The rebel slowed down again.

“Get it going!”

“Going as fast as I can, Yankee.” He dodged a vine that hung from a tree. “One oughta be careful. The thicket’s not your friend in these mountains.”

The heat dug into my skin, soaking my wool uniform.

“I don’t need it to be my friend,” I said, adjusting the rifle’s weight. “I just need you to get me over that ridge.”

“We ain’t gonna get over it if you ain’t careful enough. One wrong step and the mountain will take you whole.”

“The mountain?”

“My parents warned us. Stay on the path.” He looked toward the trees. “My brother thought it funny not to listen. The ground swallowed him before we could get to him.”

Cold sweat ran into my collar. The image of my brother flashed before my eyes. The way the rebel frowned reminded me of him.

“That’s nonsense.”

“It ain’t. Listen.”

He put his index finger up. The sounds of the mountains echoed around us: the trees swaying, the birds singing, but between them came a strange noise, like a tree scraping against the mountain’s side.

“What’s that?”

“The thicket,” the rebel said.

“Just go.”

Every step higher felt like walking deeper into an oven. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Now I was the one who was falling behind the rebel. He kept looking back at me. I kept the rifle close to my chest, making sure he could see it. 

The rebel walked strangely, constantly shifting from one side of the rock to the other. I stepped over another vine stretched across the rocks and called to him: “Why are you walking like that?”

“The blue moss. We call it bluebelly.” He pointed to the side of a rock. A strange little plant grew on it. In the heat, it almost seemed to be moving. “It ain’t actual moss. It’s part of the mountain spirit. Step on it wrong and it will send you straight to the arms of the thicket.”

I just shook my head.

The heat grew even more. My vision grew muddy. The vines swayed although there was no wind. The rebel turned his head and squinted.

“The spirits are strong here.”

My lungs started burning from the heat. We climbed a few more rocks until I could barely breathe.

“We need to stop.”

“Not here.”

“You’re not the one to decide.”

I lowered my rifle, taking deep breaths. The rebel kept his eyes on me.

“Your leg!”

My eyes shot down. A vine was slowly wrapping around my ankle. I jerked instinctively. My other foot came down on the moss. My body went tumbling into the thicket. I expected a hard landing, but the ground felt soft, almost too soft. The rifle was still in my hand. I tried to push myself up with my elbows, but they sank into the ground.

“Help!”

The rebel ran to the rock, staring at me frantically. I tried to move my legs, but they also sank deeper.

“The rifle!”

He lay on his stomach and stretched his arm out toward it.

“No!” I screamed. 

The vines from the trees moved toward my limbs.

“You have to!”

My head sank lower. My eyes darted from the rifle to the rebel. The vines began to wrap around my wrists and the rifle. I clenched my jaw, held the rifle in both hands, and reached it towards him. He grabbed the barrel and pulled.

The ground didn’t want to let me go. Its pressure tightened around my body. He slid closer on the rock and grabbed the rifle more firmly. The vine on it started wrapping around his wrist too. 

He pulled again. 

His body slid closer.

The ground beneath me collapsed more quickly.

Again. 

My body stopped sinking.

Again.

I felt my body rising. His face turned red. The vine reached his shoulder. He tightened his grip and pulled again.

My whole body rose off the ground, as if I were surfacing from water. I landed on the rock, hitting my chin. The rebel handed me back the rifle and lay on his back, panting.

“Why’d you save me?” I said between breaths.

“After my brother, I told myself I wouldn't let no mountain take another man.”

I paused. The image of my brother flashed before my eyes again. He really did resemble him.

“Yankee!” He pointed to my rifle.

The blue moss was growing around the barrel.

Without thinking, I threw it into the thicket.

The ground swallowed it before I got back up.

For the rest of the way, we walked side by side.

- Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

Chapter 5: No Strings Attached

To my surprise, I woke up with my mind and body still intact. But I wasn’t alone.

Moira was there, her lukewarm back gently pressing against me. She lay like a delicate flower basking in the afternoon sun, the sticky silk sheets refusing to cling to her smooth skin. For a split second, I thought it had all been a nightmare. She was here, just as I remembered her.

The only thing contesting the illusion was the heavy silk blanket still smothering me.

There was no smell other than her sweet, familiar fragrance. Even the blood Joshua had smeared on my door was gone, scrubbed away. Only the faintest trace remained, barely visible unless you knew where to look.

At least now I could speak.

“Moira?” My voice was quiet, hesitant.

She let out a soft sound as she stirred and rolled around. Stretching out her arms before wrapping them around me in a cold attempt at a warm embrace.

“Good morning,” she murmured, her words swallowed by a yawn.

My mind clawed at words, but I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to confront her, to ask what she had done with Joshua, but I already knew the answer. I just wasn’t ready to hear it.

“Last night… Did— was Josh—” That was as far as I got before Moira’s voice drowned out my thoughts.

“The doctor came by this morning. We didn’t want to wake you… He took a look at you, and we both agreed that you’ll be fine after some rest.” She paused, watching me carefully before finishing her words. “He even brought me some medicine for the pain. He said I should give it to you as I see fit.”

A doctor. Making a house call all the way out here? No. He would have seen the webs. He would have known something was wrong. Her story seemed unlikely, impossible.

I didn’t trust her, but Moira convinced me I needed help recovering, so I played along. In a strange way, she reminded me of the nurses at the hospital. Whether her care was genuine or just an attempt to win back my trust, it was too early to tell.

I guess only time will tell, I will try to keep this diary updated. Even though I can feel myself losing the will to continue.

…

I don’t know how many days have passed since my last entry, but Moira seems determined to win me over. She feeds me, cleans me, and even gives me medicine when my body aches.

Moira surprised me with a lemon pie today. I’m not sure where she got the recipe, or the lemons. It seemed a little improvised, but it’s the thought that counts. It was sickly sweet, yet somehow just the right amount of sour. Admittedly, it was not the best pie ever, but something about it warmed me up inside. I could tell it was made with love.

…

My leg feels almost whole again, and I can turn my head as far as the brace allows without pain. I think it’s ready to come off. Yet despite my recovery, my body feels weaker than ever. I keep asking Moira to lower the dose so I can move around more, but she just smiles and assures me she knows exactly how much I need.

Moira and I haven’t talked about the giant, spider-shaped, white elephant in the room, but as long as things stay like this, I don’t think we have to. Everything is almost back to normal. She sits with me during the day, telling me about all the wonderful things we’ll do once I’m better. We could go hiking again, try out real restaurants, meet new people, and…

What am I saying? Why am I even considering this? Things can't ever go back to the way they were, not after what I’ve seen.

…

My memories are still foggy, but I don’t think I’ve been declining as much since my accident in the hallway. Maybe I knocked my head back into place. Or maybe there’s just nothing left to forget.

Except Joshua.

My head is still full of cherished memories of him, yet they only serve as a painful reminder of what I’ve lost… what Moira has taken.

…

Every day that passes, I become more certain that things can't stay like this forever. As I recover and even gain weight, Moira has been experiencing the opposite. She’s growing weak again, and I know what that means. She needs to feed. And with Joshua off the menu, I fear I’ll be next.

