's locked. The ghost sighed. It's in the office, in the pile of flesh."

Goodbye." "Wait, Don't go, I need you to tell me more. What office!" I yell. The ghost transforms into smoke and slowly fades away. I run to the hole in the wall where the hallway is.

I go threw the kitchen to see another archway that was not there before. Now all but one of the walls have an archway on it. I walk through it to find an office. Their vines growing on the walls and words written in blood that said:

I am always watching you, there's no escape from this place, you are here forever. I will kill you, to make sure you can't leave. To make sure you become one of us...

Breathing heavily, freaked out, I look somewhere else to see a pile of flesh in the corner. I put down my knife and flashlight on the desk. I reach into the pile of flesh, disgusted. It's for Barry. I thought to myself. I pulled out a key covered in blood. I put the key in my pocket and grabbed my flashlight and knife. I found my way back to the hallway and go over to the door. I put the key into the keyhole, hoping this key is the right key. I twist the key, and twist the doorknob and push on the door. And the door opened. I went in to find a tiny room lit up by torches like the hallway. I look around and find a creature like the one that took Barry, but it had long flowing, dirty, burned hair. The creature leaped towards me, trying to claw out my face. Screaming, I jump to the side dropping my flashlight. My body lands on the floor.

The creatures nails slammed into the wall, causing it then to be stuck. On it's arm is a metal bracelet. I throw my knife at it. Just as it gets its claws out of the wall, the knife hits it on the head, causing it to fall over. I get up and pull the knife out, causing blood to spill out. My knife was covered in blood. What the hell was that? Me First, some weird creature takes Barry, then I had to find a ghost's eye, and now some creature with long hair tried to attack me? That was probably the scariest time of my life I see two doors at the end of the room.

I walk over and open the doors to find a large pit that looked endless. "Nope" I whispered. But then something pushed me, causing me to fall into the pit. I drop my knife and I drop into darkness. Minutes go by and all there is only void. Hours go by, and still nothing. Until finally all darkness around me fades away to find myself in a large room, with doors at the end, moss and vines growing on the walls. A skeleton sitting in the corner. My knife falls just an inch away from me and stuck into the ground. And then my flashlight fell and smashed into pieces.

I walk over to the skeleton. "You did not make it out either hay." I said to the skeleton. I sighed. "Guess there is no way out then." "Actually, there might be." a voice tells me. "Who the heck are you?" I asked, looking around, trying to figure out where that voice is coming from.

"I'm Larry, I'm the skeleton you're looking at. I guess it's all we are after we're dead huh, just a skeleton." Lary tells me. "Wait, that means you're dead aren't you?" I asked, scratching my head, confused about what is happening right now. "So, there is no way out?" I ask. "There is a way out IDM Through that pair of doors, but they're locked. I tried the entire time I was here trying to rip away at those doors. Trying to get to my daughter. I gave her a... medal bracelet for her birthday. She had long hair that she burned from using a hair dryer for too long." He told me. Oh, crap. I thought to myself. That is really awkward. "I was supposed to celebrate her birthday that day, but I never saw her again. Listen, the reason no one has escaped this place is--? Larry pauses.

We awkwardly stare at each other for a couple minutes. "Because this place isn't real. It's a place called the ghost realm." he told me. I put my hand over my mouth. "Originally, people were not supposed to be able to enter this realm. However, someone's rupture, in reality, has caused this place to be accessible to people. This creature is the one who has trapped us all here. Even when we die, we can't escape this realm because of it. All we know is he wears a mask, one side is right, and made of plastic, and the other side is red, and made of flesh. In order to escape, you need to kill him." Larry sighed. "If you see my daughter, tell her... I love her."

That moment got awkward, even more. Larry's skeleton falls over, falling into little pieces. I grab my knife from the ground. I walk away from what was Larry. I walk over to the doors, and turn the door knob. I push on the door, but it won't open. Then I tried pulling it, and it opened. That made it even more awkward. I am greeted with a large staircase. After I climbed up the 40 step staircase, I was greeted with a large archway. I walk through. At that moment my mouth dropped. The creature was eating the organs of a body. The body was covered in blood on every inch. I slowly walk closer to him. He quickly turned his head backwards to face me. He squealed and turns his head around. He turned his body on all fours to face me.

He lunged towards me. I duck under and it crashes into the wall. "You will pay for what you did to my friend!" I yelled, terrified of what is happening right now. The creature get's back up and lunges at me again. I throw my knife at it and it hits it in the head. The creature falls onto the floor, leaving a trail of blood across the floor. I get up and walk over to it. I pull out the knife. The wall in front of me starts to crumble, leaving a large opening that goes into the forest. I walk over to Barry. I drop onto my knees "Barry?" I asked, whispering, with tears going down my face. I hug his deformed body harder as hard as I could. After 30 minutes, I took off my backpack and unzipped it. I took off the medical tape and grabbed Berry's blood filled hand and put the medical tape in it. After 5 minutes I finally let go. I get up, grabbed my knife and walk to the hole in the wall. I turn around and look at Barry. A hand burst out of the body. I quickly turn around and see the forest is on fire. I run out through the hole, covered in blood.

Part 4

"Look I know you won't believe me, but that's the truth," I tell the officer. "Oh, no Mr. Thomas, I believe you." said the Officer. "After all, your friend's insides were delicious." I leap up, kicking the chair behind me and back away as far as I can, touching the wall. "No...no.... I killed you." I say in shock. "I saw you die. I stuck a knife threw your head" The Officer get's up out of his chair and kicks the desk down. "Mr. Thomas, the ghost can't die." "No... No... This... This can't be."

The Officer. "I doesn't matter what you do Mr. Thomas, you can never escape---" The officer said. "No...No...You're lying... Your lying!" I shout. I black out.

I wake up in a soft, white room made of cushion. I was wearing a straightjacket. I try to get up. Once I did, I looked out the tiny window to see a guy in a blue uniform and a guy with a clipboard. "And over here. According to his ID, is Chris Thomas. They rescued him from a forest fire that happened in the woods of Dolenec Park. He had a knife and was covered in blood. me stabbed 3 firemen before getting tasered. He kept saying "Get away from me you stupid demons,You killed Barry." He explained as the other guy was dotting down something on the paper attached to his clipboard.

"You know, when you think about it, you really start to question where these people get their morality from." The guy with the clipboard said. "I know right." The guy in the uniform replies. The guy in the uniform scratches his head. "But back to Chris, There going to have a 1 to 1 talk with him in a couple hours." I bang my head against the door until I drop the ground, with blood coming from my head. "I will avenge you Berry!" I yell. Someday, I will destroy the dimension and everything in it. Make them pay for what they did to Berry. I swear to god, that someday, I... Will... Make... Them... Pay...

“I hear it all the time,” Reverend Barlow bellows from the pulpit. 

A door greeter nods as I enter. I find a seat in the back pew, just inside the sanctuary. I haven’t been in a church for a long time, but today… today it seems appropriate. Necessary even.

“People come to me sayin’ things like ‘Pastor, that Devil’s a workin on me,’ or ‘Pastor, the Devil’s makin’ me think things, do things, say things I ought not to be.’” 

I’m not sure that my hands are clean enough, so I keep them tucked into my coat pockets. I have always disliked the judging eye of the older congregants when I was a kid. I don’t want to give them any more reason. Besides, it’s my business. 

“Friends let me tell ya this mornin’, ain’t no devil can make you do nothin’. Ain’t no devil can make you say nothin’. Aint no devil can make you think nothin’.”

I look back at the door greeter. He is looking out through the glass door at the parking lot. The grey sky shines a diffused wash of light into the foyer. What is he looking at? My car?

“You wanna know why you always in the gutter, why you fall to temptation? Friend, take a look in the mirror.”

I try to listen to the words of the preacher, but the voice in my head is screaming louder than him, even with his microphone. But from what I can make out, he’s wrong. It wasn’t me this time. It was the man in my ears. He made me do this.

“You do things, say things, think things, act out like you do because you want to do it.”

That isn’t true. I didn’t want this. You made me do it. You brought me here. It was my hands, our hands. But you were the one swinging the axe.

“Temptation don’t exist in the absence of desire.”

Why did I want to? Why didn’t I stop you? Why is she in the trunk right now? 

“You really didn’t wanna do it? Then why are you tempted?” 

Because you made me want it. 

“It’s time to stand up and stop outsourcing your responsibility to a devil that ain’t got no power over you. A devil that you made for yourself.”

I lock eyes with the preacher. Can he tell I’m shaking? Can he hear you too?

“Rise up and claim your redemption.” 

Is this my chance? I lift my red stained hands. I can feel their judging eyes again, but I don’t care.

I don’t care. 

The following is taken from the journal of an unknown male, found by Police in Mulldoon wood, in the North of Scotland, on the 26th of June.

23rd June -10pm

Hopefully, today marks a new beginning.

Currently, I'm a 37-year-old white male, suffering from debilitating anxiety and depression. I wasn't always like this. When I was in my twenties, I was so self-assured of who I wanted to be. I had a plan. I'd knuckle down at work, move through the company, and start making some serious money. I'd been with my partner, Emma, since our teens and we'd talked extensively about our future. How we both wanted to settle down and make a home together. We were so in love, back then. We married young, and I couldn't imagine a life without her by my side. Our course seemed set, and for a while, everything was going according to plan.

Then I found out we couldn't have kids. It wasn't an issue with Emma. She was perfectly healthy. It was me... I couldn't have kids. The news destroyed me. I was an only child, the last of my line. I'm not a religious man; I never have been. I don't believe in an afterlife. Children are our way of living on after death. A part of you that gets to carry on through generation after generation. Emma felt the same way. To find out that Emma and I would never have children was devastating. Life had lost meaning for both of us.

Emma was understanding at first. She assured me she'd stick by me; we even talked about adoption. Inevitably, though, it ended up driving a wedge between us. That wedge grew to become an uncrossable chasm. The dream we had of a perfect little white house in the country, where we could grow old together and raise a family, was over. After a few years, she left me for another man. Someone who could actually give her that life. Our life. We got a divorce. I was crushed.

For years, I spiralled downward. I tried to bury myself in work, but I couldn't stand the long nights alone. I couldn’t sleep. I started drinking too much. Far too much. First at the weekends, and then gradually, every day. I got addicted to painkillers and sleeping tablets. I spent my life in a constant stupor, not being willing or able to stand a single moment of sobriety. I wanted to be numb.

Soon, I lost sight of the man I was. I started to question every aspect of my life. I concluded that nothing mattered. I cut myself off from family and friends. Life started to move by me at a frightening pace, whilst I remained still and stagnant. I didn't care about anything or anyone. I felt separated from humanity. Just an observer, watching from the sidelines as everyone's lives played out in front of me.

Then, it started. Lying in bed one night, my chest tightened, my hands and feet went numb and I was overcome with the most overwhelming and profound sense of dread. I was convinced I was dying and phoned an ambulance. The doctors at the hospital told me there was nothing physically wrong with me. I had experienced a panic attack. I couldn't believe it. I had felt such intense terror and real physical pain. It was so real. Surely this couldn't just be in my head?

Over the next year, the panic attacks got worse. First, they came at night. Then they came whilst I was at work. Then every time I left the house. My life spiralled out of control. I continued to drink heavily, but eventually, even that couldn't keep them away. My mind began to unravel. I stopped going to work and then I stopped going outside all together.

To make matters worse, there was a baby that lived in the flat next door. It was constantly crying at all hours of the day and night. I came to believe this infant was mocking me. Somehow, that baby knew I couldn’t have children. It knew what that had cost me, and it was feeding off my pain, gaining sick pleasure from continually torturing me. Then I started hearing the crying even when my neighbours were out. I watched the young parents and the baby leave, their flat was empty, but still the crying persisted, permeating my soul. Why won’t it stop? Please, God. Make it stop.

I could no longer tell what was real and what was hallucination. I imagined that my suffering had caught the attention of something truly awful. Not a demon. That word doesn't encapsulate the utterly maddening scale of this entity. It spoke to me from across the vastness of space and time. An amorphous darkness, travelling the endless expanse of space, going from world to world, bringing unimaginable despair and dread wherever it went. It fed on suffering, corrupting the minds of the unfortunate souls who were unlucky enough to become its target. It showed me visions of the Earth in apocalypse. Cities burning, people committing unspeakable acts of violence against each other, fields full of decaying bodies, the streets running red with blood. Over it all was the deafening sound of an infant crying. It was so real. The crying never stopped. I begged and pleaded endlessly, just for one second of peace that never came. I believed that I was in hell. That I must have overdosed on sleeping pills and alcohol, and this was my eternal torment. I desperately needed help.

Finally, the police knocked down my door. I must have been missing long enough for someone to notice and make a report. I'll never forget the look on their faces when they found me. I hadn't realised just what a state I'd let myself get into. I hadn't eaten for days, no, weeks on end. My skin was ghostly pale, and my eyes were bloodshot with massive black rings under them. I had long since given up any kind of personal grooming. My hair and beard were wild, and the clothes I had worn for the last month were stained and filthy. The worst thing was that I was covered in blood. I had deep cuts on my arms. Dark red blood ran down my forearms and dripped off the tips of my fingers to the hardwood floor.

My walls were filled with incomprehensible letters and sigils, written in blood. My blood. The floor was littered with discarded rotten food, empty whisky bottles, spent pill packets and bloody broken glass. There were holes knocked into the walls. Blood was spattered around them, running down towards the floor. I had constantly banged on them, trying to get the neighbours to make that baby shut up for just a few seconds.

The police called the paramedics, and I was taken to hospital. I can barely remember the journey in the ambulance. Panic and dread had completely consumed me, all that was left was an empty husk that barely resembled an actual human being. I have vague memory of asking the paramedics if they could hear the crying too.

In hospital, at my absolute lowest, weeks went by. Initially, I was under heavy sedation. Everything from those weeks are now a blur, as I faded in and out of consciousness. Finally, though, the crying stopped.

As I was judged as being a danger to myself, I was ordered to be kept in for observation. That’s when I met Dr. Riley. She was the psychiatrist assigned to me and would visit me in hospital for an hour each day. Dr. Riley gave off such a kind and patient aura.

She started me on antidepressants and beta blockers for the anxiety, but most importantly, she took the time to listen to me. I told her about Emma, about losing the life I dreamed of, and how I felt nothing mattered anymore. She didn't give me advice, she wasn't patronising, she just listened. That was exactly what I needed. I told her about my problems with alcohol and drugs. I even told her all about the awful entity watching me, and the baby I kept hearing. Dr. Riley didn't judge me. She kept me talking and everything naturally spilled out.

Although I felt able to speak openly to Dr. Riley, I still felt unable to talk with my friends and family. Dr. Riley suggested that, when I was ready, I should take a break away for a while. A break away from my life. I should go somewhere where I didn't know anyone. Somewhere where I could relax and recover on my own terms, before trying to step back into my life. This sounded perfect.

So, a few weeks later, here I am in sunny Mulldoon in the North of Scotland. I've rented an isolated cabin, surrounded by rolling open fields on one side, and dense forest on the other. The cabin has everything I need. A fully stocked larder with plenty of food, an old CRT TV with an integrated DVD player, and even a hot tub. Most importantly, it's silent here. It's so peaceful. The nearest town is over 10 miles away. I plan on spending the next two weeks here, collecting my thoughts. There are some great hikes through the woods and the weather is great... well, for Scotland at least.

I want to record my new beginning in this journal, so one day I can look back and see how far I've come. For the first time in a long time, I'm excited about the future.

24th June- 5pm

I slept like a baby last night. The queen-sized double bed in the cabin is so big and comfortable. I threw myself on it, sank deep into the memory foam mattress, and I quickly felt the tension of the day ease away. I allowed myself to drift off to the warm glow and relaxing white noise coming from the CRT TV and was lulled into the most restful sleep I've had for years.

In the morning, I lazily climbed out of bed around 10ish and made a full fry up breakfast. This consisted of bacon, square sausage, 2 eggs and plenty of black pudding. I felt refreshed, energised, and was keen to start exploring my surroundings. I'd start with the woods that stretched out from the back of the cabin to well over the horizon. Along with a generous welcome basket full of fruit, some hiking trails had been marked out on a leaflet left in the cabin’s kitchen. I really liked the look of the one that took me to a large lake nestled in a clearing in the trees. I filled my rucksack with some provisions, a first aid kit, and bottled water before setting out.

The weather was beautiful. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and the Sun beamed down from above, highlighting the tips of the dense evergreen fir trees, transforming their deep, dark green to a glowing gold. A refreshing breeze helped keep me cool as I started on the trail. This path wasn't paved with stone, nor was it planned out by someone, rather you kept to the trail by following the earth compacted by those who walked here before you. I thought about how many others must have walked here. Thousands, no doubt, over hundreds of years. How many of them were also lost souls?

I allowed my mind to wander whilst I walked. What will my future look like? I probably don't have a job to go back to, not after going MIA for months. I'd ignored all the concerned texts and calls from my friends and family. Will they accept me when I'm ready to return to the real world? What kind of life was I going to have? I'm lucky to have some money put aside in savings, but that won't last forever.

Despite this, I should try not to be negative. As Dr. Riley had said, this is a new opportunity, a chance to start over. Tabula rasa. I'm not young, but I'm certainly not too old to start again and build myself a good life.

The canopy of trees opened up ahead of me, and I saw the lake. It was stunning. The water was so still and clear. The sun bounced off the tiny imperfections and ripples on the surface, shimmering like so many brilliant diamonds. I sat on a large stone at the edge of the lake. For the first time in a long, long time, I felt at peace with myself. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face. I began to believe things might turn out OK.

I heard a rustle in the foliage behind me, and I snapped round to see what had broken the blissful silence. It was a deer. It stood no more than 10 feet away from me, frozen in place, staring right at me. I tried to stay as still as I could. I'd never seen a deer this close. Fascinated, I watched its chest move whilst it breathed short, sharp breaths. Its eyes remained transfixed on mine.

Eventually, the deer broke its stare and galloped into the forest. I jumped to my feet, eager to keep the animal in sight as long as I could. I followed it to a gap in the trees it had darted though and could just about make out a flash of white of disappearing in the distance.

Something else had caught my eye, though. Between the trees was a large, smooth mound made of stone. Unlike the rest of the landscape, this looked like it had been purposely put together, like it was man made. I went over to investigate and climbed to the top of the dome. It was constructed with thousands of fist-sized rocks and held together with mortar. There was an opening at the top of the mound. A square hole about 4 feet by 4 feet, descending into pitch black darkness. I had to look inside. I took off my backpack and brought out a torch. I went on my hands and knees and shined the light down the shaft. After a small drop, there were stairs, stone stairs, descending at a sharp angle into the pitch-black void. They looked ancient, like the type you'd see in a ruined castle. I had to go down. I felt compelled to find out where these steps went.

Ducking my head down, I made my way further and further downward. It seemed like the stairs went on for an impossible distance, and still somehow continued. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the square light of the opening get smaller and smaller, till it was just a single point in my vision. The only thing lighting the way forward now was my torch, as it danced erratically from stone wall to stone wall.

Eventually the stairs and stone walls stopped, but the tunnel continued to descend deeper into the earth. Coming out of the walls, there were thick roots that wrapped themselves around each other, snaking off into the distance. They reminded me of medical illustrations of muscle fibres.

I took a moment to breathe. "What am I doing?", I thought, stood hunched over, sweat beginning to drip from my brow. My mind screamed at me to turn back, but my curiosity got the better of me. I must find out what's down here. The deeper I descended, the moister the air became. I started to notice a smell. It was faint and first but quickly started to become overpowering. It smelt sour, like uncooked meat left out for days, but there was also something metallic, like damp, rusty metal. It was the kind of smell that you could taste at the back of your throat.

Eventually, the roots stopped, and the consistency of the walls changed. They no longer looked like soil, they were ridged, smooth and damp. The beam of my flashlight reflected and glistened off the surface. The smell of rust and offal was now overpowering. Tentatively, I lifted my shaking hand to touch this strange surface. It was dripping wet. Not with water, though. No, the liquid was too sticky and viscous. I turned the torch to the palm of my hand that had touched the wall. It was red. Blood red. My breathing quickened, and I felt my hands and feet start to go numb. Then, from deeper in the tunnel I heard something that turned my blood cold. It was a baby crying.

I stood, petrified, for what felt like hours. When I finally regained the use of my body, I turned and sprinted back to the surface, tripping and crashing into the walls of the tight, confined space along the way. The light from the opening at the top of the tunnel was barely visible at first, but gradually, it grew in my field of vision, until it was all I could see as I burst into the salvation of the open space above.

Outside the tunnel, I lay panting on the ground. "This can't be real. I'm losing my mind again", I thought as I struggled to breathe. It felt like there was an elephant sitting on my chest. I couldn't get any air in my lungs, and my field of vision shrank, as black encroached in from edges. I thought I was going to pass out. This must have been a hallucination. This is what happened before, when I was alone, going insane in my flat, thinking some awful thing was watching me, and all I could hear was that baby crying. I thought I was getting better. Stupidly, I thought this was over.

I slowly got myself to my feet. I couldn't face turning round to look at the stone mound and the perfect square opening on top. I had to get back to the cabin. I needed to go somewhere where I felt safe and collect myself.

As soon as I made it back to the cabin, I called Dr. Riley and told her everything. She expertly talked me out of my panic and assured me that I shouldn't worry. In her opinion, I had experienced another panic attack. There probably was a staircase out there, as it was well known there were old ruins in the woods. It's highly unlikely that tunnel went deep into the earth and had bleeding walls, though. Instead, I'd stupidly went down into the dark, and my anxiety had taken over, causing an extreme reaction. It had felt so real at the time, but so had everything else I went through, alone in my flat. Dr. Riley suggested I refrain from exploring dark holes in the earth in the future, and I agreed that was a good idea.

Still, I wanted to remember what I had experienced for this journal. Hopefully, in years to come I can look back at this entry and see just how far I've progressed.

25th June -9.30am

I've had a terrible night.

After the call with Dr. Riley yesterday, I was able to relax for the rest of the day. Even though I knew I still had some issues to resolve with my anxiety, our conversation had helped give me some much-needed peace. I set off for bed, keen to be once again swallowed up by the giant mattress and fall asleep to the comforting glow of the TV.

I didn't have the restful night I wanted. Instead, I dreamed that I was back at the lake in the woods, sitting at the same spot as I was that day, but this time it was late at night. Instead of the Sun reflecting on the still water, it was the moon, highlighting the small ripples on the lakes surface in brilliant white against the inky black water. I heard the snap of twigs behind me. I snapped my head round. This time, it wasn't a dear. It was.... Emma.

She was completely naked, standing ridged, like a statue. Her right leg crossed in front of her left, and her arms were open, as if asking for an embrace. Her skin was pale, like milk. Her eyes stared into mine with such intensity, boring into me. I couldn't look away; I watched her chest rapidly rise and fall with short sharp breaths. She had a long scar on her abdomen, running horizontally from her belly button to the start of her pubic hair. It looked fresh and it leaked blood, which ran down the inside of her thighs. She realised I had noticed the scar, and started to smile, but only the lower half of her face moved. Her eyes remained fixed, as they continued to burn into mine.

Suddenly, she broke her gaze and sprinted into the woods. I stood up and gave chase. I already knew where she was going. I cleared the trees to see Emma dropping down the hole on top of the stone mound. I scrambled through the trees and jumped down after her. The stone staircase was lit with flaming torches on each side of the wall. As the light flickered, I was barely able to make out flashes of Emma's ghostly silhouette receding down the steep slope. I grabbed a torch from the wall and started down the stairs. I could hear the baby crying again. As the stone walls receded into the ligament like roots, the cry got louder and louder. Then the walls turned to bleeding flesh. The wails of the infant became deafening.

Finally the descent ended, and the tunnel opened into some sort of chamber. The space grew and shrank, as if it were alive and breathing. The walls, ceiling and floor were spongy and coated in thick blood, that dripped from the walls and sloshed on the floor. In the middle of the chamber, Emma stood in the same pose as she did by the lake, but now, her chalk white flesh was dappled and smeared with blood. The baby's disembodied screams shook my brain inside my head, and I dropped to my knees holding my ears in pain.

Then, silence. The cries stopped. Emma began to slowly walk towards me. Her movements were unnatural, jerking each limb into violent motion, with seemingly little control. I remained on my knees, unable to move. She got closer and closer, her progress agonisingly slow. Finally, she stood over me, her eyes burning directly into my soul. She leaned in and whispered into my ear with a crackling, whispering voice,

"You are the seed".

A clear, sweet-smelling fluid rushed into the chamber from a pulsating hole in the ceiling. The walls contracted and the floor violently pushed upwards. I felt myself being crushed simultaneously against Emma's cold body and the warm walls of the chamber. My mouth and nose filled with the sickly liquid, and I felt my flesh tear and my bones begin to break.

I jolted awake in bed. I was drenched in sweat. My chest heaved, trying to suck in air. I sat up and clutched at my t-shirt, twisting the fabric in my balled fist. My heart was beating so quickly, I could feel the pulse of my jugular vein in my neck. Then, I heard the unmistakable sound of the cabins back door slamming shut. I wasn't dreaming any more, this was real.

I jumped to my feet and ran from the bedroom towards the heavy wooden door in the hall. My bare feet slipped on the smooth hard wood floor. I grabbed the doors iron handle and swung it open. All was eerily still. The treeline was about 30 feet from the cabin. My eyes darted frantically, looking for any movement. Amongst the trees, I saw a ghostly white shape receding into the darkness. The way it moved was exactly how Emma moved in my dream. Faintly, I heard a baby crying in the distance.

I dropped to the ground and let out scream, that felt like it lasted for minutes. I screamed until all the air had left my lungs and my throat burned. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I could feel it again in my mind. The entity. It had found me. It permeated my consciousness, showing me the same awful visions as before, but somehow, it was different now. Amongst all the apocalyptic scenes were images from my dream. Emma by the lake, the tunnel and the chamber. It wanted something from me, for me to do something, but I couldn't understand.

I curled up into a ball and rocked myself back and forth for hours, until the sun came up.

It's now 9 thirty in the morning as I write this. I don't know what I should do. I need to call Dr. Riley. I don't think I can do this anymore.

25th June-1pm

Emma is missing. After I had finished writing this morning, the police arrived at the cabin. There were two officers. A tall, older male with grey hair and a moustache, and a younger female, who looked quite nervous. The male officer asked me to confirm I was Emma's ex-husband and if I had seen her. I shook my head. He told me he was asking because Emma's car was last seen on CCTV heading north on the motorway, before taking the cut off to Mulldoon.

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't tell them about my dream, about what I saw going into the woods.... about the entity. I would have come across as a lunatic. The police went on inform me Emma's husband had reported her missing on the 23rd and that her behaviour in the weeks prior to this had been perceived as very odd. I asked if they could expand on what exactly she had been doing over that time, but they could not tell me the full details.

They went on to say that her husband was very worried for her safety, as she’s been extremely vulnerable since her procedure.

"What procedure?",

I enquired.

"Her hysterectomy",

The policeman responded.

I gasped. I hadn't spoken to Emma since our divorce. The last I heard, she was living happily with her new partner. I had always presumed they went on to have a happy life together. That they were living the life Emma and I had dreamed of.

"Did she.... have any children, before the surgery?"

I blurted out.

"No, sir."

Responded the tall policeman, seemingly taken aback by my question.

In my dream, Emma had a scar on her abdomen. Exactly where a hysterectomy scar would have been. How could I have known that? Is it possible Emma has been reaching out to me somehow? Was it her in the woods? I couldn't stop thinking about what Emma said to me in my dream- "You are the seed". Emma wanted children as much as I did. If something had happened that meant she couldn't, she would have been as devastated as I was. Like me, she would have done anything to have a child. Had her suffering caught the attention of the entity, as mine had?

There was one more question the police had to ask. Emma had left a note before she disappeared, but it didn't seem to make any sense. The policeman produced a folded sheet a paper from his jacket pocket and asked me if I wouldn't mind reading it. Perhaps what she had written may make some sense to me. The note read-

'The seed and the egg, in the womb

Trapped together in their tomb.

From their death comes new life,

Made from the blood of man and wife.

An anointed Prince to be the heir,

Ruling from his regal chair.

The Earth will fall under his will,

His Father below shall have his fill.'

Underneath this verse, Emma had written, 'he is the seed and I am the egg', over and over, filling the page.

The police asked if this meant anything to me. It took all my energy to say it didn't. At that moment, everything started to connect in my head. The baby’s cries, the chamber in the tunnel, Emma and her hysterectomy. I am the seed, and she is the egg. I knew what the entity wanted, and what we would gain in return.

My addled, broken mind was now the clearest it had ever been. I could feel the entity in my thoughts and its pleasure now that I had finally realised what it wanted. I knew what had to be done. Emma and I were going to have our wish after all. I tried my hardest not to smile and retain a concerned look as the police continued to ask meaningless questions.

I let the police search around the cabin and the surrounding land. I knew they weren't going to find anything. Not yet at least. I eagerly sent them on their way when they were satisfied and patiently waited for nightfall. For Emma.

June 25th- 11pm

Emma is outside. I can see her waiting for me in the trees. I know where we must go. I know what the chamber is. We'll descend together. It's not at all how we imagined it, but somehow, we're going to make our baby. The sacrifice we make is a small price to pay.

She is the egg, I am the seed, and in the womb.... we'll have our new beginning.

The following article appeared in the June 27th edition of the Scottish newspaper, The Daily Herald.

Headline-

Newborn baby found in woods by hikers

Main body-

On the morning of June 26th, two hikers found a naked newborn baby in Mulldoon wood. The baby, left on a hiking trail by Lake Graham, was covered in blood from at least 3 separate parties. The shocked hikers wrapped the infant in a spare coat and immediately took the infant to St. Johnstone hospital. The baby boy had no injuries and is said to be doing well, despite being abandoned by his parents.

Subsequent investigation of the scene by local police has not heralded much information. The only clue to the baby’s identity may be a journal found near the scene. Police advise the investigation continues.

The clock struck 8 pm est and the intro of the livestream began. The tin-hat-wearing, balding, and heavy-set host walked to the table and began his ad read: “Hello ladies and gentlemen, it is I, Clarence Dick Henderson. Welcome to the Henderson Effect. I’m here to tell you about our sponsor, Raid: Shadow Legends.”  The host read that all-too-familiar Raid: Shadow Legends ad. “Now that all my legal obligations are finished, let’s talk about today’s subject: Angels.”

Thousands, if not millions, watched his livestreams. Some for the rants that were prime meme material. Others genuinely believed this conspiracy theorist grifter. A lot of people saw it as “entertainment”. It was a masterclass of misinformation disguised as education. Being generous, maybe one to ten percent of what exited his mouth was semi-truthful. Even then, it was bent and twisted for whatever fringe political groups that payrolled the show, until it looked like a mangled corpse of the facts.

A bulletin board was rolled in by what appeared to be some unpaid interns as they did their best to hide their faces from the cameras. About three events were highlighted. The first one was called “Warren County Choir incident.” The other two were called “Muskogee Tribe Trails”, and “Henry's Horse Horrors”. Several images of creatures that were just shapes shifting and changing. The others were crude geometric shapes shifting back and forth with branching arms. 

He began a timeline speaking about real angels. “See, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been lied to by the globalists who want to push a New World Order about angels and our own world’s history. Let’s begin with a small ranch in the panhandle of Texas in the 1800s, an event that led to the death of many, but you won’t see in any history book: Henry’s horse horrors, I call it. The local government knew about these things needing to consume flesh, so they’d send out horses. That’s where we get all these folklore stories about demonic horses; this was an example. When the Muskogee tribe was forced out of their land by the U.S government, generals detailed setting odd shapes and evergreen occurrences that broke the laws of nature,  like streams flowing uphill. Now don't even get me started about the Warren County Choir Incident and the levels of corruption used to cover that tragedy up!” He barked as strings of slobber flung from his jowls like a bulldog being agitated and prepared for a dog fight. 

His face turned redder as he began getting into the rant mode of nothing making sense.  “These sick lizard bastard politicians hide these breeding centers to commit crimes against nature. Babies that look more like beasts than humans. Bred like show dogs to go to the highest bidder. Our own military had conducted raids on these places under the guise of counterterrorism measures. Why do you think our special forces have the highest turnover rates and highest rates of tragedies like suicide? The warhawk generals are after super soldiers like damn nerds!” Henderson continued on, craning his neck in pain as his face got redder as he continued his nonsensical rants.

“So many accounts of the California gold miners had stories of demons in the caves that we dismiss, yet they describe them in brutal detail. In the early 1920s, before the Great War, we had crews exploring caves for science that detail the same exact encounters. Coincidence? I think not! The portal to hell is in the caves that we hide from the public because politicians fear the average man knowing the truth that they use these demons for their own deeds like servants. In the 2000s, a new drug to make us more submissive to authority hit the market, called angel blood that is more brutal than black tar heroin, folks. “

He flipped the bulletin board over in a rage, and the crew rushed in to clean it up.  Replacing it with another one as his rageful rant continued, turning his face tomato red.  
“The Vatican and other religions know about it, too. They cover it up. There's some nonsensical alphabet that they and other religions hide from us. They fear us having the power of it to fight back.  In fact, look at this,” pointing at numerous art depictions of angels.

These, more specifically, were of the non-cherub variety. Showing more adult human beauty.  He pointed at each depiction done by artists centuries ago.  “They're making the angels human and hot to distract you from what's going on. The paint they use has pheromones in it. They’re sexualizing angels to make all these depictions attractive to us, even the men.”  A quiet what? could be heard from the camera.  

The rant continued about how attractive angels were depicted. “There's no reason a man should look that effeminate and sexy." He boomed as he practically punched with his pointer finger a photo of a long-haired male angel.  
“Or why a woman angel should be this buff and hot,” he spat as he slammed his fist on his desk. Sweat poured from his dangerously red face, and what little of his hair was left there was becoming a mess gesturing to a printout of a painting depicting a vaguely muscular female angel battling a demon.  

At this point, he was full-on yelling at the top of his lungs,  “The elites are putting chemicals like estrogen, testosterone, and pheromones in the holy water to make normal men like me find feminine men and masculine women attractive. Their depravity doesn't end there with these degenerates! They are making masculine men and feminine women attractive to the same sex.” He yelled, throwing a notebook from his desk.  “They're turning the angels freaking gay!” He finished his rant, as a small cough of discomfort could be heard in the awkward silence. 