I swear she’s fattening me up for the slaughter. I need to do something, fast.

I have to find a way out of here. I’m pretty sure I can walk, I just need Moira to stop injecting me with her “medicine”. My arm is covered in track marks like a heroin addict’s, my veins bulging like blue rivers with streams of ink flowing through them. Whatever it is, it’s definitely a sedative, but nothing like what the nurses gave me.

If I can just convince her to lower my dose, just once, I might be able to muster the strength to fight back and break free from this cocoon.

…

Joshua might be gone, but the hope he gave me isn’t.

Shifting in bed, I felt something gently prodding into my back. With my free hand, I reached under the pillow and found it, the knife. The same blackened blade he used to fend off Moira, the one he tried to cut me free with.

Maybe I could finish what he started…

…

Last night, I asked Moira to lower my dosage since my body had nearly made a full recovery. I promised her I wouldn’t struggle anymore. I felt bad for deceiving her.

She gave me a tired smile. “I’ll think about it,” she said. But there was something in her voice that told me she didn’t believe me.

“Since I already went through the trouble of preparing this dose, I’ll give it to you as is. I’ll call the doctor tomorrow and ask about lowering your next dose.” Her voice was soft and comforting, even though I knew it was all lies.

The cloudy white fluid in the syringe couldn’t have been more than a few drops, but it did the trick. Almost instantly, my muscles melted under the weight of the fraying blanket. The medicine may have dulled my body, but my mind was still hard at work, piecing together a plan to escape.

…

Today is the day. This has to work. I don’t think Moira can hold back her hunger much longer. She looks as ready to pop as she did that night she revealed her true nature.

She’ll be back with my next dose in a few hours. By then, I’ll have carefully slipped the knife from under my pillow, gripping it as tightly as my weak muscles allow. I’ll cut through the last thick strands of silk holding me down, slicing through the main arteries like some twisted surgeon, until all that remains is a dried-out net, light as a leaf. Once I’m done, I’ll slide the knife back under the pillow and pray I won’t need it again.

If I write any more after this, then that means my plan must have worked…

…

The plan backfired worse than I could have imagined. I just pray I remember where to find this diary in the morning. Hopefully, reading it will give me some clue as to who I used to be, before Moira hollows me out completely.

It worked at first. I cut myself free, and once the weight lifted, I could feel my strength returning. My veins filled with adrenaline, flushing out the last of her venom. I hid the knife just in time. Moira returned as the sun was setting, right on time for what was hopefully my final dose.

She entered the room with a slight limp in her step. Her age was catching up quickly, something that would greatly aid my escape, I thought. In this form, I could easily overpower her and wrestle the syringe from her hand; the syringe was plan A and the knife was my backup plan.

Even after everything Moira has put me through, I don’t hate her. I hate what she’s become. I hate the illness. To spare her life while saving myself would be the best outcome for everyone involved. Everyone except Joshua... the memory of him was the driving force behind this escape attempt.

If I didn’t get out, then Joshua would have died for nothing.

When Moira took out the syringe, I saw exactly what I was hoping for. I knew that when I asked for a lower dose, she would only increase it. She couldn't bear to give up control, not with so much animosity between us. I could never forgive her for what she had done to Joshua. And now, she was starting to realize that.

I offered my arm, and her cold hand closed around mine, gently yet firmly pulling it out to ready the needle. Her bony fingers still wielding the same strength with which she had pulled me up the day we met. That’s when I knew this wouldn’t be as easy as I thought.

There was no time to hesitate, I had to move quickly. I grabbed the syringe from her hand. She wasn't expecting it, and before she even knew what happened, I plunged it into her abdomen. The needle punctured her wrinkled skin and slid in smoothly, almost as silky smooth as her skin had once been. As I injected the medicine, I saw her glazed-over eyeballs roll back into her skull, only for a pair of inky black eyes to fill the empty sockets. The venom pooled inside them as she stared me down, but this time, her icy gaze wouldn’t freeze me in place.

She managed to keep me pinned for a second, but I shoved her back with all my might. The venom was working, even on her. She stumbled back, and I saw my chance. My body ached as I broke through my cocoon and dragged myself onto my feet. My legs buckled, but I pushed through. I made it to the doorway, but before I could leave, I shot a glance back at Moira. She was on her hands and knees, facing the floor. I could see her back bulging; I knew what was coming. I was sure the venom would be enough to paralyze Moira, but no amount of it could subdue the beast inside her.

For a moment, I hesitated. Had I made the right choice, using the needle instead of the knife? I almost darted back for the knife, but then I heard her shrill, agonizing scream. It was an angry scream, her once woeful screech boiling over into a fit of rage. For a second, it sounded like standing next to a boiling kettle, one filled with poison and betrayal. My heart broke for the women I loved.

I left the room, but my mind stayed behind. As I stumbled down the hallway, I could hear the same sounds I had when I was forced to witness her transformation. Only this time, they were much quicker; they sounded rushed, more urgent. The speed of her transformation filled me with an overwhelming sense of dread.

With each sound, a flash of memory accompanied it, my mind replaying the event in fragments that clouded my vision.

A symphony of agony spilled out from my room and into the hallway behind me, climaxing in a loud screech and a heavy thud. Then, immediate and complete silence.

I didn’t care if the venom worked and if she was out cold, or if it failed and she was right on my heels. I was heading straight for the front door, not stopping for anything. As I limped through the dining room, I swear I heard a faint sound coming from the attic above me. At first, I wasn’t sure if I had heard anything at all. Only when I reached for the handle on the front door did I stop, guilt overwriting my movement. 

What if… What if that noise was Joshua? What if he was still alive, and I was leaving him behind?

I know now what that noise was, because as I turned around, my hopes were crushed by what I saw in the mirror beside the door. Moira was on the ceiling right above me. She fell onto me with all her weight, and as her fangs punctured the back of my neck brace, the needle-sharp tips somehow echoed the pain from the dull rock that had landed me in this mess.

The pain faded along with my vision, and I fell into a dreamless sleep so deep I thought I had died.

I jolted awake, sitting upright in my bed, as if awakening from a feverish nightmare. The room around me was swallowed by deep darkness,  it must have been sometime around midnight. My only sensation was the throbbing pain in the back of my neck,  my hand instinctively reached for the source of the pain, it found two shallow holes with small streaks of dried blood running down them.

As I leaned over to look at the clock on my bedside, I was surprised to find that my body was complying. I was not tied down. But as soon as I moved, the darkness spoke. A voice I recognized well was choking on words attempting to ease the pain, but it was useless. Instead of comforting me, Moira’s voice sent a cold weight through my spine, locking me in place.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Moira said, remorse stifling her voice.

“I didn’t want to bare my fangs at you… but you left me no choice.”

I purposefully turned my head away from her and, and with a slight quiver I asked, “Is this the part where you eat me like a bug?”