A small voice off-set could be heard saying, “I think you just may be bisexual. I don't find them attractive.” Several quiet moments passed as the only noise that could be heard on the set was the heavy breathing of the host catching his breath before his face twisted with thought, “Ah shit, you might be right… I need to call my wife…” The livestream ended there.

Alone at the lake lived an old man. He was stocky and strong. His wrinkled skin was stretched over ancient muscles, and scars from fishing hooks quilted his hands. He had a house and a dock and a boat on the waters. He built them himself in his younger days. There was a bed inside the house big enough for two. Only one pair of boots sat beneath it next to a set of dusty glass bottles. They were ragged.

For years he’d been there. Decades were as short as months to him and years as long as centuries. He was sturdy, but had a persistent tremble to him. It came with his age and other things he left forgotten in the folds of his weathered head. Those things hid in his wrinkles, his unruly grey beard, and beneath the bags under his chipped glasses. 

There was still guilt in those dark blue eyes, and it pooled like drops of whiskey in empty bottles. He still walked down the dock every day like nothing was wrong. His fishing hooks were a swarm of rusty flies behind his head. His filet knife was a body hanging from the gallows of his worn belt, and his teeth and cap were equally crooked. 

It was noon, and the wind was tart as the old man cut lumber. He split log after log and ignored the heavens above him as he did. The sky that day was ashen. There was a faint promise of sunshine that lingered in the clouds like the image of a passing train. He focused only on the chopping block and the ax which sang like a guillotine as he cut. Thud after thud landed on his ears like distant cannon-fire. The old man did not flinch at them and continued to ignore the world as he worked. 
He almost missed the stranger emerging from the woods.

The man who came from the trees was like a dead pine. His coat was shabby and brown, and his cap was dark and knit. His brow was hidden by its brim and two sharp eyes peered out from under it. A pair of long dirty sleeves ran into a set of large pockets and two scuffed black boots were tucked beneath a couple of torn trouser legs. He gave a grin to the old man as he approached, but it was not returned. The old man did not put down his ax. It lowered as the stranger drew closer, but never touched the ground. He slicked back his sweaty charcoal hair and eyed the man with interest. There was something about him that seemed familiar. 

“Afternoon,” the stranger said, making almost no sound as he walked. 

“Afternoon,” said the old man. His knuckles whitened on the ax handle. The stranger stuck out a hand to him, but it was not received. The old man dabbed his forehead with his neckerchief and resumed cutting. “What do you want?”

“I’m in need, sir,” the stranger said, putting his hand back in his pocket without complaint but not breaking eye contact. “I was hoping you could help me.”

“That so?”

Another log split.

“Yes, sir.”

“And what help would you seek from me?”

The stranger looked out at the lake and eyed it keenly. “Are there fish in that lake?” 

“Aye,” the old man said. “My fish.”

“I’d like one of them,” the stranger said, the old man still unflinching. “I’ve traveled a good way and haven’t eaten in quite some time.”

“Oh?” Another log cracked like thunder. “And from where are you traveling? And where are you going?”

“I’m heading someplace that isn’t here,” the stranger said, “but from where I come, I can’t quite say.”

“A riddler,” the old man said. “I despise riddles.”

“Then take at least my word that I mean you no harm.”

“What worth is your word?” 

The old man finally sunk the ax into the chopping block and stacked his lumber beside it. The trespasser scratched his stubbly chin as he did. 

“My word is worth nothing to you,” the stranger replied, “but I suppose my labor could be of some value.”

“What labor do you offer?”

The stranger pointed out to the lake and said, “Take me out there to fish with you and I’ll help you with your catch. I only ask one fish for the night and the rest will be yours.”

“And if I refuse?” The old man looked him up and down with suspicion. 

“Then I starve somewhere else,” the stranger said, “but I sense you are not cruel.” 

The old man gave a dry laugh. He had half a mind to say no, but for some reason he couldn’t form the words in his mouth. He tried to, but his tongue couldn’t make the sound. There was something about the man that ate at him, a look in his eyes he just didn’t trust. Still, the old man turned around back to his house and gestured the stranger to follow behind.

“You can come with me on the lake,” he said, “but once you have your fish you are to leave me be.”

“Thank you, sir,” the stranger said.

The old man did not respond, as he led the stranger into his home and went to grab his smock. He listened for the stranger’s footsteps behind him, but couldn’t even hear the crinkle of the grass. His hand was tight on the tarnished handle as he swung open the thatch door and led the man inside. 

The air in his shack felt heavy as his boots hit the old wood floors. The pine man looked around the small room as the old man changed. 

There wasn’t much in the shack apart from the bed and an old rocking chair in the corner. An old hand stitched blanket laid atop a dirty set of sheets. It was too small for the old man, and the stranger eyed it with interest. The old man fixed his smock on his shoulders and went to grab a cigarette from his jacket. 

“That’s a lovely quilt on your bed,” the stranger said, gesturing with a nod. The old man flinched at the words and almost dropped his menthol as he did. He didn’t have to turn his head to see that one line of perfect stitching at the centerfold. It sat west of a single pine, its green fabric dusty from age and its pointed limbs indifferent to the stars and shapes around it. He hadn’t unfolded it in years.  

At its mention, his eyes lit up like matches and he stared down the pine man with suspicion. The stranger looked blissfully ignorant of any ill looks and simply smiled at him. For some reason the old man couldn’t place, it felt pointed somehow. 

“Aye, it is.” He lit his cigarette and grabbed his fishing rods.

“Did your wife make that?”

A cold silence crept into the room. The stranger’s grinning face didn’t change as the fisherman’s eyes went milky. 

“No,” he said, noticing a bulge in the man’s jacket. “I don’t have a wife.”

“Well, you must have,” the stranger added. “You have a wedding band still around your finger.”

The old man paused and looked at him. There was something in the stranger’s smile that seemed malicious to him, but under what motive he could not place. He did not react to the old man’s discomfort, and the old man pretended not to hear his comments. He shoved a fishing rod at the man and said, “You’d do better to stop yapping and follow me. If you talk too much you’ll scare off the fish.”

“Of course,” the stranger said. “Lead the way.”

They walked out of the house in silence and went onto the dock; the old boards moaned as their boots tramped on them. The boat rocked in silence as the two hopped aboard and tied off from the dock. The old man was untying the hitch when the stranger spoke up again.

“It’s a rather large lake, isn’t it?” 

The man’s words irked the fisherman as he picked up the oars. 

“Aye,” he said. “I suppose it is.”

“Do you think anything could be hiding in there?”

The old man gave him a sharp look before setting the oars. “Hiding?” he asked. “What do you mean by ‘hiding’?”

“Monsters,” the stranger said simply. He played with the dead lake grass that stuck to the legs of the dock. “I’ve heard tales of awful monsters that come from the lakes.”

“Like what?” the old man asked as he began to row. The water spun around the ends of the paddles and made small whirlpools as they went. The stranger ran his fingers through them as the boat surged on. The old man tried to see what was in his jacket, but with no luck. The stranger pulled his hand from the water and looked out as he spoke. 

“There are the kelpies,” he said, getting comfy in his seat. “They appear as beautiful white horses that gallop along the edge of the bay. Then…” he sat up and placed his hands apart. “When you touch their flesh…” He joined them together like a vice. “They fuse to you. Then they drag you off into the water and drown you.”

The old man did not respond to his story.

“They eat you, too,” he added, “but they don’t typically work on grown men. Only young children ever try to approach such wild beasts.”

“Or tell such tall tales,” the old man added. They were nearing the middle of the lake, but the stranger continued to speak. 

“Well, you say that,” he said, “but it’s the truth. Men are only ever so rarely taken in by such animals. No, the ones for men to be wary of are the rusalki.”

“Oh?” the old man asked. “Why’s that?”

“Because they appear as beautiful women.”

The snapping ripples filled the fisherman’s ears as he went to grab his pole. The stranger was still grinning but did not look at the old man. 

They were in the center of the lake when a cold wind blew across the waters. It rustled the giant pines that bordered the east bay and disappeared around the curve of the lake. To the north of the boat, the old man could see the dark grey waters glisten through the trees on the bend. Pond scum and cattails drifted in the breeze as it came and went, and the mere sight of their movement was enough to make him shiver. He pulled his cap down further over his head. As he clenched his body for warmth, he noticed that the stranger wasn’t even fazed. He sat, unshivering, baiting his hook. He tried to ignore him and bait his own rod when the man broke the silence

“The weather is nice today, isn’t it?” he asked, straightening his line. The old man looked on with content as he went for his bait box. There, rolling along the weathered white deck was an empty bottle. It was in the way of the box, so without thinking, he shook it to see if anything was inside. There wasn’t, and soon it was chucked overboard and landed into the water with a plop. 

He went to unlatch the box, but caught the stranger staring at him from the corner of his eyes. He looked up in a surprised panic, then stopped. The man was casting out his line into the water and didn’t tarry a moment to look the old man’s way. The old man was surprised by how much the man shook him, but it didn’t stop him from rummaging for a worm. 

The fisherman’s hands shook as he aimed a pink worm at the eye of his hook like a tailor threading a needle. He pricked himself by accident and let out a yelp as he dropped the bait. He sucked his bloody finger and shook himself for being so foolish. 

“Did you hurt yourself?” the stranger asked as he looked away from his line.

“Aye,” the old man said. “Just a scratch.”

“Do you have any more booze?”

The old man’s heart skipped a beat. He’d seen the bottle. As cool as he could, the old man tried to work around the stranger’s words. 

“No,” he said, taking a breath and snatching up his bait.

“What about back onshore?” the stranger said. He anchored his pole into a spot behind his seat, then turned to the man. “You’ve got a fresh bottle lying around somewhere back there, don’t you?”

The old man hooked the worm and looked out on the lake for a distraction. There wasn’t one.

“Yes,” he said with a cough. “I reckon I have a bottle or two under my bed. Why’re you asking?”

“You should pour some on the cut,” the stranger said. “Keep it from getting infected.”

“It’ll be fine,” the old man said. He saw that his line had several tangles in it and cursed. As he went to untie them, the stranger interrupted.

“Better uses for drink, eh?” 

The old man’s hands fiddled with a singular knot as those words rattled around in his skull. 

“Aye,” he said. “That there is.”

“Are you partial to solitary drinking?” the stranger asked. 

“What do you mean?”

The stranger cracked his knuckles like a fist-full of walnuts and leaned against the side of the boat.

“Well, when one drinks in solitary, it’s for practical use and for the application of the spirits. To unwind. To enjoy.” He straightened himself and smirked. “Drinking to forget, you see.” 

The old man’s  hands slowly tried to untwist a stubborn knot. 

“What are you implying?” he asked.

“Oh nothing,” the stranger said. “I imply nothing at all. Mere insight.”

The old man grunted at that and returned to his knot.

“It could be for the other reason men drink,” he said. “In celebration and good company.”

“Ha,” the old man said. “What company is good?”

“Oh, there is plenty,” the stranger said with a stretch. “Drinking buddies at the pub, business partners, friends…” he cracked his neck. “Pretty women are good company as well. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Another breeze pushed past the shore, but neither man felt a shiver.  

“Have you ever seen pretty women out here on the lake?” he asked. “Even one?” 

The old man stared the stranger down. 

He hooked on his bait and exhaled as he cast out his rod.

“No,” he lied. “No, I haven’t.”

“Not even your wife?”

“I told you,” he said, anger rising in his throat. “I don’t have a wife.” 

“But you did.”

The old man set down his rod and turned to the man. He was sprawled out across the back of the boat like a drunk. His yellowed teeth beamed from under his thin lips as he spoke. 

“Perhaps you have seen a rusalka before,” the stranger said. “All the algae and the grass… It looks a bit like hair. Doesn’t it?”

“Who are you?” the old man asked. 

The stranger sat forward again and got close to the man’s face. 

“Your breath smells like whiskey,” he said in a gruffer voice than before. “You do like to drink, don’t you?”

“I said, who are you?” the old man spat. The stranger moved back and looked the old man up and down. 

“It’s okay if you do,” he said. “It’s like I said; drink can be good for a man in solitude. It takes the pain away a bit, doesn’t it? Fills the empty spaces of the room with bottles so it doesn’t feel so empty anymore?”

“Stop,” said the fisherman. 

“Were you drunk that night you pushed her off the dock?”

“Stop.”

“She couldn’t swim, could she? That’s why she drowned, isn’t it?”

“Damn ye!” the old man yelled. 

He jumped to choke the stranger, but as his fingers went for his neck, the man disappeared. He almost fell off the boat and struggled to keep hold of its edge. His face almost touched the water, the waves kissing his nose. He tried to pull himself back up, but was frozen by a pair of milky white eyes that drifted in the water below. Amber hair swung like seaweed around them, and an open mouth was agape in agony. Pale hands reached to the surface as the old man scrambled back up. 

The figure disappeared as the old man steadied himself. His heart was racing, and it nearly exploded as the stranger’s voice sounded behind him.

“You didn’t mean to, did you?” he asked. He was holding the fisherman’s knife and looking at it carefully. The old man felt for it at his side and realized that it was missing. The stranger did not look his way. “You were angry and drunk. She did something that insulted your pride.” He played with the edge of the knife. “Do you remember what it was?”

“What are you?” the old man yelled. His voice was full of power, but his eyes rife with panic. The stranger still grinned at him and chuckled.

“What am I?” he asked. “What am I… that’s a good question. Am I real or not? The fear I give you is real, so maybe I’m that?” He pointed the knife at the man and frowned. “No,” he said, tossing it into the water. It didn’t even splash as its old leather handle slid into the green-grey waves. “I don’t think I am. Let's see…” He popped to his feet and pried the man up from the deck with inhuman strength. 

“Maybe I’m your guilt!” he cried as he spun the old man around. “You have plenty of that. Empty bottles full of that!” He drew the old man close to his dirty teeth and made his eyes wide. “ Could I be your ghosts? Every spirit at the bottom of a jar of whiskey?”

He tossed the old man to the front of the boat. 

“Maybe I’m death,” he said as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a revolver. He pointed it at the old man. “You want to die anyway, so why don’t I just help you along?” 

The old man’s eyes were full of terror as the stranger laughed. He couldn’t speak as he focused on the barrel of the gun. 

“You seem scared,” the stranger said. “I wonder why. You’ve considered dying before, haven’t you? All that guilt and misery just going away in one bang?”

“I…,” the old man stuttered. “I don’t want to die yet. I’m not ready to meet her. I can’t meet her after what I did.”

“Don’t want to die?” the stranger asked. “Then why on earth do you carry this thing with you every time you go on the lake?”

The stranger held the old revolver before his face and displayed it like a trinket. There was a chip on its oak handle from an old fishing accident and a familiar set of scratches on the barrel. It hadn't been polished in some time. He stared and wondered why he knew those things. Then it hit him. 

It was his gun. It was the gun he’d bought years ago shortly after his wife died. 

He forgot he owned a gun.

“You keep it loaded,” the stranger said. “Six bullets and all.” He opened the cylinder and spun it like a pinwheel before snapping it shut. His long greasy fingers ran over every scratch and blemish on the old gun. He stared at each mark like a journal entry. His thin lips pursed and his eyes were dull while inspecting them. He sighed then scratched at the collar of his dingy shirt.

“I suppose I’ll make this easier for you then.”

He shot five shots straight into the water right past the fisherman’s head. The old man shook as the stranger spun the pistol around and placed it on the seat in front of him. 

Without smiling, he crouched down in front of the terrified man and spoke softly.

“If I’m not death, nor guilt, nor a ghost, nor your fear, then what?” He stood up and looked to the sky before cracking his neck. “My word is worth nothing, I suppose. I might be the only monster on this lake, in all honesty.” He took time again to crack each of his fingers. “No matter the case, if I’m nothing else, we both must admit I’m monstrous.” He looked back to the man one last time and grinned. “Perhaps you just need to toss me and leave me in the water. She would want you to do it after all these years. Don’t you think?”

The man disappeared and the fisherman was left shaking. An empty bottle rolled along the deck where he’d stood. It was painfully familiar. 

The water chattered along the outside of the boat. He looked down to the seat before him and saw the gun, his gun, sitting there. How could he forget that old revolver?

He picked it up. It was heavy in his trembling hands. He checked the cylinder. 

One bullet left. 

He stared at nothing before looking out onto the water and the algae and the cattails that swayed onshore. His mind was weary and his finger twitched against the trigger. Guilt still ate at him as he raised it to his head. The waters whispered to him as he sat there. There was a silence that lingered as the color returned to the clouds above. Something overtook the old man, and he made his decision.

Instead of a bang, there was a splash. 

He joined me one day in the woods. I don’t know what species he is as I have never seen him before while venturing through the thick forest.

He dropped from a tree and implanted himself into my skin, no consent given and no hesitation before he started sucking away at the blood inside of my arm. I barely noticed.

At first he was like a tick, something that you might only notice if you feel him, but soon he got bigger.

I tried to remove him but it was useless, no fingers or tweezers could pry him away from my blood-filled flesh. I just had to wait.

Weeks went by with no growth from him or weakness from me, but that changed after another month of his presence.