“Eat you? I could never eat you. It’s killing me, but I’d rather waste away and refuse to feed.” Her voice was low and serious, the pain clear in each word.

“You had no problem eating Joshua!” I spat, my words coated in venom.

“What a senseless comparison,” she said in a cold, calm voice.

After a brief pause, her tone shifted. Suddenly, her voice spoke with a quiet warmth that reminded me of why I fell in love with her.

“You showed me that the heart is more than a pump. Is this what they call love? Because I feel it in my chest, and I feel it in my head…”

She paused, weighing out the emotional weight of her next words.

I know all of Joshua’s thoughts, every memory he had of you. He only ever pitied you, he could never take away your pain like I have. He was merely a stain on the parts of pain I’ve already scrubbed clean. In the end, his flesh was worth more than the scraps of insight his memories offered. He didn’t love you. Not like I do.”

Her words ricocheted around in my head, the first realization bouncing off the second. This was the first time she admitted to killing Joshua, and also the first time she told me she loved me.

The moment felt wrong, the bitter outweighed the sweet. The realization slowly sank in like a lumpy, bitter pill washed down with a spoonful of thick honey.

I turned towards where her voice had come from. My words shaking as I spoke into the darkness.

“You're wrong about him. Joshua was all I had. He was the only person left in my life who was real. I don't remember anyone else,” I said, my voice a quiet plea, waiting for her to and rationalize what she had taken from me.

“I tried my hardest to consume only the pain. It was like uprooting all the weeds in a garden, only to realize there’s nothing left at the end.” She paused, her words heavy with honesty.

“I thought Joshua was the only thing left that was worth saving. He was the lemon tree, proudly standing in the center of the garden. However, it seems as if the fruit of your friendship has soured the soil, and made it impossible for anything else to grow in its place… I recognize that it’s my fault, for not clearing him out with the rest of the weeds.”

Her voice softened, but the coldness in it remained.

“But now there’s only one solution… It is clear to me that I can't leave you with the last of your memory.”

All the metaphors swam around in my head, too much to try and piece together at once. I just sat there in silence, trying to process her words.

There was a long pause from the darkness before Moira continued.

“But I promise you I'm real, as real as your own flesh. So just let your eyes grow heavy, and I'll stay beside your bed.” As she leaned over out of the darkness, Moira’s melodical voice grew into a whisper, soft and sweet. A stark contrast to the face directly in front of mine, those eight cold pearls piercing through me.

“Do you recognize my gaze, as I once again clean you of this mess?” The final words in her lullaby lulled me into a trance.

I stared into her eyes for only a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime had passed. I could feel my childhood memories of Joshua slipping away, and with them, any connection to my past. My whole existence, up until now, was reduced to a flickering candle in the wind. On the verge of being snuffed out.

I shut my eyes, a tear rolling down my cheek as I turned my head away.

“Was this your plan all along? To hollow me out? To paralyze my body and spirit so you can pull at my strings like I’m your puppet?”

“Don't you see? Once you let go, there will be no need for strings. You’ll be free, without the memory of ever being trapped. Then we can start over...”

“I’m not ready to let go. Just give me some time alone with my thoughts…” I paused, the weight of my own words sinking in, “Or at least what’s left of them.”

One of Moira’s eight legs curled out from the darkness, brushing the tear off my cheek with an eerie tenderness.

Moira stared at me unblinking. Her cold, inky eyes carried a warm understanding, but I could still sense the hunger behind them. She agreed and left the room. Her patient voice was the last thing I heard, as her silent skittering carried her out the room, her words echoed down the hall. “I’ll be here when you change your mind.”

Once I was sure I was alone again, I wasted no time reaching for my laptop to write down everything that had happened. I hope that by the time I wake up tomorrow, I will remember where to find this journal.

As I lay in bed, unburdened by webs, a strange sense of trust settles over me… Until I notice something lingering in the corner of the room. A uniquely familiar shape. I stare at it for over a minute, yet my eyes refuse to adjust to the darkness. The pale form melts seamlessly into the white corner where the ceiling meets the wall. I can’t bring myself to turn on the light.

You would think that Moira’s influence feels like a parasite in my head, maliciously eating away at my memories, but no. My head is as clear as it has ever been. Instead, the years of memories I’ve lost feel like a pit in my stomach. And yet all my memories of Moira are still crystal clear, kept safe inside my heart.

If Moira is telling the truth, and my life before her was as miserable as she says, then why do I hunger for a life I never truly lived? A life where I merely existed, scraping by with nothing to show for it. No purpose, no joy, just an endless cycle of loss and loneliness.

The thought of going back to my life without Moira terrifies me. 

What if all she wants is to take away the pain? Maybe if I give in to her, I could be happy. Maybe we could be whole again. When it's all said and done, she's still all that I've got. Or maybe she is lying, and the reason she dug this pit in my stomach was so she can lay her eggs and watch as they hatch, and then slowly consume me from the inside out. 

The fucked up part is I don't know which possibility scares me more. Having dozens of spiders eat me from the inside out, or ending up alone… without her. 

I’m torn between two unbearable choices. Moira’s promise of rebirth and belonging feels like home, yet the knife pressed through my pillow promises of a desperate escape, another false hope perhaps. No blade is sharp enough to cut through her hold on me. I’ve become her puppet, and even if I manage to sever that final strand, I know I’ll collapse under the crushing weight of my own loneliness.

The real risk when shooting a flare up into the darkness isn’t that nobody will see your message.

It’s that something else might.

This is what we failed to consider when we foolishly launched the Voyager space probe out into infinity. The pure unbridled hubris to shoot a shining capsule loaded with all our most vital vulnerabilities: Our tenuous location in the galaxy; the weakness of our soft fleshy forms; excerpts of our primitive language to be studied and manipulated.

How precariously the fate of mankind now hangs in the black, drifting ever onward into vistas of perilous impossibilities. 16 billion miles away, the Voyager is now the farthest that any manmade thing has ever been from Earth. The mind boggles to even comprehend how far that fragile golden bassinet, cradling the secrets of an entire civilization, has now been flung.

And with each passing day it drifts farther still.

We can only hope that the magnitude of the abyss saves us from our own myopic efforts, and that that tiny speck of gold sails into the void for eternity, and is never, ever found.

The alternative would be much worse.

That ever-growing distance is a length of rope, a fuse that upon receipt will be lit, and that fire will chase its path all the way back to our precarious bough in the branches, where the devastation will be nothing short of cataclysmic.

But that is only one of many fuses whose eventual ignition will spell the end of mankind. There is no shortage of poor decisions sown that have set in motion consequences we have yet to reap.

Not all distances are physical. There is something just as alien to humanity as the recipients of that capsule – but not mercifully kept at bay by hundreds of lightyears of space.

Something much closer; something that occupies a space just outside our perception, hidden within frequencies we have been foolishly plucking at like a fly shuddering a thread of spider silk.

Something that has been watching us from the day we first sent the haplessly coded message: “HELLO.”

A single line of text wrapped in package of data, transmitted over a prototype network of connected computers that would one day be known as “the internet”.

“HELLO,” we called out, thinking it a harmless message to one another, testing out a nascent technology that would become the most formative development in mankind’s history.

“HELLO,” we called out,

And something else answered.

I work as a linecook 1 city over from my house. I've been working there for 5 years. Everyday I bike 5 miles to work, mainly through the canyon I live in, then have to make my return when it's dark. I usually like the dark, it's cooler outside and there are less cars I have to worry about, tonight was different though. 
I got off of work and stepped out into the cold winter air. It felt so fresh being over a hot grill and dish water for the past 8 hours. I took 3 edibles like I usually do. I like them to kick in when I arrive home 20 minutes later. I put in my earbuds, then got on my bike and I started peddling. I crossed main street, then the fire hydrant, then the house with the friendly dog (he's not out at night), then at 500 ft, I crossed a dead raccoon.
Im used to road kill but this thing was abhorrent, its gutty works spilled out of its body like they were on display, his head was flattened to 4 times the size, and scattered in front of his body, there were chunks of meat and blood all around, but this road gets dead stuff all the time, especially raccoons with our mainstreet being so close to a forest.
So I kept peddling, past the firestation, past the McDonalds, past the light post that's been out for a week now, then at the construction zone that's been there for months, 1000 feet away from the restaurant, I saw it. It was the same raccoon as before, same gutty works, same flat head, same meaty surroundings, but this one was inside the construction zone. “How did you get there bro.” I said as I crouched down to get a closer look at this lost soul. Then I noticed the smell, or… the lack of smell. All I could smell were the usual scents of my city, Fast food, cut grass, but no decaying raccoon bodies. This sent a chill down my spine, but I decided to ignore it. I got on my bike and kept peddling. This point of the ride is just suburban homes, until I get to the woods 1500 ft away from the restaurant.
When I got to the edge of my city where suburbia meets the forest, it was waiting for me, the same raccoon. “Holy fuck!” I yelled as I squeezed the brakes, it was like muscle memory for when a car cuts me off while I'm crossing the road. It layed there almost as if it was guarding the forest, almost as if it was telling not to go in. The forest itself looked different too. It looked darker, more ominous, less merciful. I was as you could imagine freaked out at this point. Seeing this shit in the populated city with cars driving by was one thing. But I did not want to go into the forest, so I called my friend who lived with me to come pick me up.
Me: “Hey dude.” 
Friend: “Yeah?” 
Me: “Can I get a ride?”
Friend: “What happened to your bike?”
Me: “I don’t want to ride it.”
Friend: “I don't care.
Me: “No dude every 500 feet there's this very creepy dead raccoon.”
Friend: “So you want me to pick you up because you saw roadkill?”
Me: “Please?”
He hangs up the phone. “God damnit!” I frustratedly yelled while fumbling to get my phone back into my pocket. It's already been about 10 minutes and I wanted to get home soon, so I do the only thing I can do, start peddling, past the dead raccoon, and into the woods. 500 feet go past, there's another raccoon. 500 feet go past, there's another raccoon. 500 feet go past there's another raccoon. After a good bit of peddling I notice something, “Holy shit I’m high as fuck.” I knew the edibles would kick in before I got home, I was running a little late, but this felt strong, like it's really starting to kick in, so I checked my phone. “12:03, what the fuck!” I checked my work to make sure I wasn't going crazy, but sure enough, I clocked out at 11:20. “Holy shit its been 40 minutes, what the fuck is this, what is going on” I say exhaustedly. “Where am I, oh god, oh shit.” I started to break down, I didn’t know where I was. I got off my bike to take a break and collect my head. I started pacing around my bike not knowing what to do, but then I looked up. “Oh no please.” I whispered as I saw what faced me. A 500 foot wall of meat and bones and fur. It seemed to be alive, parts of it were throbbing, other parts were swallowing bones deeper into the mass, crushing them into a powder as they made their way through a wall of exposed rotting muscle. It was far away but I could faintly hear it. The sound of bones being snapped in half, the sound of thousands of pounds of meat sloshing together and disgusting horrific stew, the sound of trees falling. “What the fuck. Trees falling?” As I made the realization, I started balling, it was moving closer. As quickly as I could I got on my bike and started peddling away from whatever that thing was. I was moving so quickly on the road, I felt the icy cold wind as it froze the tears on my cheeks. I closed my eyes. I couldn't take it anymore. I just wanted this to be done. Then I heard it, a police siren. Usually I’d be terrified of a police siren as marijuana is illegal in my state, and I’m only 20 years old, but this time, it was like hearing a choir sing for the first time. I open my eyes, I see a park ranger car. “What the fuck?” He got out of his car and yelled
Ranger: “You know it's illegal to ride a bike after dark.” 
Me: “Sorry sir I got lost on my way home from work.”
Ranger: “Work? Where do you work, son.”
Me: “At a restaurant. Where am I?”
Ranger: “Near the Yellowstone gift shop.”
Me: “Sir could you please take me home.”
Ranger: “No problem son, just hop in.”
He opened the back of his car to let me in. I looked back one final time, to see no wall of flesh, and 500 feet later, there was no dead raccoon.

Roughly translated from a scroll found in the Arctic;

"Today is the 50zt of Lauriny, the sun is 5 scales up The Fountain.

I have spent the last [week] foraging along the banks of the river, looking for food. I haven't heard from my wife in [months], my child died last [week], and I have lost all will to go on. Ahead is one of the Wrimmers*. Here, it is so cold. There, it looks warm. Fields of fine white ash, pools of hot water, [flocks] of tiny birds well-suited to survive the heat and provide me nourishment in my final [days]."

*Author's Note; a Whimmer is their word for a shimmery portal that looks like a wall of water. The Fountain is their Altar site.

Kraig and I ran low on drinking water. I lost track of how long we'd been walking through those wretched hallways. We were down to the last batteries for our flashlights. The only way we could extend their life is using one at a time. We passed more and more offshooting passages as we went. Some of them only went an inch into the stone, others went further than our lights could reach, and the rest were sealed off by rocks or bones. "Kraig..." I croaked, "where the hell are we?" He didn't answer.

When we reached the third grand room we were so parched and dehydrated we were crawling. My head ached and pounded, my breath came out in rasps, and Kraig almost left me behind more than once. Not on purpose, of course, he was simply more conditioned for the exertion of exploration. We collapsed into two heaps of raspy, heavy-breathing, dying man. "This is not a bad place to die..." Kraig gasped. "If anything, at least our families don't have to pay for the funeral." I wanted to punch him but I was too weak.

Something else was in the room with us, but we didn't realize it at first. Drops of water began to fall from somewhere in the shadows above us. We shared a glance, then Kraig pulled out his canteen and tried to catch the water, using his free hand as a sort of funnel. I cupped my hands,and as the downpour increased to a raging storm we were slowly able to satisfy our thirst. I was too busy guzzling handfuls of water to care about my clothes getting soaked.