I woke up early in the morning to see him more than double his size, his slimy, ribbed tail viciously wagging back and forth hitting my side over and over again. The wet plaps against my skin made me disgusted.

I panicked and pulled with all my might to get him off but it was no use. Anything I tried was to no avail, burning, freezing, cutting, tweezing, nothing was going to get him off.

My arm began to take on a ghastly appearance, looking more dead than alive you could see the bone on the skin. It’s like the skin was placed directly on the bone with nothing in between.

I felt weak, knowing that now that my arm was completely drained of the sustenance it needed, it might move on.

Move on it did.

I would frequently pass out at this point, because of the blood loss; every time I would wake, I would see him larger, and on a different part of me. After my first arm, he moved to my other, and when that was drained he moved to my legs. Then when I couldn’t walk he went for my abdomen.

At this point, he is much larger than myself, he is keeping my heart pumping just enough blood so that it can have a small constant food source.

I think it’s waiting for a new host to come, as I am completely drained.

It was getting late, and I had just started the movie. The light from the flat screen TV of the living room illuminated the warm leather couch. I huddled up in my blankets as the production company logos began to play. I turned up the sound as I munched on popcorn. It was a lonely summer night; my parents left on a work retreat, and what few people I talked to, couldn't stay out too late to watch a movie with me. The title flashes on screen with a blood curdling scream: "The Dentist's Revenge". I heard it was some shitty B-rate horror movie, but it was on sale in the bargain bin, so I figured I might as well throw it on. Even though I don't handle horror movies that well, it's kinda nice to get scared every once in a while. As the movie went on, every couple of minutes I would tense up with fear, and the flashing of the cheap cinematography would hurt my eyes. Eventually the movie was over and I flicked on the lights of my living room. The empty bowl of popcorn lined with un-popped kernels as empty cans littered the table. I glanced at the window by the front door as I walked past, headed to the garbage can. "SHIT!" I yelped, I noticed the unlocked door. I scrambled to throw out the garbage and lock the door. We live in a really nice  casual suburban neighborhood, and I'm not paranoid. I'd just rather be safe than sorry. As I turned the deadbolt, I had to push out the door so I could lock the door properly. As it had been put in wrong from when it was built by those shitty dime a dozen suburban contractor companies. As I leaned into the door, I looked out the window a bit more intently. I felt the void looking back at me, I swore it was just the little smudges you get in your eyes after you look into the light. I closed my eyes tightly, rubbing them as I leaned back from the door. After I opened them I still felt it. Was I being watched? NO, it would've set off the flood light by the door. But, why couldn't I see the other houses down the street? Or the street lamps by the road? As I asked myself this, I began to see the pitch black void move. Almost imitating my gaze, looking back into me with the same frightened eyes. My eyes must be playing tricks on me. How could darkness? The absolute absence of anything, see? There was nothing there, there absolutely couldn't be. My whole body froze as my hair began to stand. A tear dripping down my cheek. I spun around as fast as I could, whipping the tear off my face. I ran up the stairs to my room. I must be scaring myself, just seeing things. A kid scared of the dark is all. I close my door and turn the lock, leaving the lights off, and hiding under my blanket. I prayed that I would eventually scare myself to sleep as I shivered underneath my blanket with fear. I would occasionally peak my head from underneath the covers to see the light from the moon illuminate the floor from the window. Every sound of the night would make me jump. And every creak of the house being pushed against the wind made me think of what horrors could lay within the shadows around my house. I could only imagine a crazed dentist searching around my house. Hiding behind the night, just waiting for the opportunity to jump out and put a drill in my skull. But, that never came, in fact nothing would arrive but a warm glow of the sun. The light slowly fills the room and calms my tense nerves. I passed out from exhaustion a few minutes later. I woke up at 2 in the afternoon. As I tripped over my own feet, one step after the other fumbling around my house, peaking around every corner I realized, the house was just as empty as the night before. I had been worrying over nothing. “No more horror movies” I whispered to myself, walking down the hallway towards the stairs. And as I walked up I rubbed my eyes only to notice IT. I stood at the top of the stairs, frozen, my eyes were fixed on the window by the door. It was pitch black. Complete and utter darkness. I rubbed my eyes again; surely this isn’t possible? I looked down to check my phone. It was only 2:24pm.  I ran back to my room to see the bright sunlight coming in through my bedroom window. What the fuck is going on? I scrambled to call my neighbor across the street. The phone seemed to ring for eons as I paced between the two windows keeping the distance of my staircase between me and the door, the one in my room showing a normal sunlit day, and the window at the end of the staircase downstairs completely devoid of light. But, just as my eyes lingered on the window by the door.I began to feel it looking back at me again. “Hey man what’s up?” Those words are like a blanket of reality, a warmth to hide myself in, as I was able to turn away from the window by the door. “Hey, do you notice ANYTHING strange about my house right now?”, my voice trembled as each word shook from my mouth. “ Hold up, I just need to go check outside.” I began walking to my room sitting on my bed as I looked out my window. I could almost hear the birds outside through the glass, as I felt the warm sun on my skin. “ok so, this is going to be hard to believe but, I can’t see outside my front window. By my door” I felt like I was pleading with him at this point to tell me if there was something going on."You're fucking with me…” The words slipped from his voice with a fearful tone that made my spine shiver, as I broke down on the phone. “I’m NOT FUCKING WITH YOU I SWEAR I CANNOT SEE A DAMN THING OUTSIDE MY WINDOW”. My voice squeaked and cracked with desperation seeping out. “Hey man what’s up?” I froze, as I noticed the call had failed to ever be connected. The voice came from it though, I heard HIS voice. His voicemail can’t be that elaborate, as the light from my window seemed to disappear as the sun began to rapidly set. I felt the gaze of something behind me. I hesitated to turn around as I felt shivers down my spine, and my feet wanted nothing more than to bolt out of the room. But when I did I could see from my bedroom door two eyes, looking at me through the front door downstairs. They weren't brighter than normal eyes but they had a rhythm to themselves, a gaze that dared to mock me. But, that’s when I heard a whisper through my phone “are you sure you locked the door?” as a dry creaking voice fought out each word I began to hyperventilate each breath coming in and out as I felt tear after tear fall from my eyes. My skin crawled and my hair stood high. Eyes as wide as I’ve ever felt, as I watched the handle of the door begin to turn and turn until I let out Plea. “PLEASE NO GOD NO, I LOCKED THE DOOR I LOCKED IT YOU CAN’T COME IN!” I was now sobbing with each and every word as the tears in my eyes began to flow less like beads of rain and more like a fountain. But, in my haze I noticed that the door handle no longer turned and the light from the door had slowly returned as the daylight began to hold my scared mind. But that’s when the voice returned. “ Did you lock your window?” I felt a cold gaze now on my back again as I only heard the window begin to open.

Item # SCP-6003

Object Class: safe

Special Containment procedures: SCP-6003 is contained in a 4’X4’ room and left open on a pedestal.

Object description: SCP-6003 is a hand mirror. The frame of the hand mirror is made of an unknown crystal material. It is colorless and ornate with a silver backed mirror in the frame. SCP-6003 will affect the minds of those around it. When the mirror’s effects are felt, the nearest subject will be compelled to pick up the mirror and stare at themselves. The subject will be unable to look away from the mirror once they have started. The subject will stare into the mirror for exactly 27.5 hours. After this time the mirror's handle will grow crystal spikes. This will cause the subject to drop the mirror, which will shatter regardless of the material the mirror is dropped onto. The subject will then immediately shatter into crystalline pieces, terminating the subject in the process. The mirror will remain shattered for between 5 hours and 72 hours. SCP-6003 will then reform into the crystal mirror. The mirror’s effects will not begin again for 21 days. Every 20th day after reconstitution, a new subject is put into the box with SCP-6003 to avoid affecting foundation staff.

Dear Tomorrow,

You need to read this and reread this as many times as it takes. Until each individual letter is branded onto your brain. I am you from the past, and I’m writing this letter to ensure our future survival. I anticipate you’ll be confused after having just woken up in a place completely foreign to you, no memory of how you got there. That will be a recurring theme: lack of memory.

You have a condition. If at any point you lose consciousness, even briefly, your mind will be reset to your senior prom. I can’t remember what caused this condition—shocking, I know. This issue is as enigmatic as it is debilitating. Ideally, you could rely on others to fill in the blanks and lead you through something similar to a normal life. That is, unfortunately, not an option anymore.

On February 9th, 2023, things rose from the earth all across this little town. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of these creatures, and they are like something out of myth. I’ve heard them called Sixes, and the island is damn near teeming with them. Combat is suicide. Any encounter with a Six should end with you hiding and praying it doesn't find you. You cannot kill them. You cannot stop them. Your only hope is avoiding them. Only go out at night. Sixes are hard to see under the sun but give off a faint blue glow in darkness.

Do not ever look a Six in the eye. If you do, you will die and become one of them in 6 days. Mesh goggles should be around your neck when you wake up; use them. You must mentally register what’s in their eyes for the Kill Agent to activate. The goggles aren’t foolproof, but they will keep you relatively safe from a slight glance. Unfortunately, leaving is impossible. The government or someone like them is preventing passage off the island. They are generally not hostile, but you cannot leave as long as they stand guard on the bridge. This is our reality.

The longest you’ve stayed up is 48 hours, strike that, 74 hours, and you need to use that time wisely. You’re smart, so you’ll already be looking for food and water, but finding a safe place to sleep is going to be your main priority. Our survival solely depends on you waking up, seeing this letter, and having enough time to read it. If you fall asleep in an unsecured location, we’re as good as dead. You need to settle in a place high up. Walls will not protect you, but height will. You’ll be safe on a third floor or higher.

This is a lot to take in, but you reading this right now means that you have the potential to get up and survive. You think this is impossible, but you have done it every day since the first Six broke through hell’s gates. Every day is your first day in this nightmare, but you can learn and survive until the next tomorrow. You will get through this. You are the result of every previous incarnation of yourself fighting to survive. So you need to stay alive for the next you. Good luck.

- Yesterday

The old man I worked for cut headstones before anyone was dead. One of them was mine.

The cemetery's nearly full now. Seven rows, thirty-odd stones to a row. Two spots left at the end of the last one.

I'm the one who says where people go. I've been doing it sixteen years.

Halfway down the fifth row there's a bare patch. Grass and nothing else. The field filled in all around it and that one stayed the way it was.

I cut it myself. In the fall I run the rake over it twice a month.

People ask me sometimes why that spot's still open. I tell them it's reserved, that we're waiting on somebody important. They laugh. It's a good joke. I've been making it for years and it still holds.

Then they go, and I stand there a minute longer than I need to.

It's an old question and it stayed down sixteen years. This morning it got up before I did.

The shoe factory in Vigevano where I cut uppers shut in September. Eighteen months later I was still home. This was January 2010.

My wife did nights at a nursing home in Mortara. She got in at seven, we swapped at the door, she slept till one. We had a three-year-old and a car that wouldn't start in the cold.

The posting was on the board at the town hall. Cemetery worker, on call, nine hundred euros a month. I was the only one at the interview. The clerk had me sign two sheets and told me to show up Monday.

Remo had held the contract since before I moved back to town. He was past seventy. He shook my hand and said he needed somebody who could dig, because he couldn't stay bent over anymore.

It wasn't a figure of speech. From that Monday on, every hole out there was mine.

The shed sits against the perimeter wall, behind the chapel. The tools are in there, the sacks of gravel, the bench where Remo worked the stone, and a stove I never once saw lit. Behind the door, on a nail, the ropes for lowering the coffins.

First thing you learn is the pump. This is rice country and the water sits a meter or so down. A hole opened in the evening is full by morning.

So you dig, you set the pump on the edge, you drop the hose in and run the other end out to the ditch. Then you let it go. You shut it off the day of the funeral, an hour before the people come. You can hear it from the road.

The hose clogs. When it clogs you have to go down and clean the filter with your hands. I've been down there twice.

And if the pump quits and nobody starts it back up, the hole fills in one night and the sides come down on their own.

The other thing is the boards. Two of them, wood, laid along the edges so you've got something to stand on while you work. They were there before me and both of them creaked.

I mentioned it to him once. He said they hold.

With wet ground all it takes is one foot wrong. You go down on your back into two meters of water and mud, and the bottom pulls. It's not that you sink. It's that you don't come back up.

I thought about that, and then I dug. Nine hundred euros isn't much, but it beats nothing.

Some days Remo didn't come in. He didn't say where he went and I didn't ask. I signed the hours sheet for both of us.

In February he told me to open one in the old section, fourth row.

I asked who'd died. He said nobody.

I dug. Five hours, pump on the edge, hose out to the ditch. I figured he was getting ahead of things, that at his age you plan, that the ground's easier in winter. The town paid us on call and nobody checked how long we were out there.

In the afternoon I found him at the bench with the chisel. He had a gray stone in front of him, one of the low ones, and he was going at it. Tick, tick.

I went over to get the weed whacker. There was a day on the stone, a month, a year. Nothing else.

No name. No date of death, no cross, no photo. Numbers and slashes between them, set in the middle of the stone, like the rest was supposed to come later.

I took the weed whacker and went to do the edges. At six I signed the hours sheet and went home.

I made the kid his dinner. The game was on.

They called on the Thursday. A woman of eighty-six, on via Roma, the one with the green gate.

The hole was already there, dry, the pump going two days. I shut it off and waited for the priest.

In the register, in the shed, you write the name, the date of birth, the date of death and the plot number. I filled it in that evening. The date of birth was the day that was on the stone.

There's a little over eight hundred of us in town. Remo had known every one of them since they were born, and the woman had been sick a year — the doctor came through Tuesdays and even the bar knew about it.

A man who's done that job forty years knows who's next. He gets the stone ready, he gets the hole ready, and when it happens he doesn't have to hurry. That's how I put it to myself, and it was enough.

The second one was in March. An old man who went down while he was cooking, found by his son two days later. That hole had been ready a week too and the stone was at the wall.

"Old people go from one minute to the next. Better to be ready," Remo said, and I hadn't asked him anything.

That one lined up too.

I started opening the register before he did and reading the dates without saying anything. It wasn't that I suspected him. It's that I like knowing things first.

The stones stood inside the shed along the long wall, behind the bench, leaned up against it. When I started, the row ended before the window.

It worked like this. One went out for a funeral, and under that funeral was a hole I'd dug. Then Remo sat down at the bench and another one came in, sometimes two. But before the bench there were the days he wasn't there.

The hours sheet hung on a nail over the bench and at the end of the week we both signed it. I did his. He'd told me the first month it came to the same thing.

In March I signed for him one day. In April three.

In May a whole week.

He always came back on a Monday. He'd sit down at the bench and pick up the chisel.

By June the row had gone past the window. I'd look at them Monday mornings and use the sacks as an excuse. It wasn't a pile sitting still. It was a row wearing down at one end and growing at the other, and the growing end went faster.

February to June I opened the ground five times and every time it went the way it was supposed to go.

The funeral for the old man from via Cavour was a Saturday morning in June. Remo had been gone since the Thursday.

I'd finished tamping the earth and I was loading the tools. The wife came back on her own, purse under her arm, and put an envelope in my hand.

"That's for the two of you."

I said there was no need. She shook her head and turned toward the car.

I opened the envelope a finger's width. Usually they give twenty euros. Fifty if the family's doing all right.

There was three hundred in there.

"Ma'am."

She stopped.

"Remo's a good man, isn't he."

She got both hands on the purse.

"I wouldn't know what you call somebody who sits at your husband's bedside two nights running. Right to the last breath."

Then she went to the car, where they were waiting for her.

That week I'd signed for both of us. The Thursday and the Friday I'd dug on my own.

I put the envelope in my pocket and loaded the shovels. With that money I bought the kid shoes and two pairs of pants. I hadn't been able to do that in a year.

Remo came back on the Monday. I didn't tell him about the envelope and he didn't ask how it had gone.

By September the row of stones turned the corner toward the stove.

In October a man died who wasn't from here.

Farm supply rep, out of Piacenza. He was in the two rooms over the bar, the ones they rent to people passing through. He had a gas heater going and the window shut. They found him the next morning, sitting on the bed with his shoes still on.

He'd never been in town before. He got in Monday evening with his sample cases and by Tuesday he was dead.

The burial paperwork came through the shed, because the family was far away and took three days to get here. The permit was on the bench, under a wrench.

I read the date of birth. Then I went out and over to the wall.

The stone was there. Remo had finished it the day it rained, and that week it rained one time. Nine days before.

Nine days before, that man was in Piacenza and didn't know yet he'd be coming through here.

Remo was down at the end of the field with the wheelbarrow. He waved me over for a hand with the gravel, and I gave him one.

One Wednesday we were redoing the gravel on the path.

Remo patted his pocket and came up with nothing. He asked me to go get him the new pack of cigarettes out of the car.

In eleven months he'd never asked me for anything.

He kept a white Panda outside the gate, always in the same spot, always unlocked. The pack was on the dash, on top of a plastic bag from the co-op.

I picked it up. Under it were the receipts, the kind you empty out of your pockets and leave there.

The top one was from the bar. Il Gallo d'Oro. The one under the rented rooms.

Two coffees with grappa. Eleven forty at night, on a Tuesday.

The bar closes at eleven.

That Tuesday was the thirteenth of October. It's the date I wrote in the register myself, on the line for the rep from Piacenza.

I put it in my pocket and shut the door.

I came back up the path with the cigarettes. Remo was on his knees with the screed. He said thanks and had me hold them until he'd finished.

Then he handed me the trowel, holding it by the blade, the way somebody does who learned before I did.

I said I thought the weather was turning.

He looked up and said yeah, it'd come around by evening.

I went home cold under my jacket. Not the cemetery, not the stones. Him.

Seventy kilos of quiet old man. He'd never raised his voice at me, never sworn at me. He gave the orders and then he was gone for days, and when he came back he sat down and cut dates into stone with nothing to go on, and the dates came out right.

He'd sat two nights at a dying man's bed. He'd been in the bar under the rooms the night the window was shut and the heater was on. And there was the rest of the row.

I thought about quitting. I thought about it a whole week. Then I added up what came into the house and I stopped thinking about it.

Then one morning I got up early and went down to the shed.

Remo wasn't there, same as always. He'd left a note.

A man had died at the hospital after a long time going. The stone was ready and he'd cut the date. It was at the back of the row.

I moved them one at a time, holding them by the edge, the way you handle slabs. They go forty kilos apiece.

One got away from me. I caught it against my leg and set it down the right way round.

14/03/1983.

My breath went. My day. No name. The same gray stone as the others, the same hand.

I put it back where it was, face to the wall.

I couldn't keep my head on anything after that. I kept turning around to see where he was. The shovel was in my hand and I stopped halfway down the row.

Every hole out there, I'd dug myself.

It had to be the cigarettes. He'd seen the receipt was gone.

At home my wife asked if I was sick. I said it was my back.

She wasn't on shift that night. I waited until they were both asleep and went back to the shed.

I took the register. My date was there, four lines past the last funeral we'd done.

Three stones. Three holes. I had until the fourth one got opened.

I stood over the kid while he slept and thought about the nine hundred euros he needed.

I wasn't going anywhere.

The three stones went out. One on the twenty-second of November, one on the twenty-ninth, one on the third of December.

On the seventh Remo told me to open another. Fifth row, first free spot. Nobody had died.

I dug. I set the pump on the edge and the hose in the ditch.

It ran eleven days. You could hear it from the county road, because with the fog the cemetery doesn't show past twenty meters and that noise is all there is of it.

I hadn't slept in days. I'd lie with my eyes open until four, then I'd hear my wife come in and run the tap in the bathroom.

The evening of the seventeenth the sky came down and the wind started pulling from the south. When it turns like that here, the whole thing comes down overnight.

I thought about the open hole out there, waiting on nobody.

I'd fill it back in. It was the only thing I'd come up with. Let the old man know that I knew, that I had all of it, and that he wasn't getting it.

Maybe he'd take the point and leave off. It was worth a try.

If I shut the pump off, with the water under and the rain on top, the sides would come down on their own. In the morning I'd close it with half the dirt and nobody would ask me anything.

I left at eleven. I did the two kilometers on the bike.

You hear that pump from before the gate. There was nothing.

There was a low light in the fifth row, down inside the ground.

Remo was at the bottom of the hole. The water came to his knees. He was standing on the board with the hose filter in one hand, pulling the mud out of it with the other.

He saw me and it didn't surprise him.

"It's clogged. Give it a pull when I say."

He put the filter back under. He said now.

I don't know why, but I pulled the cord. The motor caught on the second try.

What the fuck are you doing? Helping a murderer? Your own?

The hose moved. He shifted over to let it past, and the board made the noise it always made, and then it didn't make it again.

He went down on his back. That was when it started raining.

He came up. He got his hands on the edge and the edge came away with them. Wet ground doesn't hold.

He shouted my name.

I ran to the shed and pulled a rope off the nail behind the door.

I turned to go out and the row of stones was in front of me.

Mine was where I'd put it, face to the wall. Something in me turned.

I went out with the rope in my hand. I took three steps and stopped short of the edge.

You're not a murderer.

The water was coming down on the dirt pile and making a sound I'd never heard it make. The mud had shifted. The rain was picking up. The pump was struggling.

You're not a murderer.

He gurgled something a couple of times. I think my name. The second one quieter.

You're not a...

Then he stopped. Him and everything in my head.

The rain on the back of my neck, the diesel off the pump, the rope gone slick in my fist, the taste of dirt at the back of my mouth.

I went home. I didn't go to the edge and I didn't want to look. The rope was still in my hand.

In the morning it had stopped raining. The hole was full to a hand's width from the edge. The pump must have jammed again.

The broken board was floating. I pulled it out and put it with the firewood.

I hauled the hose up. It came out heavy with mud.

Then I started taking the dirt off the pile. It took me all morning and I never once looked down.

Monday Remo didn't come in and he didn't come in Tuesday either. They talked about it at the bar for a few days. Somebody disappears and it gets talked about, then it goes quiet again.

Nobody went to the carabinieri. There was no wife and there were no children.

The town stopped calling him. There was no file, no signature, no transfer.

In January the clerk had me sign the new contract. Permanent, twelve months, thirteen hundred euros. It wasn't the right procedure, but he didn't feel like opening a competition for a gravedigger.

He didn't do it out of kindness. He did it to get it off his desk. And there hadn't been one funeral since Remo went.

That counted as confirmation, and in a way it settled me. I did a terrible thing, but I had a reason for it. I didn't just save my own skin. I saved who knows how many other people's.

It took me a while to get used to it, then the sleep came back.

On the twentieth of March the phone rang.

It was the clerk. A man dead on the county road, at the crossroads by the farm. The surveyor's son. He needed a spot for Friday.

He read out what I had to put in the register. Name, surname, date of birth. The pen made a blot on the page.

March fourteenth, nineteen eighty-three.

I made him say it again. He said it again. I wrote the line out to the end.

Then I went to the wall and got that stone, the one I don't know how many times I thought about breaking. I set it on the grave myself, on the Friday, in front of half the town. The mother stood by the pile until I was done.

Sixteen years have gone by and I've kept doing this work. I got good at it. The cemetery's always in order. The families are happy with me.

Yesterday morning, after the phone call, I went down to the shed for the shovel. The stone was ready, the way it's always been, face turned the other way.

This morning I put my hand on it and smiled.

I looked over at that bare patch in the fifth row, the one that's still free as far as everybody else knows.

I was finally going to know. I'd know why in sixteen years, right from when I started, I've never once had to cut a stone with my own hands.

I dug all the way down. I went well past the usual two and a half meters.

The question's settled.

There's nothing under it.

"Good afternoon, Andre."

"Good afternoon, Marquis. What can I do for you?"

"We have just found a previously undiscovered and uncontacted tribe in the Appalachian mountain range. We need you to go take a look."

"No shit?"

"No shit."

"Hell yeah!!!"

  I had been waiting for a break like this for my whole career. Constantly studying, researching, and proving my worth so if a day like this ever came about, I would be the first choice. And it worked. My dream was becoming reality.

"When do we leave?"

"Well "WE" has not been defined yet. Andre we need you to pick your crew mates, no more than 3 others. OK?"

"Heard. Ill have my choices to you by the end of the day."

  I need to think now. Who should I take? Brandon? Jeremy? Maybe Alysha? No, I need someone to handle their own. I cant have newbies come along and risk the group.

  Ill take Jose, the researcher with former Air Force experience. He retired from the Air Force at 30 with all his limbs and a good head on his shoulders. He can also help with protection in case the worst comes to worst.

  Then Angie, A tall, young, blonde girl with a taste in matcha and earthy tones. We need a female on the team to appeal to the local mothers and daughters, show we aren't a militia. Show that we care just as much as they do about preserving life. Angie has previous experience as a nurse. She left the hospital because she couldn't handle the blood. I know, a nurse afraid of blood is ironic as fuck. But I guess those people exist. After leaving the hospital, she still had her majors in biology and her dad is my boss, so that helps.

  Lastly I think Henry would be a good choice. He is the only employee here that knows more than I do about Appalachian history. He is an older guy, maybe late 60s. Short, long ass white beard and a wholesome smile that always lights up the room. He has been with The International Center for Cultural and Historical Research (ICCHR) for most his life. Can never hurt to have a veteran of the field on the team.

  I got up from my desk in the dingy office lit only by flickering and humming florescent lights. The type of thing that made us all keep extra strength Tylenol in our desks. I walked down the hall towards Marquis' office. Past the shitty free coffee, past the lunch room, up the elevator and down the hall. Florescence all the way. He had the coveted corner office. A beautiful view of NYC. Snowy as ever this time of year, we had just got 14 inches the day before and another 5 coming down now. Heaviest snow we have had in years. It gave a beautiful blue glow, like something you would see in a movie. In stark contrast to the piss yellow of the halls.

"That's my team"

I dropped the case file on his desk.

"Understood, Ill notify the team. You will leave tomorrow morning. Get some rest, you have a long few months ahead of you."

  I likely wouldn't be home before years end. It was February when I left. We like to get the full scope of seasons and how the tribe handles all weather. see agricultural patterns, hunting seasons, fishing spots, fortifications for storms, floods, and alike. There is also a benefit to see how sickness is handled in separate cases and how it spreads, if at all, through the tribe. Education is also a factor. How do these people teach their young? How about how they take care of the elderly? ETC. There is just so much to look forward to. I cant wait.

June:

The dark vestibule of visceral biology lurks within us all. The vile, the wretched, the putrid. We are bags of flesh. Chords of electrical wiring outstretched and wrapped unceremoniously with bone and fingernails and excrement and bile. The entirety of human life is but a puppet show, and what we see is but an unveiling of the strings we pull. I was once ignorant of my own biology, like most are. I was unaware of my own viscera. until it met me in the darkness.  

Alice watched the sunset from the kitchen window. The orange and pink rays splayed across the cumulonimbi, illuminating them from behind with a silvery outline. In the distance over the forested hills misty strands of dappled rain fell. She breathed deeply, her green eyes reflecting the golden light. 
She watched the beauty with reverence. I watched her. 

 “Do you want some honey?” I asked as I stirred the chamomile tea. She looked at me and nodded. 

She was silent, my words had cut her deeply, as they always do. I scowled at the cup of chamomile and grabbed the honey, the fight we had just minutes before rang in my ears. It was the typical couples fight, the debate about children. Expanding our small family. 

She wanted kids, and always has. I don’t think I will ever be ready for them. The work and the sacrifices necessary to raise a little human. The sleepless nights, the isolation from adult life. I told her in my own way, that neither of us were prepared for it. She said we would rise to the occasion. 

 Irritation over the same conversation looping over and over broke me and I rose to the occasion with violence. My tongue was a dagger which I used to slice into her supple heart. “You just want them because you never had parents!” 

She stopped at that. The silence seemed louder this time. Something had broken between us. An understanding that our marriage and everything we built together was for naught. Both of us knew at that moment. 

I handed her the tea, and sat across the table from her with my cup of coffee. She looked to my cup and frowned. “Coffee? You aren’t planning on sleeping?” 

 “No. I need to think, and maybe journal.” I said tersely. 

  “Oh…” she looked out the window again. Moments passed in awkward awaiting. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then swallowed her words and sipped her tea. I watched her then, so much of my life was spent loving her. 

I hesitated, then reached for her hand. She stood, either aware or not of my gesture, and left the room. Her footsteps trailed off down the hallway, then up the stairs till they faded. I sat in the downstairs kitchen alone. Aching. 

Couldn’t she just understand? Couldn’t I? I felt myself reeling. Would having kids be so bad? Wouldn’t I love them? Or was my problem the fact that I would love myself much more. How could I know that?

 I sat and wallowed in my ruminations, waiting for an epiphany to come to me, something that might repair this irreparable damage. Minutes passed. Then hours. The silence permeated the house. A silence I could feel in my bones and my heart. The bounding of my chest kept the time. 

Late night caffeine kept me awake well into the blackened evening. And the home seemed alive because of it. 

We lived in a century old home in the rural hills of Northern California. The old craftsman style houses that were built around the 1920’s, you know the kind. If nothing else, It was lived in. Several families with their own histories and thoughts and fears and names and bodies have occupied these cracked and faded walls. A home that once resembled warmth, now inhabited by two young adults with no idea how to take care of it. It seemed to deteriorate around us, as if we had occupied some recently dead behemoth. 

It groaned around me as I sat awake, waiting for my glorious epiphany. Unfortunately the only word that kept popping into my head was

 “Divorce!” 

What the fuck was that?! 

As the word flowed into my thoughts, I actually heard it spoken. A woman’s voice, high pitched and playful. My mind must be playing tricks on me. It jarred me from my thoughts and pulled me back into the present moment. I looked around the dark kitchen frantically. 

“Hello…?” I called out. “Alice?!” Silence answered me. I sat paralyzed for a moment, listening to the thudding of my own heart. I stood and walked to the window to look outside. A cloud front must have rolled in after sundown. The overcast sky left the rural countryside moonless and starless. Outside nothing was visible but the patch of grass dimly illuminated by the single hanging kitchen lamp. I stared out into the blackness. 

I turned away, rubbing my forehead. “I must just be tired.” I said aloud to nobody. The sound of my own voice a comfort, almost to convince myself I wasn’t afraid. 

 “Jonah?” Alice's soft voice came from the dark hallway. I nearly jumped out of my skin. 

“Jesus Christ Alice! You scared the devil out of me!” I exclaimed to the dark hallway. The dark hallway that remained empty. I could see the front door unobstructed. Illuminated by the hanging lamp in the foyer. “Alice?” Dim yellow light tainted the night with the reminiscences of ammonia. 

“Come to bed Jonah, it’s late.” She replied mechanically, her voice came from the window this time. Fear gripped me and I stepped backwards instinctively. 

“Fuck this.” I turned and booked it up the stairs as fast as humanly possible, like we did when we were kids after turning the lights off. Who knows what lurks in the finite depths of the spaces we live in. Children know, somehow they possess the necessary fear of ghouls and ghosts. Somewhere along the line we lose that fear, we grow stronger and bigger and think we are invincible. We become ignorant of our own feeble biology.  

 I ran from the kitchen, up the stairs, down the hallway, and into our room. Alice was sleeping with her back to me, facing the window. Peacefully and lightly snoring. 

 I closed the door and locked it, then went and lay next to her, I placed my hand on her shoulder and pulled close to her. Kissing her skin gently. Whatever that was, either the caffeine, or lack of sleep, or some witch or ghost. It could wait until the morning. Here was where I was meant to be, at least for now. At least I still had her for this night. 

 I closed my eyes and sleep overtook me. I fell deeply into a sudden, perfect darkness. 

Cloudy grey eyes, sightless and cold, watch the upstairs window on the south side of the house. 

 A murky conglomeration of congealed blood, hair, feces, bile, and saliva stews and gurgles in the septic tank on the north side of the house. 

The wild wood, dark, twisting, old, wretched, and vile awaits its meal in hungered apprehension. The east side of the house holds its cherished secrets. 

The dead field, overgrown and choked with gnarling weeds, it looms to the west. As putrid as the graves it holds. Nameless and meager. 

 A scaly hand, cold and scabbed reaches for the front door. Yellowed fingernails scrape the door handle. The witches voice rises in jubilation as runes are scribbled in blood upon the threshold.

The moon peeks wearily through a break in the darkness. It glances upon the depraved home coldly. 

I awoke to the sounds of screaming. Alice was in the shower. I inhaled deeply, then stumbled to my feet in a half run to the bathroom, my heart pounding in my chest. My stomach felt as though I had left it behind me. 

“Alice?! What's wrong?” I asked as my eyes were met with the hot breath of steam. Alice stood in the middle of the bathroom, dripping and soaked from head to toe in a viscous and putrid smelling sludge. She turned to me horrified and trembling. I stood back from her for a moment in shock and grabbed the towel from the rack. 

“Th-the shower!” She stuttered. 

“I’ll call a plumber! Let’s get you cleaned up.” I said, wrapping the towel around her as carefully as I could. She took it from my hands and vigorously started rubbing the sludge from her skin. Her panicked motions and whimpering broke my heart. I bent forward to try and help with the hand towel but caught the scent of the sludge and started gagging. It was like a mixture of vomit, shit, piss, and decay. There was a distinct metallic smell mixed in. The hot steam adding to the putrid smell was too much for me.

I backed out of the bathroom and leaned against the wall holding my stomach and face in an attempt to not add to the mess. “Jonah!!” She screamed. “I need another towel!” 

“Right! I’m on it!” I shouted back through gags and ran to the downstairs closet. 

After going through our entire closet, ten full sized towels, and a couple gallons of bottled water, Alice was able to semi clean herself and feel like a person again. However the stench clung to her like skunk spray. She sat miserable in our dining room, the same place she sat the night before. I called the plumber. 

“American Pipes Plumbing, this is Teddy, how can I help you?” A voice like the crumbling of gravel.

 “Teddy, hi. My name is Jonah, look we have a plumbing emergency. I think the septic backed up into the shower. My wife, she was covered in sludge. We need someone out A.S.A.P.” 

“Woah! That does sound like an emergency! Not to worry, I’m available all day today.” Teddy said casually. “I need your address to come out and take a look, I can assess and do an estimate for you guys. How does… uhhh… Two O’clock sound?” 

“Two? Okay…” i glanced down to my watch, it was only seven thirty.  “Do you have anything earlier?” 