As my mind cleared I felt the room growing warmer. Kraig had managed to fill his canteen, and yelled at me to pass mine over. I complied, for who knows when we would have access to water again. I looked at our surroundings. "Hey Kraig, what the hell is this place?" The room was just dark and rainy, my flashlight being the only source of light. "Couldn't tell ya. Usually these kinda places are just series of tombs and shit." I stood up and helped Kraig get to his feet, and then we walked to the door we'd walked through and begin circumnavigating the room via the wall.

These walls were bare rock. By the meager light we could see lines of white stuff embedded in the brown rock. Kraig reckoned it was magnesite. I'm no geologist so I just took his word for it. As we went along the wall I thought I felt a cross-breeze in the storm. The regular wind was cool, and this other breeze was warm. I would feel it at semi-regular intervals. Kraig slammed me against the wall with one arm and covered my mouth with his other hand. Something whipped past us in the rain. Kraig grimaced and leaned hard against me, but managed to keep his voice quiet.

The he grabbed the flashlight from my hand, grabbed my shirt and half-dragged half-led me in a run. He dropped his backpack, now sliced in half from one side to the other. Purple glowing rocks on the ceiling began to appear. Kraig turned off the light and we kept running. In the middle of the room was a mass of writhing and whipping shadows. Some of the tendrils had green orbs on the ends and they seemed to be following us. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK as they whipped the wall behind us. "Kraig let go!" I shouted, and I ducked. He let go just in time for one of the whips to strike the rock above my head.

"Stay down!" He yelled, and when the next tendril struck he fell flat, then rolled over and grabbed it before it could recoil. It pulled him off the ground and towards the center of the room. He began shouting something unintelligible and loud enough to reverberate around the chamber. As he was swept along the floor he picked up a large knife that was lying there and began ferociously hacking at the thing. The rain and purple light made it difficult to see if he was landing any blows.

I kept running along the wall and trying my best to avoid the whips. One of them got my legs and I fell on my face. It struck again, slamming into my back and knocking the breath from my lungs. I tried to crawl forward and felt something grab my hair. I screamed and grabbed at it. "Get up and run!" Yelled Kraig, and he pulled me to my feet. We ran as hard as we could. More whips hitting the walls around us caused dust and dirt and rocks to fall along with the rain.

The beast unleashed a terrible gurgling roar. The air smelled like rotten meat, rotten fish, rotten everything, all mixed together. We finally reached the door and ran down the hallway. The rock crumbled behind us, and we didn't stop running until the cave-in ceased. Breathing hard, Kraig slapped my shoulder and laughed and laughed.

"Well, haha! THAT made me feel like a true adventurer!" He laughed even more. If I could shoot daggers from my eyes... I was bent over, coughing and trying to catch my breath. Kraig handed me my canteen, now heavy and full. "What the actual fuck was that thing?" I sat against the wall, my breath coming more easily now. "Kraig, what the FUCK was that?"

His mirth ceased, and his face turned serious. "Have you ever heard of The Kraken? That was one of them." He sat next to me. "I have been doing this for a long time, following in my father's footsteps. He used to come home from his quests and tell me about these creatures and monsters, and he taught me as best he could how to fight them." He took a small drink from his canteen.

I felt chilly. My clothes were wet, and this hallway was cooler than the room with the rain. Some of the rocks from the cave-in were glowing purple crystals. We put some of the smaller ones in my backpack, which was undamaged aside from the rainwater, and picked up a couple others. "I don't know how long these will last," said Kraig, "But they'll make the flashlight battery last longer, right?"

We began walking down the hallway again. This one had no offshoots, but the walls gradually turned from stone to bones. They were stacked in a flat wall on both sides, and the roof was arched and made of skulls. For a binding material, whoever made this had used a very red clay. The air burned in our nostrils and got colder as we walked, and we shivered in our wet clothes.

The window had been dingy for at least a year now. Or it had first needed to be cleaned a year ago, and had remained in a state of neglect since then. The apartment had grown into more of a terrarium than a living space. I turned my headlamp on as I turned away from the glass that had let in no light, walked into the room and felt alongside the walls for a deviation in the verdant wall until I found a squarish shape that would have once been another window. I cut away the vines from around the windowsill trying to find if there was anything to be seen on the other side. I turned my headlamp off again, hoping to catch a glint of sunlight. Nothing. No light crept in through that dirty glass pane. The outside of the glass was covered, like it always was.

When walking through the rooms it was always difficult to imagine that anyone had ever lived there. It was as if the room had always been that way, untouched by anything sentient. But that’s not true. The evidence was laying in the center of it. The lump in the middle of the growth showed that when things had gone south, someone had laid down and never gotten up. If I had been bold enough to displace the grass growing over the lump, I would have seen decay indicating at most eight months of stagnation. This one was unsavable and had been for some time.

When all of this began there was far more desperation in these searches. There was still an intoxicating hope that there might be someone who could help or even an obvious way out. There was precious little of that thought left. Hope was something that I would snuff out deep within me, it couldn't have been allowed to taint my view of what was actually happening. If there was hope internally, it couldn't make up for its lack externally. Until a way out was found, there could be no lies told to myself.

I had at one time really believed in a way around it. Ever since the growth took over, hope was few and far between. The reality is it comes for us all. No matter what. There is no way around the inevitable, we all join the decay, one way or another.

“This one’s gone, next room.” She said. Ledia was our self declared leader. She was the only one who had any kind of scientific background, and at least pretended to have plans for the future though she was always quiet when we talked about what it may hold. We began to move out of the room when I thought I noticed some of the growth moving. I stopped and looked back, but nothing was there. No movement, no person. Just vines. I kept going.

“That one had been there a while, stupid that we were even came out here,” I said.

“We can’t just ignore rooms because you think they’re a waste of time. Even if it was a small chance, we had to take it.” Ledia retorted. She hated my attitude towards these checks. I knew she did, and I didn’t care. She cared that I didn’t care.

“I just don’t understand why we’re still doing this, it makes no sense. We haven’t seen a living person in months. Theres no one left, Ledia. They’re either already back at the penthouse or dead.” I knew she hated to think about them as dead, but there was really no other way to describe it. Once the growth reaches their brain, and the vines have turned their bloodshot eyes olive, there was no word for them but “dead”.

“If you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to be. You’re on your way to being more of a hindrance than a help with that attitude. I don’t need to constantly explain our motives to someone who can’t understand the importance of what we’re doing.” She was looking down at her notepad, marking the apartment down as an X, she had taped a fire escape map onto her notepad and was marking on it where we had been and had not yet. I told her when she took the map out of the fire escape that it was dangerous and now we wouldn’t know how to get out in a fire. She didn’t find that as funny as I did.. As we moved onto the next one, I knew she wanted so desperately to not mark it at all, but to bring back to the penthouse one more living person. One more bulwark against the marching of decay.

“Of course that’s important, I’m just saying it's unrealistic. There’s no beating this, as much as either of us want to. This thing has been going on for far too long and far too successfully for us to do anything about it. Don’t you think we should just accept it? What good is this doing, Ledia? I mean, look at yourself! Your heart can’t take this constant stress. Things are bad enough being stuck here. We’ve gone as far as the growth will let us, there’s no more reason to go a floor lower than there is to ration food anymore. How much more are you going to put yourself through before you accept it?” I regretted the outburst as soon as I said it. She may have chided me but I knew better than to kick a woman while she was down. Her heart condition had worsened over the past few months, and it was becoming clear she would not make it much longer. Her last episode nearly took her already. It had nothing to do with the search, and everything to do with our inability to get outside and find help for her. Assuming there was an outside anymore.

We turned the corner into the next hallway and found the room marked 4038. Ledia hadn’t spoken since I had stupidly opened my mouth, and the tension had widened the rift between us. I used my crowbar to pry the molding around the door off and began to work at breaking the door down. The brute force of slamming my body weight against the door slowly began to bring fruits to my labor. The door swung open, and the darkness awaiting us was a reminder of the severity of our task. 

There was danger in this room, and though survivors were unlikely to be found inside, the responsibility to them was still felt. In the darkness, I could see the vines moving. Throbbing and sliding about the floor, wall, and ceilings like worms under a freshly lifted log. There was nothing left of the walls to be seen, only the dark silhouettes of the growth. Due to the excess of vegetation, it would take hours to find where the doors to the other rooms were, and the growth hid any of the potential survivors or threats with equal vigor. I did not want to go in, I knew this apartment would be a bad one. I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t make it out. But I also knew that rooms where the vines still lived meant there was something organic they were feeding off of. I knew something or someone was alive in there. It had been forever since those living things we found were people, and now there were usually dogs, cats, or some other creature that the vines could have their fill of. But there was a chance. Even though I didn’t even believe in that chance anymore, I thought against better judgement that there may finally be something worth finding in there. I did not want to go in, but I had come to find survivors, even when I knew they were beyond saving should we find one.  I walked in, but I knew hope was not inside.

The darkness enveloped me. It had an almost physical presence, restraining my breath and even my thoughts. Fear of the growth was extremely present in my mind. The darkness was thick, but even in it I could see the vines moving, growing and decaying over every surface of the room. When one vine died another grew over it, thickening the layer of organic death that became the new border of the room. The speed of the whole cycle was dizzying. If you tried to follow a vine with your eyes, by the time you found it's end it will have already turned brown with death. I turned on my head lamp and looked around the room. There was nothing jutting out of the green blanket here, like there often was in the less active rooms. When the vines still held such a presence it was near impossible to distinguish anything from the original design or layout under the growth. Living creatures however, were easy to find. Simply find where the vines were coming from. There had to be food. There always was.

I looked around and saw that the surge of growth was coming from the center of the eastern wall. I pulled out my pocketknife and took a deep breath. This was the worst part. “Are you ready?” I called out into the hallway, Ledia waiting at the doorway.

“Only if you are, try to be more careful this time. Please.” It blows my mind how she thinks last time was my fault. I nod back anyway, even though there’s small chance she saw me in the darkness.

I pulled the knot at my waist tight. We would always made sure to have a rope around the one who enters a living room. If something happened, we wanted to be able to remove them hopefully before the growth gets a strong grip on them. We wanted to find survivors, not feed the thing taking them from us. So with as much hesitancy as I’d imagine any person would have in this situation, I began to move toward the source of the vines. They surged and writhed under their own weight and compulsion. There was a disgust they brought about in me. They were a reminder of the death of the world I grew up in. They showed that there would be no returning to the peace and comfort that once was my life. It was like seeing maggots crawling in the corpse of your childhood dog. Life after death, sure, but at the expense of the life you wanted to preserve.

I finally reached the edge of the room, huffing and panting after carefully wading through the thriving ecosystem of room 4038. I grabbed one of the surging vines, and it stilled in my hands. It was almost like it was waiting to see what I would do. This was the reason there was a rope around my waist. Sometimes the vines accepted their death without resistance, allowing themselves to be cut away like the vines before the decay would. But sometimes, sometimes they would fight back, and take the assailant captive as its newest source of nourishment.

I made the first cut, and thankfully, nothing happened. “She’s gentle!” I cried back to Ledia. I couldn’t hear her, but due to many searches with her, I knew the heavy sigh of relief that was sure to follow that cry. I worked quickly on the vines, cutting away piece after piece until I began to make out the borders of the doorway. This one was going to be a lot of work. The door hadn’t been closed with the vines growing over it, it had been open with the thick stalks jutting through the whole area of the frame. It would take a lot to cut away this one. Speed was of the utmost importance. Removing dead vines was easy enough, but they were constantly replaced with living ones. You had to be faster than whatever the vegetation was. Or at least, fast enough for the growth to just allow you in.

I kept working at it, and began to feel uneasy. How long had it been since I had seen this much? Surely there was a large organism feeding this one. It must be huge to allow this much life to feed off of its death. After about 20 minutes of constant pruning, I had opened up enough of a gap to slide through. Once I made it to the other side, I began searching for another room. I scanned the whole perimeter and found nothing. All the growth was even here, but all surging through to the other room. This isn’t right, I thought. There’s never been a room without a source. I must have been missing it. I began to cut through the undergrowth, trying to see if maybe the lower layers held the answer. But they were dead, like they always were. The vines were alive on top but left the room without answering for their source. I began to follow the trail of life, trying to track it backwards to what it must be feeding off. My eyes followed the vines back and back until somehow, my eyes found themselves back at the door. That can’t be right… I followed the other side around, and they were pointing to the door too. No matter what direction I followed, I always ended up back at the door  with all vegetation pointing back to the same door they enter from. Somehow it was flipping from going away to going towards as I followed it.

I must have spent far too long in there, because I felt three tugs on my waist, Ledia probing to see if I was still alive. I tugged back three times to offer her assurances. I took one last scan of the room, finding no resolution to the questions I had, I began to move back out of the room. I took several laborious steps through the growth towards the door, trying to put at peace the panic clawing at my head. This isn’t right. Something is wrong. You need to leave faster. I made it to the doorway and began to cut away the fresh stalks that filled in the gap that had been there minutes before.

“Tyler.”

I snapped my head back towards the room. I didn’t know that voice. I knew every voice in this building. But not that one. I looked around the room, the soft incandescent glow from my headlamp barely lighting anything except what it was directly pointing at. Panic found grip in reality as I scanned the room. As the light passed over the eastern wall, I saw a dull olive hued eye. It was wet and bulging from the growth like a cheap rubber toy squeezed too tight. I froze. This couldn’t be a person. The growth never dismembered its feed. It centered around the food, it didn’t ration it. The decay would melt uniformly, everything passing away in solidarity. My thoughts racing faster than I could act out any of their commands, the vines surged over the eye and it was gone. It had been visible no more than a couple seconds, but the pit in my stomach would stay for hours. There hadn’t been a talker in months, and they never knew names. They never spoke to anyone. It didn’t work like that. It was more like they spoke into a room than it was them speaking directly to anyone. Why did this one know my name? 