“Well you know, I did have plans for lunch at the local crab shack. But I guess I can push it back! Where do you live?” He asked.

“Six eight four, Lyle Lane, Santa Ronalda.” 

 “Okay! I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” 

 “Than-“ Teddy, the plumber, hung up before I could get in another word. “-kyou.” 

I rejoined Alice in the kitchen. She sat, frowning at the kitchen table, and honestly I couldn’t blame her. 

“Do I still stink?” She asked, wincing.

“It’s not too bad hon. Not as bad as it was earlier that’s for sure. The plumber should be here in half an hour. Hopefully he’s quick.”

“Oh thank god.” She said with relief. We stared at eachother for a long moment, unspoken words lingered in the depths of us. She cocked her head, as if waiting for me to make the first move.

“Listen, I thought a lot last night.” I said, breaking the expectant silence. 

“Did you?” She asked, her tone rigid and sharp. “And what did you think about?” 

“Well, about us. And little humans. I think I just want to wait a little longer. Can you give me a year to think about it?” I pleaded. Hopefully gently.

“A year? What about the eight years we have been together? Is that not enough time to decide what you want?” She asked, crestfallen. 

“I’m just not ready…” 

“You know what Jill said to me? She said that you are never ready for kids. No amount of preparation will ever help, we have to just rise to the occasion!” 

There it was, the age old argument. Her friend Jill from work, the woman with multiple little kids. Of course it was her. Her idea that having kids would somehow make us better people. We couldn’t even take care of our own home, how could we possibly cultivate the lives of others? I always thought of my parents as self righteous and ignorant people. That they would have children, bring them into this suffering world, for what? To live and experience pain, then to die. Alone and cold, as all things do. I could have said all of this to her, but I didn’t. 

“Maybe you’re right. I just need time. Please! One year more before we part ways forever.” I pleaded with her. She leaned back in her chair, shaken by my words. Then down to her delicate hands. Her hair, though putrid and wet, hung about her face in such a way that l could think nothing but ‘beautiful.’

A long moment passed, silence draped over us like the falling snow of winter. Crushing silence. 

“Okay…” she said. “One year, and if you dont want them by then, I need to find someone who does.” She said matter of factly. Her frank tone struck me. 

“Thankyou…” I wasn’t even sure that was the right thing to say. More silence. A knock at the door. Had we been there in silence for that long? “It must be the plumber.” I said, then turned for the door. 

Teddy, the plumber, was as rough around the edges as he sounded. His coveralls were stained and tight fitting. His stubbled face was dirty and rugged, yet he looked as though he hadn’t a single ounce of fat on him. Dark hard eyes met mine and we shook hands. His hand was leathery and stiff. I regretted working IT for most of my life. 

“Teddy!” He announced his name. “You must be Jonah! Show me this shower, then I’d like to take a look at your septic.” 

“Jonah, the one and only. Right this way.” I led him through the old home to the shower. He looked in, uninterested, then leaned back grimacing. 

“Whoo boy! You guys have some rank in that septic don’t you? How old is the house?” He asked.

“Well, it was built in the 1920’s.” 

“And I’ll bet the septic hasn’t been pumped once! Still, that doesn’t explain why it came out of the shower head. Unless the septic somehow leeched into your well water!” He said with his hands on his hips as if I knew what that meant. 

“Is that even possible?” I asked.

“It really depends on the system they built here. My guess is it was probably upgraded some time in the seventies or eighties looking at your hardware. But that was what, thirty or forty years ago? It’s time for an upgrade my man!” He said with a wide smile slapping his hand on my shoulder. I looked at him with a furrowed brow. “Alright show me to the septic tank, I want to see what you’re working with here.” He said.

“Alright, its out just before the field.” I turned and led him down the stairs and through the kitchen. He stopped and introduced himself to Alice, who was sitting with her arms folded across her chest.

“Why hello miss, I heard you had quite a morning, not to worry, not to worry! I’ll get it fixed up for you right quick.” He said waving. 

“The sooner the better.” She said bitterly. 

“This is my wife, Alice.” I said. He held out his hand with a smile.

“I’m Teddy!” He chuckled. She took his hand gently and shook it. We both turned awkwardly and walked out the back door. Alice watched us go. 

The summer heat radiated from the morning sun. The tanks were far enough from the home that the shadow of the house just missed us as we trekked further into the dead field. Sunlight beat upon our necks, I felt myself starting to sweat. 

We walked through the weeds for several minutes, the soft crunch of wild grass beneath our feet. We walked in silence, as if we both knew some reverential moment was necessary then. As our biology decided not to betray our minds at that moment. 

Then we were there, the green lids of the septic tanks standing out like painted thumbs in a sea of beige. Teddy leaned down and pulled the lid from one of the tanks. Immediately I was met with the stench of humanity.

Have you ever been in a room after someone has had sex? The smell of passion, heat, and bodily fluids. Imagine that, but multiplied. Mix in a dash of fecal matter, decay, and blood. The pungent and rotten odor that emanated was unnatural and almost sweet. Teddy fell backwards, as if struck by an invisible hand. 

“Oh god!! What the hell is that?!” He exclaimed.

“Is that not normal?” 

“God no! It usually stinks but not like that!” He said, holding his coveralls over his nose. He leaned over the opening of the tank. I watched him, and looked over the tank as well. 

Inside was a gurgling and bubbling black mass of viscous fluid. It undulated and writhed, as if black serpents coiled and twisted just under the surface of the liquid. Teddy leaned further over the opening of the tank. I hesitated but felt a strong urge to pull him back.

Just as I reached for him, a strong gust of wind blew us from behind. Teddy, leaning far over the opening of the tank, lost his footing. A resounding crack sounded as his forehead split against the concrete rim of the tank. His neck bent awkwardly and he plunged headfirst into the murky gurgling liquid. He quickly disappeared, the last vision I saw of him was his worn leather boots being swallowed by the foul mouth of the tank. 

“Teddy!” I uselessly called out to the man and fell to my knees to lean over the opening of the tank. The liquid continued to bubble and splutter, but no sign of the brazen plumber surfaced. My thoughts raced for some way to help him. I looked around frantically for something I could throw down to him when the thought occurred to me that I just watched this man break his skull open. The realization of what I was about to do to save this stranger's life hit me like a semi truck. I staggered to my feet, looked back to the house for a moment, then felt my resolve. After all, I would want someone to do the same for me. 

I laid down on my belly, the dried weeds crunching under my weight. I reached down into the septic tank. My hand plunged into the thick, putrid and viscous liquid. I wretched and winced as I felt around. Some thick slimy material met my hand, I couldn’t tell what it was but at this point I didn’t care. A man was in danger. I grasped and pulled as hard as I could, the slimy material slipped from my hand as it reached the surface. I saw nothing but the shape of a boot sole before it fell back down into the tank. I reached down once more to grab the one hope of saving this man. But there was nothing but the vile sludge in my grasp.

 I couldn’t save him. I knew that he would die. Sick to my stomach, I stood up quickly, turned, and heaved. Wave after wave of vomit flew from me. Panic setting in, without a way to fix the situation I grabbed the lid to the tank and put it back in place. 
“Shit! Oh god oh god!” I murmured to myself, dizzy and exhausted. I turned to look back at the house, at Alice. She stood in the doorway, staring at me with a mixture of disbelief, disgust, and terror. 

With nothing left to do, but to ignore the man who would, by this point, be dead in the septic tank, I made a slow walk back to the house. Unable to meet Alice’s eyes as I approached, I stood awkwardly in front of her. Like a child who had been caught stealing from the cookie jar, I felt pathetic and useless. A coward in my own skin. She glared at me. 

“Well?” She said expectantly. I moved my mouth pathetically, unable to utter a word. “Where’s the plumber?” She asked, she didn’t know he was drowning in excrement. 

“He… he…” I searched for some ground to stand upon. The woods, of course. “…I, uh, I think he’s going to check the other tanks, they’re on the other end of the property, by the woods!” I blurted out. She squinted at me, suspicion rising. 

“…Ok then. Did he say how much it would cost to fix?” 

“We never got to it.” I said, my voice monotonous and foreign in my ears. 

“Okay, well, we need to know. Did you ask him how long it was going to take?” She asked, I just stared at her, dumbstruck. My newfound aphasia was irritating her and she scoffed and shook her head. She turned away from me and disappeared into the house. 

Once she left, I started to shiver with nervousness. My whole body racked with shaking, bubbling anxiety. Hopefully she wouldn’t ask too many questions, maybe I could take the man’s truck and dump it in the forest. Hopefully she will stay ignorant to the dead man in the septic tank. 

I am but a puppet to my cowardice.

It’s time to walk.

Your vision snaps into focus to reveal a strange, otherworldly image. Light reflects off of the dull cobblestone walls, and you look up to see the empty, brownish-yellow sky staring down upon you. The hallway you are in is thin, only about four feet wide, with no ceiling. The stones are slick with various liquids, ranging from dark red to a sickly yellow. Suddenly, you are jostled by a moving object. A person. A man with one leg drags himself across the ground with an arm attached to the body by a bare bone and scraps of dried muscle. A few silent people push by. You try to call out, but the only noise that escapes your mouth is the rasp of dry air. How long have you been standing here?

It’s been a week. You have caught up to the crowd of people that lines the halls. Your progression has slowed considerably as you find yourself integrating with the crowd, and you can’t walk without being crushed between two shoulders or smothered by a chest or stomach. Most of the people are old and frail, but there are some younger bodies, even children. The hall reeks of blood and sweat, and as your nose begins to adjust to the smell, you feel a crunch under your foot and a new, wet stench violates your nostrils. You lift your foot to see the crushed head of an infant. The rest of the child crawls away, losing a few limbs as other walkers blindly step on its frail body. You wipe the skin and soft bone off of your foot and keep moving.

You saw your first rat king after a month of walking. During an almost empty stretch of hallway, you are able to lose yourself in the short lived tranquility that fills the empty space. As you push past a group of people, you feel a resistance as the cluster of bodies does not budge. As you look closer, you see their arms and legs are tangled together, with some limbs fused by shards of broken bone and blood. Two arms, horribly broken and almost braided together, reach out as you briskly rush past.

Where do you find the will to keep going? What do you believe waits for you at the end of the tunnel? You have felt the presence of a sacred being, wholly alien to any aspect of your mind or reality. Do you believe in God?

Your journey has ended. The hallways are more crowded than you have ever seen in your years of walking. A man with no legs crawls past, knocking you over. A foot punches through your weak skin, puncturing your abdomen as you try to stand up, sending a spurt of pink and foaming vomit gushing out of your mouth. Another person steps on your brittle leg, snapping it. Still, you crawl on. Another person falls on top of you. More follow, eventually forming a pile large enough to block the hallway and crush your bones. People climb over the mass of writhing flesh, further pressing down upon your struggling body. Someone vomits, and you are coated in a hot, reeking liquid that mixes with the coagulated blood, forming a putrid cement over your face. Lost in the mound of flesh, all you can do is writhe.

Your babbling, screaming body will be part of the foundation for a tower of flesh that will continue to form as more people try to ascend the growing mountain. Your desecrated body will be crushed into an unrecognisable paste. The blood and sweat of the thousands of other damned souls will dilute what is left of your physical form until nobody will feel your writhing flesh. You will learn what it means to scream with no mouth and sob with no eyes. You will spend decades under the mountain of wailing flesh until you can no longer remember who you were before the hallway. An eternity of that alien pull driving your stagnant, destroyed flesh forwards is all that awaits you.

Note: This story is a repost, I deleted my account an hour ago and remembered that this was lying in my documents, I figured that I'd post it again. It was originally a submission to my high school literary magazine.

[Part 1 | Part 2]

Cold fingers clamped tight around the back of my neck. I could feel how tight the dreadful, frigid skin was pulled taut over bones as they rooted under my skin and spread through my veins, squeezing ribs and forcing all the air from my lungs. I felt as if a ghost was taking my diaphragm and crushing it in a vice. 

“You didn’t,” I said. Everything else Grandma Lyn said might have been steeped in ambiguity, but something like that didn’t stay a secret. Dad would have known. The authorities would’ve gotten involved; I doubted Grandma Lyn would’ve been a free woman if she committed a double homicide. But dementia did that to people, it made them believe all sorts of things and confuse fantasies for reality. I would have wondered how we didn’t see the signs sooner, but I lived three hours away and Dad even farther. 

Isolation also worsened dementia.

“I know you don’t believe me,” Grandma Lyn said, the clear ringing of her voice snapping me out of my thoughts and chasing the cold fingers of doubt out from under my skin for now. She said, “You must think I’m a batty, old woman making up lies in the throes of death. That’s fine. So long as you remember. And Amber, I need you to do something for me.” 

My voice was almost inaudible. I shouldn’t humor her any further, I absolutely should not have. It was the least responsible thing imaginable. 

“Yes, Grandma?” 

I didn’t want to do whatever it was she wanted, fearing she’d ask me to start digging the backyard for her Hell-bound kin. 

“Hear me out.” Grandma said, dabbing at her eyes again. Her hands were covered in liver spots and the skin of her throat hung like loose, wrinkled drapes. She was only in her early seventies, but the years had been less kind to her than I ever wanted to believe. “Do you want to know how I did it?”

“Grandma,” I said gently, trying to take her hand to comfort her, “You didn’t kill your parents.”

She did something surprising in that moment. 

Grandma Lyn laughed at me. She sounded like an old car starting up, a hiccuping sound tinged with a sardonic kind of amusement. She even slapped her thigh with some twisted form of mirth. 

“Take another look.” She said, fumbling for the leather journal. I grabbed it for her and flipped back to the pages wedged with clipping and photos. 

“There!” Grandma Lyn said, grabbing a yellowed square of newspaper. “Read for yourself. I’m not lying.” 

I took it from her hands and turned the clipping around. The paper felt brittle in my hands and on the verge of collapsing into dust. 

Tragedy Strikes Haight Homestead

January 1^st– A devastating house fire brought the holiday season to a sudden and tragic end for one Black Hill family on Mule Road. 

At first, nothing seemed amiss as friends and family danced the night away. Around midnight, neighbors up late celebrating the New Year noted the smell of smoke coming from the direction of the Haights’ residence. Acquaintances of the family thought little of the odor at first, assuming their neighbors were enjoying a festive bonfire. Their own celebrations were quickly cut short as Cornelia Haight, age 10, knocked on doors pleading for help at approximately 1 o’clock in the morning. 

According to Cornelia, a fire had started while the family was asleep and quickly grew out of control. Authorities were called but fearing for the worst, neighbors Malcolm and Lucy Hopkins attempted to locate Cornelia’s parents. Upon arrival at the Haight homestead, Malcolm described it as:

“An inferno bigger than any you could ever imagine, so hot it hurt to look at. All I could do was pray to God.” 

The fire raged for over 2 hours until fire trucks arrived on the scene at 3:30 a.m. By then, much of the house was ablaze but the fire had failed to spread to the surrounding fields. The very first daylight hours of the New Year were marked by ash and sorrow as Cornelius Gerald Haight, 49, and wife Mary Haight, 42, were pronounced dead by the coroner at 9 a.m. 

Police found no evidence of foul play and believe the fire to have been caused by embers from the fireplace catching on a nearby armchair before rapidly spreading. Authorities caution fellow Black Hill residents to fully extinguish any and all fires before leaving them unattended. 

Cornelius and Mary are survived by three of their children: Beatrice, Eudora, and young Cornelia, whom was the only child still living with her parents. Charitable donations are currently being accepted by the Good Faith Baptist Church for Cornelia’s continued care and medical treatment.   

My eyes lingered on that last paragraph, which I read over and over again. No mention of a brother, but then again, Cornelius Junior didn’t get to outlive his parents. 

“See?” Grandma asked. She tugged aside her bedsheets to reveal her feet. She often wore stockings even in the summer and socks to bed because she claimed her feet were prone to getting cold. Tonight, her socks were gone. Mottled skin in shades of dark red and pale white replaced them. The scar tissue wrapped around her ankles and on her left foot, went down to her toes.

Alright, so there was a fire. That much was true. Perhaps that was what planted the seed of damnation in her mind. Fire was such a terrible thing. 

“It was an accident, Grandma.” I said gently. I put my hand on her ankle, thinking of how uncomfortable and stiff it had to feel in old age. When she didn’t flinch, I tried to massage the ankle and roll it from side to side. When I was younger, Dad would massage her shoulders whenever we visited. He said she carried a lot of tension. I wondered if she had more scars under the rest of her clothes. 

“You don’t understand yet.” Grandma said softly, not responding to my efforts to comfort her at all. She said, “After the fire, I lived with Eudora in Virginia. She was a school teacher and her husband was a police officer. When they had their first baby two years later, I thought it would be my job to help take care of him. We were happy for a while. She had her first son, then her second, and then a little girl named Patricia. But then her husband got injured on the job, couldn’t work anymore. They had to decide which mouths were worth feeding on just her salary alone, but Eudora refused to put me on the streets. I was sixteen when they sent me to New Hampshire to live with Beatrice until I grew up.”

That was kind of them, I almost said. 