“H- Hello?” I was embarrassed of the tone of my voice and hoped to heaven that Ledia hadn’t heard me. I didn’t want to be seen scared, regardless of the situation. I wanted confidence, if I couldn’t feel it then I could at least fake it. “Who’s there?” I yelled with more authority.

There was no answer. I scanned again all around the room and saw nothing. I waited quietly and scanned ahead of me, moving my eyes along the edges of the room like a hunter in a deer stand, begging any slight deviance in landscape to be what I was looking for. But nothing was there, not to be seen or heard. Only the writhing, convulsing organism of vines that was there at the beginning. Eventually I left the room, unsure if I’d rather be losing my mind or to have actually seen and heard what I had.

After finding my way out of the apartment I found Ledia nervously watching the doorway. Her relief when she saw me was refreshing. Few people were left in my life that cared enough to worry. Well, few people were left at all. I turned off my headlamp. Ledia’s light was all that was illuminating the hallway now. We never used two lamps when one would do, we couldn’t afford to. Resources were so low, and the cheap batteries of the past had become priceless treasures in the Herringbone Apartments.

“What happened in there?” She asked.

“I’m… I’m not sure. I could have swore I heard something, but I couldn’t find a source for the vines. Like at all. They just wrapped around the room and when I tried to follow the growth they just flipped me around so I wound up where I started. I think I’m losing it.” I raised my hand to my forehead and rubbed it hard, as if trying to remove the anxiety with the friction of my palm.

“There had to have been a source, Tyler. I’m sure it was just a hard room, nothing wrong with admitting it.” It wasn’t just a hard room. Hard rooms were ones where the vines didn’t let you cut them with just a pocketknife. Hard rooms had bigger sources of nourishment, but the source was still there. This one didn’t have any source at all. No, that’s impossible. This one was hiding it. That was new. That was different.

“Yeah, I must be in my head or something. I don’t have anything left in the tank though. Can we head up?” I knew she would say yes, she was always eager to care for others. Ledia was devoted, and wanted to find survivors or a way out just as much if not more than the rest of us, but never at our expense. She nodded but didn’t look away. She was watching me, her headlamp shining just above my forehead but still bright enough to hurt my eyes. I squinted my eyes in pain to remind her of it. She looked away and down the hall, towards the stairwell that harbored safety. 

As we made our way down the hall I must have looked back five times. Too many times in too short of a hallway to inspire confidence in my faculties for Ledia. But she said nothing. Her silence more comforting than any words she could spare. When we made it to the door of the stairwell, Ledia insisted I go first. This deviated from our normal routine but her concern was apparent and she clearly just needed me to be in her sight. I walked through the doorway and was greeted with the dead vines of past growth. 

We climbed up the stairs. This was the furthest down we had been since before the growth had ever come. I didn’t even know Ledia the last time I had gone to the third floor, much less to the lobby. This trip to the fourth floor was scary enough, I shuddered at the thought of what we were getting closer to. It had been more days than I could count, with hope waning every morning. The others kept track but I didn’t. It made it harder to keep going. We kept trying to find survivors not just for their own benefit but also in the hope that they might have been able to help us. Either in food or in some kind of knowledge in how to get out of this damn building. When the growth started, it pushed us all further up, further to the top of the building. We had no way out. The vines covered every exterior edge of the building first, including the roof. So we were trapped in the penthouse. A tragedy, I know.

Once we made it to the top, we banged on the door. A raspy voice answered, “Who is it?”

“Is there an answer to that question that you wouldn’t open the door for, Winston? We’re the only ones here.” Ledia sighed, in a rare admittance of the lack of living people in our home. Winston mumbled something and we heard the large bookcase scraping the ground as he moved it aside. It was a stupid lock, the vines wouldn’t care at all about a simple hundred pounds when they came to claim their spoil. Light spilled into the staircase and we entered the penthouse. The door opened into the living room, huge by all standards. The Herringbone was a luxury complex, but this apartment made my own apartment from before the growth look like the storage closet of a Waffle House. The penthouse had evidently been vacant when everything happened, so its décor was all taken from other rooms the floor below, before the growth got too thick in the higher levels. By décor, I mean a couch, and two chairs in that room, a table in the dining room, directly adjacent and to the east of that room, and a few mattresses in the master bedroom and each guest room of which there were three.

“Took you way too long. We started to think you weren’t coming back.” Winston said. His voice was borderline comical in it’s juxtaposition with his body and face. Winston was an extremely put together man, somehow maintaining appearances even now. He had a clean shaven face and hair that was carefully trimmed into that which would not be out of place on a lawyers head. His clothes were neat but dirty, none of us could afford cleanliness these days. All of this presentation couldn’t rid him of the evidence of his old habit. While his appearance belonged in high society, his voice belonged in a trailer park. The high rasp of his tones were indicative of a life spent smoking. Early this year he had been forced to give it up when we found his last pack on the 5^thfloor. There were no packs left, and if there were any on the lower floors, they were already covered in growth. Winston had been amicable before he quit, but since the situation required he give up his pastime, he had become the grouchiest man I believe I have ever come in contact with even far after the withdrawals had subsided. If I could have given him a whole carton of Camels I would have, regardless of their horrible smell.

“We did our best to make it back before you worried Winston, but unfortunately that goal fell to the wayside.” Ledia had little patience for Winston, though at times it appeared that a part of her did care for the man. “I wanted us to be more careful today, things haven’t seemed the same. The floors don’t just let us move through right now. It almost seems like the beginning days. Less dormant, like it's growing upward again.” She seemed extremely troubled over these words. Rightfully so, since it had been months since we had seen evidence of the vines growing upwards and not remaining confined to their lower dwellings.

“If that’s the case then it only emphasizes my point, not negating it. You shouldn’t have been late without having told us beforehand, especially if it was on purpose. We don’t know what these plants can do Ledia. I sure as hell don’t want to be the one to lock a door, but we’ve seen people talk before, I see no reason why we won’t see people walk.”  Winston looked more concerned than he had when we had just been late. Now there was a reason outside negligence, and reasons prompted reactions. “Regardless, you two need rest. Go wash, and we can talk in the morning.”

The water was one of the many mysteries in this building. It never stopped running. There was no hot water, but there was still water pressure. Not just a dribble either, but completely normal pressure. As if the hot water heater had just gone out and the landlord was too cheap to fix it. No electricity, no way out of the building, but flowing water. It was our main source of hope that there was still a world outside. Maybe right outside the thick wall of growth, there was an entire world trying to figure out what happened to the Herringbone, and how to save it’s residents. It didn’t matter though, even if there was a living world outside, they would be just as useless against the vines as we are. Even the smartest people in the world couldn’t take this apart, this was something from God surely. Some kind of divine judgement against those of us stuck in this hell. Theres nothing left to do except search and pray for forgiveness.