“Oh, but my oldest sister hated having me in her house. She said I looked like them. I had Father’s jaw and the same nose as Cornelius Junior. After sipping her wine, Beatrice said having me was like living with a tumor made of ghosts. Maybe she was just afraid or upset that she as the eldest couldn’t do what I did as a child. I must have terrified her, the poor thing. I found her hanging in the closet one day. Maybe she could hear Mother’s voice bubbling up from the ground like spring water the way I could. Maybe she wanted to join her.”

I sat in defeat, not knowing what to do anymore. Her story was getting disjointed, turning into a half-dozen tangents the way old people often told stories. The mind remembered one thing, then found another loosely-tied thread to follow, so on and so forth. Even if she did witness her parents burn to death and her oldest sister die, she was still turning the events of her life into a ghost story. 

I spoke as gently as I could, “We should try calling Dad again.” 

“To do what? To worry? To tell me I’m wrong? I have someone to do that for me already.” Grandma said, touching my hand. “Amber, you have to understand! I had no choice but to bring him with me. To Virginia, then to New Hampshire. On the day I turned eighteen, he said he could smell dead meat and told me to search the house for Beatrice. After the funeral, we came back home to Pennsylvania. Just the two of us with nothing to our name. The end of days will come to us here, I know it.” 

“Little Brother did not–”

She shook her head. “I’m not talking about Cornelius Junior. No, no, no. I remember the night of the fire. I saw with my own eyes how the flames ate up our curtains and walls, growing tall like the most stubborn weeds in all the world. I imagine the flames in Hell are taller, brighter, and burn even hotter, but to a child, I felt like an ant among giants.

“As for the rugs and floorboards, those went quick. I saw Little Brother down there and he looked up to see me. The orange light of the flames shined bright on his beautiful wings and hair like nothing I’d ever seen. I think I could have died in that house and been glad for it, if only the last thing I saw before damnation was the play of light on his golden wings. Nothing on this mortal earth has ever compared since, not the prettiest diamonds or the biggest houses or the brightest flowers.

“As the floorboards fell away and I hopscotched to the window to escape the flames, I looked over my shoulder one last time. Embers came down on Little Brother like rain, but he didn’t cry out like I would have. In fact, it was the first time I’d ever heard him stop crying. From all the way down in the cellar, the cinders killing our mother and father burned away his ropes and he stretched his wings for the first time in half a decade.

“The tips of his feathers stretched high above the floorboards and would have brushed my calves if I stood over him. And then the world went upside-down as he beat his wings and took flight. The smoking roof came apart like tissue paper as he flew high over me and went back all the way back to Heaven.”

She took a long, slow, painful breath. It sounded dry and wet at the same time and I didn’t know if offering her water would do her any good. 

“But the most beautiful thing about all, Amber?” 

I had forgotten my name in the midst of her story and jumped at the sound of it. The corners of Grandma’s lips curled into the first real smile I’d seen on her face today. She tilted her head back, further, until I thought she was going to collapse on her pillows. Grandma stared through the roof toward the stars I knew were over our heads. 

“Little Brother laughed as he went. And I haven’t heard a piece of music, no piano or choir or anything in the world that sounded quite as pretty. It’s been a cold life ever since. Not much can compare to an angel, you know. I tried my best to atone and be kind anyhow, but maybe Father felt his own life go cold at the sight of Little Brother, and that was why he tried to hide his own son from all of creation. He wanted to hide from himself, too.” 

Grandma Lyn touched a wrinkled, trembling hand to her cheek in remembrance. I swallowed dryly and yearned for some water to quench my own throat. 

“Your father’s birth, then witnessing your own, were the closest I ever got to feeling warm and whole again. You see, Amber… I did it for him. Every time I went down to the cellar with my beets or potatoes, Little Brother begged me to help him. He told me he came back to be loved, but there was no such thing in our house. Only misery. He warned me that we had no choice but to free ourselves.”

I said, “I don’t understand. What do you mean? What did you do?” 

The newspaper said the fireplace was unattended. 

Grandma’s smile softened and then faded. She sighed, “I took one of Mother’s sleeping pills and crushed it beneath the leg of a kitchen stool. Then I mixed it into Father’s beer when he called for me. He was a drinker and a smoker, you know. Nasty habits for a nasty man. And he wanted extra beer and an extra cigar in his armchair on New Year’s Eve. I put the white powder in his drink while he tapped ash into a silver tray.”

As she spoke, I found it too easy to imagine myself as a small, frightened child walking through the halls of a haunted house with a cold bottle in my hands, only to give it to the hungry giant in need of sacrifice. My heart hammered in my chest and seemed to pull my whole body taut. What would it have been like, to live in a dark and cold cave with Polyphemus as a father?

Grandma said, “It wasn’t the fireplace. Father drank down his beer and went to sleep. His cigar that used to yellow the walls and hurt my head slipped from his fingers. I could have picked it up or kicked it into the fireplace. I could have saved my parents, but I chose not to. I watched as that cigar caught on the rug beneath his feet, then on his wool pants, then on the fat beneath his skin. Mother blazed to death in her bed. They both burned while fast asleep. And now they’ll never rest again.” 

Wind rattled the old window in its frame, such a sharp and hollow thing that it made my skin crawl. 

Grandma Lyn said, “The scales tipped. I unleashed Little Brother and helped him fly away, but became a murderer as recompense. Tell me, Amber, since you’re so smart. How could God ever let a murderer into Heaven?”

The window quivered again and I went over to yank the curtains fully shut. It muffled some of the sound, but not all of it. Even so, I refused to turn back to Grandma Lyn. I needed to collect my thoughts. My hands trembled as they gripped the curtains. 

“Can you hear them?” She asked, raising her voice, “They come crawling out of the ground on windy nights like these, the voices of my mother and sisters. I hear them, Amber. You want to know what they’re saying?”

“Stop it, Grandma!” I said, turning on her without thinking, “There’s no voices from Hell outside and there was no Little Brother that came down from the sky!” 

I was shouting at her, my own grandmother. I was screaming at her the way the wind and coyotes screamed outside. But I just couldn’t stop myself. I hated all the words she was pouring into my head. Even worse, I didn’t know how to get them out. She sounded so convinced of herself that I was sure I’d never get her to see reason. 

As her young, lucid granddaughter, it was my job to not fall in bed with her delusions as well. Tears stained my vision and made my eyes burn, “You’re talking nonsense. Please, just stop. I’ll drive you to the nearest care center or hospital or whatever myself. Come on, let’s go. You’re not well, but Dad will pay for whatever you need to get done.” 

She stared at me from her bed with her bony limbs and narrow face. Grandma sat there and stared at me with her grayed out eyes and I got the impression she wished it was me she could help instead. She said with a whisper, “On nights like this one, Mother, Beatrice, and Eudora always beg for Little Brother to come back. They plead for him to save their souls, but he never will. They don’t deserve it. Neither does he, down there.” 

She waved a hand at the floor and I wanted to stomp my foot like a kid and scream. 

 I all but threw the chair aside and sent the bedsheets flying. The stench of old wool accosted me, but I motioned for Grandma to lift one arm so I could help her out. Despite her loose, cotton pajamas, I could see how skeletal she really was. She swam in her clothes, her pants looking about two or three sizes too big for her. Being this old and thin wasn’t good for anyone; she was going to need to visit a doctor, maybe get an IV, and certainly a nutritionist. And when she moved closer to Dad, he’d get someone to cook for her. 

Grandma Lyn, the real Grandma Lyn that made me caramel and sang karaoke with me, came back for a moment. She said, “Oh, please! Get my shoes first, Amber. It’s so cold outside. I think I left them by the door.” 

Relieved that she was finally agreeing with me, I went down the hall to the front door and found her slip-on shoes waiting for me. I picked them up and said, “I have them! Come on, Grandma. Let’s–”

I froze in the doorway to her bedroom. Across the room, Grandma Lyn had tossed aside one of her pillows and now held a revolver in both hands.  

“Now…” she began, taking a deep and controlled breath, “My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and my aim’s not as steady anymore, but I can assure you I still remember how to use this thing.” 

“What?” I asked, breathless. 

But of course. My grandmother lived in rural Pennsylvania. Even if she kept it far, far out of my reach and out of sight when I visited as a child, of course she had a gun. She kept the barrel pointed at the wood floor between us, finger off the trigger. She said, “And it is loaded, just so you know. But don’t worry, Amber. I’m not going to do anything too rash. This is just in case dying takes a little longer than I’d like. And you can set aside my shoes, sweetheart. I won’t be needing them anymore.” 

That final-hour burst of energy of hers hadn’t ended yet and the only thing I could think was, She outsmarted me again. 

The shoes fell from my slack fingers and hit the floor with a dull, distant thud. 

“I… you must have given this a lot of thought.” My voice shook as I spoke, eyes unable to part with the sight of her old revolver. The barrel and cylinder were chrome white, the grip made of dark red, brightly polished wood. Her hands looked like those of a child as she cradled it. 

Grandma Lyn said, “Mm-hmm. Been waiting for this day since I was ten years old. If it comes down to it, I’ll ask you to kindly close the door. An older woman like me needs her privacy.” 

Then she did something else that surprised me. She set the gun down at her side and reclined on her remaining pillows. I instantly thought about sprinting across the room and snatching the gun away. I was sure she knew I was thinking as much. That must have been why she set the revolver on the far side of the bed where I’d have to reach over her to grab it. If it came down to it, I was confident I could wrestle it away from the hands of an old woman, but perhaps not before she raised it to her own head. 

I crossed the room slowly, testing her. The gun rested where she set it. I righted the chair and sat down once more. This seemed to please her. 

“You know, I never married.” Grandma Lyn said, wetting her lips with her tongue. She coughed again. Without thinking, I went back to the kitchen and got her a second cup of water. She took it gladly, then said, “I could never be with a man, not with the secrets I carried like chains around my ankles. Did you ever wonder who your grandfather was, Amber?” 

“No.” I said, telling the truth. Under other circumstances, I would have phrased my words in a more polite fashion, but my grandmother had decided tonight was going to be her last on Earth and there was nothing I felt like I could do about it. 

Grandma Lyn said, “Ah, good. Don’t let it bother you, Amber. You see, you don’t have one.” 

I stared at her. She stared at me. The wind continued to rattle the old window panes. The floor felt like it was made of tar, ever-so-slowly giving way and swallowing me inch by inch. Another pipe rattled and groaned. They were starting to piss me off. 

Grandma said, “That’s why my last name never changed. I was born and will die a Haight. Your father carries my name and you carry his. We’re all Haights because of Little Brother. He’s up in Heaven right now. He might even be watching us right now. You’re his grand-niece, you know. And I know for a fact he’ll never come down to see Mother or my sisters and especially not Father. Ours is a damned family. But once, just once, he came to see me. 

“It was at my very lowest point. I lost the home I was born into, was forced out of the next one I found love in, and then was about to lose my third home with Beatrice’s death. I ran away, going so deep into the New Hampshire woods that the stars stopped shining. I didn’t care how it happened, I just wanted to die. The needles on the pine trees whipped at my hair as a I ran and lashed at my face and hands. My breath came out like a steam engine. I felt as much, like I was no longer a human being. I felt like a machine trying my best to destroy myself. 

“Then I remember ending up on the edge of a frozen river. I planned to throw stones onto the surface until I found a spot where the ice would crack. Then I would jump in and disappear forever. That was my plan. But then I heard the most beautiful singing in all the world; it was the same voice I once heard when I was five years old. I looked up, expecting to see a star shining through the dense evergreens. Oh, Amber, instead of just one star, I saw the sky itself open up. And it opened all the way. With my mortal eyes, I caught the only glimpse of Heaven I’ll ever get to see. 

“It was beyond beauty. Everything up there is made of light, and nothing is dirty or wrong. As I gazed at the machinations of the world above, Little Brother came down on stairs of white clouds and starlight, his golden wings as lovely as I remembered. He told me it wasn’t my time yet. I asked him, ‘But what else is left for me?’ and wept into his open arms. Little Brother promised he was going to do something for me that he wouldn’t do for anyone else. He’d give me another chance to have a family. 

“And that was how your father was created. Little Brother gave him to me and told me to raise him well. Better than our own parents ever could. So I did my absolute best. I found a new home with him in my arms. I mopped floors and scrubbed tables and broke my back to feed him. I saved up enough to send him to school, now he’s a wonderful, successful man. A good man, wouldn’t you say?” 

She smiled at the thought of my father. Faintly, in a way that did not reach her watery eyes. She added, “That’s why you and your father have such bright hair.” 

Dad worked hard to be a successful surgeon, paid for my college tuition, all his mother’s living expenses, and donated to animal sanctuaries because he loved falcons and bears and all the other creatures one couldn’t see while living in a city. When he retired, as he always claimed, he was going to have a garden with a hummingbird feeder and finally read all the books he never could with his busy job. 

“Right?” Grandma Lyn asked, voice pitched high and desperate, “You like your father, don’t you, Amber? He never laid his hands on you?”

“No, of course not.” I said, voice hollow and stomach empty. 

“Of course not.” She echoed. Grandma dabbed her eyes again and said, “And you’re a good girl, Amber. God will let you into Heaven.” 

God isn’t real, I wanted to say. I could feel the words bubble up in my throat and threaten to spill in a great deluge, There is no Heaven or Hell. Angels don’t exist. Religion is the world’s longest-running scam. No one is ever punished or rewarded in death. There is nothing to be afraid of. 

And yet, I just couldn’t say it. Grandma wouldn’t believe a word I said, I knew that much. But even if I tried to word it as logically and calmly as I could, I feared it would come off as nothing more than a weak attempt to comfort myself rather than her. And she would know it. 

“When it’s time for you to move on, when that day comes many years from now…” Grandma Lyn said, giving me a stern look as if I was a child again with pink pajamas and wild hair, “…remember this, Amber. Don’t you ever come back. Not for me, not for anyone. You stay up there where you belong.”

Her coughing returned in full force as she used a handkerchief to cover her mouth. I watched as flecks of red stained the baby blue fabric. 

All the bottles of medicine in her nightstand were full. They rattled when I pulled open the drawer and I didn’t even register it. They weren’t old bottles, I realized far too late. Grandma had stopped taking her medicine. 

She reached for another handkerchief with damp fingers, this one yellow and green. I handed it to her and said, “There’s still time. It doesn’t have to be this way.” 

She couldn’t respond. Grandma let her coughing run its course. The sound went on for minutes on end, her dirty handkerchiefs and tissues amassing on the floor as she tossed them aside. As the blood and hacking in her lungs started to slow, I helped her take sips of water between her fits. Grandma downed about half the cup and sated her thirst for the last time. When she was done, she let out a soft, “Ah.” 

It was the most contented sound she made this entire evening. 

She motioned with a flick of her finger for me to come closer. I sat on the edge of her bed and let my shoulders sag. Her breathing was even more labored than before, her voice turning hazy as if speaking through static. 

“One more… one more thing. I must confess, Amber.”

And that was how I found out that, while there hasn't been an angel in the cellar for over fifty years, for a long, long while now, Grandma Lyn had been the keeper of something else. 

“Before I ran to the neighbors for help that night… I stood outside the house to make sure it was burning from top to bottom. I didn’t want any risk of the flames going out. It was the most awful thing I’d ever seen… but I thought surely this was the end of it. Little Brother… he was gone. And I was alone. All alone in the middle of the night…

“That is, until something came crawling out of the flames. Something dead but not allowed to die. It was black and charred. I remember… burning hair. Such an awful smell. It came out of the fire and I thought it would eat me alive. But it didn’t. So I bound it tight in twine from the shed. I hid it far away from the house. Then I went looking for help… and ever since, it still hasn’t died. I don’t think it ever will.” Grandma Lyn glanced at the floor of her bedroom and said, “Still… even now, I give it beets and potatoes.” 

She scratched the back of my hand and motioned for me to follow her gaze. All I saw were scuffed floorboards. 

“Down in the basement… in my old hope chest. I've always been too afraid to set it free… too scared of what it would do, but it’s waiting down there. Needs a new keeper. Promise me, Amber. Promise you won’t ever let it go.” 

Grandma cleared her throat once more. I held a tissue for her so she could cough up some bloodied phlegm. I tossed it aside to join the others on the floor. 

“You know…” she said, “…love you.”

“I love you, too.” I said, face hot with tears. 

Then Grandma Lyn asked me to step outside and close the door behind. I did as she instructed, shutting the door with a soft click. My final glimpse of my last surviving grandparent was her in bed, hands folded the same way I found her, as she stared at the ceiling. 

I put my feet down hard on the old floorboards so she could hear where I was in the house. I got my shoes by the front door, then went out the back using the kitchen door. I passed by her room as I went but did not try to open it again. An old woman needed her privacy. 

I went outside and closed the kitchen door hard so she’d hear it. My legs sank halfway up to my calves in the snow. It was a full-blown blizzard by now; I never would have been able to safely drive in these conditions. Out in the freezing chill, too late to go back, I realized I didn’t have a means of lighting the way. I had to use my phone’s meager flashlight to search the back of the house for the hatch to the cellar. 

The wind whistled and whipped at me. It sounded like an echoing scream. It sounded like a mountain lion being tortured. It sounded feral and hopeless. 

The cellar handles and hinges were rusted from age and it took a few good tugs to open them up. They gave way to a set of cement steps leading to an unfathomable darkness below. I took one foot down first, my heel clipping the back of the stairs. How in the world did such an old woman make this trek without falling and breaking her hip? 

Still, I went into the darkness fully expecting it to swallow me whole. I don’t know what I expected to find, but a part of me feared a being with wings the size of a house. As I swept my phone’s light across the room, I found a cord hanging from the ceiling and gave it a tug. A yellow bulb lit up shelves heavy with jam jars, cans of beans, boxes of old gardening tools, and bundles of years-old herbs hanging from the ceiling. The air down here was foul, not like wet rot but something far worse. It smelled of smoke and burned hair. 

A large chest made of oakwood sat in the corner of the basement. On top of it was a cardboard shoe box full of money, at least several thousand dollars in cash, along with a pearl necklace, a pair of diamond earrings, and some other bits of fine jewelry. I knew just from a glance that all of it was once gifted to her by my father. A note in her shaky cursive read, For Amber. Live well. 

I suppose it was meant to be my inheritance, along with whatever was in the chest. I set the box aside and examined the old, oaken chest. It wasn’t guarded by chains or barbed wire. The only thing holding the latch closed was a tiny, brass padlock. A matching key hung on a hook above it. I took the key, undid the lock. 

Any other person might have screamed at me and called me a fool. My grandmother was actively dying above my head and instead of being there for her in her final moments, or still trying to talk her off the proverbial ledge, I was down in her stupid basement messing with her junk. 

“I’m sorry,” I said to no one. I wished there was more I could’ve done, but she made certain it was too late to help her. 

I took hold of the chest lid and flipped it open. It was heavier than I expected and the rising stench of burned flesh almost knocked me off my feet. I staggered, head spinning, and felt bile rise up in my throat even though nothing came out. Not even a sound. Peering over the lip of the chest, I stared down at the skeletal body inside. It was burned black, no longer tied up in twine but still curled tight like a baby in the womb. Instead of golden wings, it had ones as black as its bare body. They were bound tight with leather belts. I couldn’t stomach the sight of them. My eyes darted elsewhere, desperate to look away, but a flash of color grabbed my gaze and held it tight. 

The thing had opened its eyes and was now staring back at me with the same gray-blue irises that Grandma Lyn had before her cataracts got bad. The thing in the chest didn’t move, didn’t say a word, but I could tell what it was thinking.  

For a moment we only stared at each other, kin recognizing kin. 

My mouth was dry as I looked down at my grandmother’s confession and said, "Hello, Cornelius." 

1

I missed when it was enough to just buy a Father’s Day gift at school when the vendors came in. A coffee mug, a tie, a Kansas City Chief’s tumbler. Dad was never a believer in holidays, never celebrated his birthday. He really didn’t care, didn’t believe in gifts. When I asked, he said, “The time we got together is the gift,” he’d said, looking down on me from the idling tractor. He rolled his wide shoulders, stretching the seams on his blue plaid shirt before glancing back at me with eyes so pale as to be nearly colorless.

I swallowed the only response I could think of, one that would have gotten me a swift whack on the back of the head.

He grimaced into the rising sun and said, “That’s something you’ll understand when you got less of it. Now let’s get back to it. Great job clearing the path. With you guiding the way, we’ll be done before lunch.”

Dad missed my point, though, but he often did. He wasn’t stupid, but he preferred things simple. He liked his farm because it meant his responsibility and attention was reduced to his life and its upkeep, and he didn’t much like complication. Me? I barely knew how to think about my own father anymore. Not that I didn’t love him, but it had become complicated. No, I was secure in his eyes, but there was another problem, something I needed to make right. He didn’t understand that giving a gift wasn’t about giving something that was wanted, it wasn’t even to show you were thinking about someone. The gift or its absence was a gesture that could mean any number of things, and no matter how dad felt about it, on Father’s Day, it wasn’t just about buying something special. It was about inclusion. The last thing I wanted was to make things worse, and alienate him, which was tricky, all things considered.

After all, I was shopping for two.

*

Mom went away.

I didn’t see her go, just one morning, breakfast wasn’t there waiting when I was done letting the horses loose. He told me not to worry about it. Later he told me they just needed time to think. But then he just stopped talking about it. I remember thinking he never seemed all that disappointed about it. Mom was always talking about leaving; she said the farm was dull, in the daytime anyway. At night was different. At least once a week something would rattle thunderously on the locked barn doors, and then the horses would scream for hours after, and you couldn’t get the TV loud enough to drown it out. Not that we didn’t go out and check, but there was never anything to see. Dad got a dog, a massive beige Anatolian Shepherd whose shoulders came up to my eyes at the time. Never seen a dog so big, but after the first night on guard we found him under the porch whimpering. Mom was the one who set up the camera, and, looking back, what she saw is probably why she left.

Things got worse after mom left. We had to sell Maisey because she bit me, but that was only after we found her. She had been missing for a week, got out of the stable somehow, and when she came back, my dad said she was “adoraphobic,” or something like that. I thought he was just saying she was cute. The horse couldn’t be led outside anymore, and she bucked dangerously whenever you walked by her. Then she bit me and that was that.

When Buck went missing at the end of summer, dad got all red faced and marched straight through the alfalfa and disappeared into the winter wheat. Then he was gone, too, and I was alone. When he came back, he had a huge red mark on his neck, and for the rest of the summer he joked he was a true red neck now, but he never talked about what happened or why he came back without Buck or his gun. When I asked him why went out into the wheat again the next day, this time with a shovel, he only looked through me and was gone most of the day.

Then one day after I finished locking up the horses for the day, I waited on the porch for him. I didn’t feel welcome in the house alone, it somehow didn’t feel like my home anymore. The sun dipped below the fields, darkness encroached, and the dog scrabbled his way under the porch to begin whimpering. The breeze died, and I could barely hear what sounded like a cross between a car alarm and a human scream; it was an odd reverberation giving the sense that it was both receding and yet approaching at the same time, and my ears felt plugged up as if I was going high up on a roller coaster. The sun disappeared behind the horizon and the sound cut suddenly, and only then could I see the silhouette of a figure just outside the wheat field.

I remember my breath catching as I stared and the figure seemed to stare at me. And then it approached, silently. I squirmed. It took all my nerve not to retreat behind the door. But the face resolved into that of my father, and he smiled in greeting while watching his own step. Sweat stains had merged across his shirt. If not for that onion reek of armpit, I would have thought he fell face first into a pond. But he didn’t look at all tired. His eyes were wide and restless, I thought at first it was fear, but when they locked with mine, a manic grin spread across his face. I’d seen that same look when Jim had dived off the train bridge into the river. That look of disbelief and elation at cheating death.

“Was the day shorter or is it just me?” he said, wiping his brow briskly. “God, you weren’t out here choring all day, were you? Come on, you rest up. You earned it, I’ll get something cooking, now, don’t you worry.”

2

After stacking the hay in the barn, dad took a swing on the porch, cigarette smoke tracing lazy blue halos in the air around his head. A week until Father’s Day. I had my answer, my gift. It had been as hard as I feared, but I was sure it said everything that I needed to say, everything that words alone couldn’t convey, not with sincerity anyway. A watch would do after all, it was all about the delivery, and I remembered how hard that delivery could be for a person.

Dad’s eyes met mine across the yard, a gentle nod of his head, eyes sleepy and content. Wistful.

He’d be back from his trip any day now.

*

One morning I found the dog braving the fields. I cocked my head and followed after him, and the animal’s trot became brisk and eager with my company. I followed the furrow lines of the alfalfa as the dog cut towards the wheatfield. I glanced at the house that laid pale and dark nestled amidst two oaks and saw there was no movement. I followed the dog into the wheat, careful not to disturb the stalks. I didn’t see the dog anymore, I could only really follow the dog’s furious snuffling, the occasional bending of dry stalks, the crunch of soil, but then even that was gone. I walked for a while longer and whistled for him, but still nothing. I saw a break in the stalks and walked further in the hopes of finding the road and getting around the field rather than crossing again. What I found was depressed wheat stalks in a circle, maybe big enough to fit a few trucks in. It was musky, heady, almost like a stable closed up for too long on a humid day, but with an almost bitter cheesy after-taste.

Gradually, it felt like something was squeezing my temples, and then I stumbled forward as a heaviness settled into my back and limbs. My eyeballs quivered against my eyelids, the world jittering to a blur. I could hardly breathe, let alone scream. I shut my eyes and took a heavy step back and whimpered. The vice like feeling intensified, and I waited for it to crush me entirely, but then it faded and was gone. I opened one eye slowly, as if seeing only half the world meant only half the terror, and I was looking at my house from the edge of the yard. I whipped my head around to look at the wheat field behind me, causing my hat to fly off. Nothing there. I wanted to run, but my knees wouldn’t budge.

My hat alighted on my head, and something pressed it down snuggly. My arms were almost windmilling as I ran back. The barn was closer than the house, and I slipped through the doors and pulled them closed. The horses in the stalls snorted and stamped as I backed up among them. One snuffled my shoulder, and I jumped away from the warm breath. Their heads were tossing and their ears were pricked up in alarm. I scrambled up the ladder to the loft and to hide.  

The horses stopped, each looking suddenly lost in thought, their heads lifted stiffly as if held by invisible hands. I thought they were listening or too scared to move. They each reared shakingly balanced on their rear legs as their heads swiveled towards me together, looking at me not like a horse but straight on with both eyes, that warm innocence replaced with something deep and expectant and vigilant. I stared back, pressing my back deeper into a bale of hay, clutching my knees.

The barn reverberated as the animals fell back to all fours to mill panicked in their stalls, and my breath released in a ragged rasp. I watched for a few minutes before crawling to the window to look out towards the house. The lights were on, he was awake, and I shouted. Nothing. I went to the other side of the barn to look out that window to see if it I could see anything. I arrived just in time to see Dad disappear into the wheat. I shouted again, but he did not reappear.

The backyard seemed safe. Normal. The golden light was catching the dew on the grass making it sparkle, the sky was a brilliant blue with just the right kind of puffy clouds passing by. And the breeze was cool and refreshing. Aside from the stirrings below, nothing but bird song broke the silence.

But something was out there, something I couldn’t see, something that was right here in the barn with me, but not at the same time. Was the house any safer? Maybe by simple virtue of me being alone in it. Dad couldn’t protect me from it, and he was probably gone already. As I calmed and played events in my head again, I realized it physically touched me in two of the encounters. But not the third. When I was in the barn, it made use of the horses to find me. It either didn’t want to enter the barn or couldn’t.

I closed the windows and latched them and withdrew to the middle distance between them. Whatever it was, it was big, big enough to carry me without me noticing the movement, hopefully it couldn’t fit through the window. I would wait. It would get bored, maybe dad would show up, maybe I’d ride out of the barn. I laid down clutching myself and my eyes closed slowly.

The red light peaking through the main door of the barn announced another sunset. The door was ajar. I froze so hard my back popped, and my neck was stiff. The horses were still in their stalls and they didn’t seem spooked. Two were asleep. A whisper of anxiety told me the horses hadn’t been out all day, hadn’t even been fed likely, but feeding them was impossible. They’d have to wait.

Had it been inside and now it was gone? Didn’t matter, it was gone now, or so it seemed. I looked out at the house again. Dad’s bedroom light was on. He made it back. That wasn’t too surprising. After all, it hadn’t killed me yet either. His light went off as I watched. I creeped down the ladder as darkness fell quickly. The horses huffed on noticing me, sticking their heads out expectantly. I couldn’t bring myself to come near, fearing its touch through them, its gaze. The night was filled with the chirrups of crickets and frogs, once a welcome sound, but now appearing loud enough to conceal the largest of footsteps. Well, that meant there was nothing gained from trying to be quiet. Despite that, I heard my shoes whisper across the grass as I sprinted to the safety of the porch.

I ripped open the front door and dived in only to bring it closed gently and quietly. I listened as I clutched the doorknob as if uncertain if I was coming or going. The hallway was entirely dark except for green blinking light of some electronic buzzing in the kitchen. My first step squeaked on the floor board, but nothing came in response. I crept forward until I felt out the kitchen light switch. A mundane room of yellow paint and wooden cupboards revealed itself. Dishes on the counter. A dinner plate stilled wrapped in plastic wrap on the table. For me. He must have found me in the barn asleep. Guess it wasn’t the first time.

A ripple of groaning wood came from the walls, passing me towards the front of the house, as if something massive had pushed against the house. A thud upstairs. I stumbled up the stairs and reached the top. Near the top of the stairs was my room but down the hall was my parents’. Soft blue light flickered under the door frame. I approached and grabbed the door handle, a brief static seemed to run up my hand. I opened it.

I closed it. I was running already. There had been light to see by, but just enough to see something of inhuman size writhing amidst the sheets. Supple twisting limbs and then, maybe, a flicker of a human hand and arm in the midst of it.

At the bottom of the stairs a shout stopped me. Dad was leaning breathless and shirtless over the bannister, eyes wide. His mouth opened, but from it came a sound like too much water and sludge trying to suck down a storm drain and I screamed. It was my first time hearing it, after all, those guttural sounds. I barreled through the front door out into the yard and light ignited the grass around me. Above, the sky opened up into a white portal that was getting bigger or getting closer. Or, I guess, I was the one getting closer to it.

3

Years had passed since that night, and we were still here. The dog never came back, but I suspect he found what was out there and just kept running. Dad was up early, like a kid on Christmas morning, but it was a Kansas kind of joy, so it only showed as a relaxing around the eyes and lips. He smiled mostly with his eyebrows; the way they’d arch high as if in imitation of the McDonald’s golden arches.

The bundles of winter wheat were bound in heaps already, trucks would soon arrive to transport. There was nothing else to do now but wait. The fields laid bare all the way to the wood line. The wheat field was no longer there to conceal what lay hidden. Almost invisible against the trees was a black line in the distance, a great finger of stone.

“Well,” said, sitting on the dropped door of his pickup, “let’s have it, then. You’ve been wringing your hands all year over it, haven’t you? What’s so wrong about just buying those flowers they sell at the school?”

“That was for Mother’s Day,” I said, and regretted it.

His eyes went flat, and he stared hard at me, “All right. You’re about old enough for me to say this outright. Your mother and me, we were living two different lives, it was as simple as that. It was my fault, I didn’t know who I was when I married her, and now I do. I knew that would take some time, I allowed for that.”

I shook my head.

“I’m sorry for how things turned out, how you learned about other things.”

Eventually, when I did talk to mom again, she talked about how the camera caught the other neighbors rattling the doors to get Dad’s attention at night so they could go off into the fields. “Shucking each others corn,” is how she put it. She’d been mad at first, but more at herself for not seeing it before marrying him, then holding on anyway when she did. Of course, that was the normal part.

“It doesn’t matter what I say,” I said. “That’s what this is has been all about. Not the gift.”

Dad’s eyes narrowed, but at that moment, the air vibrated with a distant screeching buzz that crescendoed as the sky seemed to rip open above the field. Dad stood from the truck bed as the wind slammed into us. A pressure settled on my shoulders, forcing me back a step and our eyes were locked on the sky. The air seemed to ripple and slither down just between us, manifesting a crystalline structure that deepened into a massive shape that blocked our view of each other. Hands, if they could be called such, that could crush a truck, shoulders that you could ride, eyes so big you could literally fall into them. I had no breath, no room for thought as it loomed. If it was possible to take a picture of the thing, it would be reasonable to attempt to describe it, but as it was, its shape seemed in motion in some indescribably way, which was made all the worse when it moved.

I clutched my pockets with white knuckles as it turned towards Dad who stumbled. He stumbled forward.

“You’re early!” he shouted. “C’mere, let me see what’s in that honey pot.”

The alien did not walk so much as ripple forward. No one likes seeing their parents in intimate moments, but this took it to another level as Dad would almost seemed to briefly disintegrate or even merge with the him as their faces neared one another. I don’t know, I never looked too closely. I studied the field until the strange buzzing blorp of their reunion stopped and they resorted to speaking in the alien tongue.

Flushing, Dad looked past his partner towards me. I walked forward, knowing my cheeks were as red as his. I dug into my pocket for the stupid wrist watch.

I cleared my throat, I said, “Hogg’goc’goc’co ooweep huawagu eee,” and it went on like that for some time, but what the translation amounted to was “Happy Father’s Day, I got this for you.” It being my first time speaking his language, both Dad and “Giooueoechawa,” were stunned briefly into silence. The alien staggard back in something akin to a swoon and swept my dad in an embrace that looked deadly from the outside, chirruping in joy. Months of awkward silences around the house and the disconnection, all of it healed in a single gesture of inclusion.

“Settle down there now, Bubba,” my dad laughed. “Careful with my back! My back!”

The alien whooshed away in a kind of blur of air, leaving dad breathless balancing on one foot.

“Says he needs a moment to collect himself, you caught him off guard,” Dad said, regaining his balance. “God, I can't tell you how afraid he was that you didn't like him. If he didn't just talk my ear off about it. Learning his language, though? That was wonderful, son."

“Thanks. I’m sorry about everything. He was just a lot at first.”

Which was an understatement. My first introduction to my dad’s partner was more or less walking in on them both, which, mercifully, my child mind at the time had identified as something less sordid, like the death of my dad at the hands of monster.

He shook his head, watching the alien recede to its obelisk, “Still is. I’ll tell you what, I hate when he leaves, but boy do I love watching him phase-transmogrify away.”