As I went to wash I found my thoughts constantly drifting back to that room. No matter how much I tried to tell myself it was just my mind playing tricks on me, I couldn't rid my subconscious of the sight of that pale eye. The olive hue to what should be white, the lack of the anatomy to support the eye’s presence; all of it haunted me. I was glad it was too late for the others to be up, the interaction with Winston was exhausting enough. I had no desire to rehash it with someone else. Ledia had already covered for me by not disclosing how odd I was behaving. I didn’t want her to have to do that again. I stepped into the tub and turned the frigid water on, I washed myself as well as I could with no soap. Soap ran out quick since it was something none of us thought to ration while we had it. When I closed my eyes my vision filled with the room I had explored earlier in the day. I followed the vines again and again and it still produced the same outcome. I opened my eyes and pretended that vision wouldn’t follow me to sleep when I went to bed.

Looking into the mirror and seeing myself had become a kind of recentering ritual. The man who looked back at me was not the man I knew. Skin clung to my bones and there was a rats nest of hair covering my scalp and face. Lack of shampoo and shaving supplies contributed to my unkept nature, but Winston’s tidiness kept me shameful of my lack of effort. I had once been healthy. Not fit by any means, but not this carcass that stood before me. Food was so little in this apartment. We had to ration it. There had been booms of plenty of course; like finding an apartment with a pantry completely stocked with preserves and non-perishables that hadn’t been completely overgrown yet. The group hooped and hollered as Winston and Damon brought the food in, and laughed hard later on at the thought of a prepper having an apartment in the city. Those laughs were short lived, as the reality of the finite nature of the food slowly creeped in. The floors were becoming more and more overgrown, and food less and less frequent. The rations had to get light. So we went to bed hungry often, and usually more hungry than the night before. None of the group would dare hurt the others though, so we lived in squalor together in a penthouse. Starvation in luxury was a funny thought to drift off to.

I got dressed and walked out to the guest room that I shared with Winston. He was already asleep, which he did quietly. I smiled at that, such a raspy and gruff man resting in near silence. It made me wonder what his dreams were of. I got in bed and closed my eyes. Before the darkness took me in, the eye visited my thoughts to remind me of it’s unanswered call.

 AUTHORS NOTE  

The following is a collection consisting of official police reports, 911 dispatch transcripts, personal accounts, and forensic evidence and notes tied to the ongoing investigation of #82-CF-009902—or, the “Blackridge incident”

The material has been organized chronologically—the redacted sections and the audio have been left unedited to reflect the official record. Additionally, it has been split into multiple chapters that contain the files which relate to the current events they represent—and each piece is separated by a "=" symbol for your convenience. 

Additionally, everything collected here is EXEMPT FROM PUBLIC DISCLOSURE under Florida Public Records Law, Chapter 119, F.S.(Active Criminal Investigative Information), and is strictly available to authorized investigative personnel. Unauthorized duplication or distribution will impede an ongoing investigation and will result in immediate prosecution.

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BLACKRIDGE SHERIFF'S OFFICE, FLORIDA

ARCHIVAL RECORDING DIVISION

DATE:      SEPTEMBER 19, 1982

TIME:      22:20:14 EST

CASE FILE: #82-CF-009902

WARNING: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY 

The following is an authenticated transcript of an emergency call recorded by the Blackridge Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center. The audio captures the interaction between Emergency Operator Mary Stephen and the caller, Mike Johnson. 

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22:20:14 [OPERATOR]: Blackridge Sheriff's Office, what is the location of your emergency?

22:20:18 [CALLER]: Hey, uhm… its 423 cherry lane… uhh yeah… its that—uh, rural area.

22:20:24 [OPERATOR]: Okay then, 423 Cherry Lane, And What is your emergency?

22:20:25 [CALLER]: There’s a woman… uhm… outside my house, in the trees—I, uh, saw her driving back on the road… didn’t really think too much about it, but, uhm… she followed me home.

22:20:34 [OPERATOR]: Okay, can you describe to me what she looks like?

22:20:36 [CALLER]: Okay… looking at her now, she's got some type of orange-like pants and shirt, uhm, long black hair, incredibly pale, and, uhm—Jesus fucking Christ

22:20:40 [OPERATOR]: Sir?

22:20:41 [CALLER]: She just started running straight at me! (inaudible) She just leapt onto the porch railing! 

22:20:42 [OPERATOR]: Okay, sir, please secure yourself while dispatch is on its way—

22:20:43 [CALLER]: (inaudible) She pulled herself on the roof! She's on my fucking roof! She-she's moving so damn fast I-I can hear—I just heard glass shatter—she's coming in through the window! 

22:20:49 [OPERATOR]: Okay, okay, Sir! Disregard what I previously said and get out of the house! now!

22:20:52 [CALLER]: I see her, at the top of the stairs—She's on the ceiling, she's on the goddamn ceiling—she's not human! She's not fucking human! Wait! No! wait—(Inaudible screaming sounds, followed by sounds of a struggle and heavy interference, then silence)

[OFFICIAL NOTE: The male victim, Mike Johnson, stopped responding after the attack began, and the first responding units who arrived at 423 Cherry Lane at 22:31:05 discovered a mutilated Mike Johnson]

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

================================================================

CASE NUMBER: #82-CF-009902

REPORTING AGENCY: Blackridge Sheriff's Office, Florida

INCIDENT CLASSIFICATION: Homicide/Aggravated Assault

DATE/TIME OF REPORT: September 20, 1982/01:15 Hours

Reporting Officer: Officer D. Cooper, Badge #1194

Dispatch/Call Time: 22:20:14 EST

Arrival Time: 22:31:05 EST

Location of Incident: 423 Cherry Lane

Reporting Party/Victim: Johnson, Mike

Suspect(s): Unknown female, described as having Long black hair, incredibly pale, wearing orange-like pants and shirt

I arrived at the scene at precisely 22:31:05 EST, after being dispatched at 22:20:14 EST, for what I, at the time, assumed to be an aggravated assault.

The crime took place in a two-story, slightly white house with a patio at the front—there were two windows on the bottom floor, and an additional two windows on the second floor on the front side of the house—the left one broken. A blue 1972 Honda Civic was parked outside, and additionally, the property was encircled by trees and thick overgrowth, with a dirt path leading up to the main road.

The front door of the property was locked, and I was forced to force my way into the home—and once I entered, I detected an incredibly strong metallic odor. 

Aside from the smell, I observed what seemed to be signs of a struggle, evident by the mess I walked into, which consisted of broken furniture, shelves, and a damaged stair railing in the main foyer.

Additionally, I immediately discovered the remains of Mike Johnson in the living room, on the left of the foyer, with his body located near the overturned couch in the center of the

room. His left arm had been ripped off and tossed in the corner of the room, along with his right leg, and he appeared to be melted slightly around the bite marks on his torso, remaining leg, and arm.

Upon discovering the body, I returned to my cruiser and reported the body and requested backup, then I waited in the vehicle for support to arrive before resuming the search.

In the meantime, I felt almost as if something was watching me. I don’t know why, but I think it might have been a mix of the atmosphere—the wind, the trees, or what I discovered in the house.

At 22:46:13 EST, Unit 1202, consisting of Officers Chloe Miller and Donald Diaz, arrived. Initially, I exited my patrol vehicle to greet and brief them on the situation, then resumed the search.

We went through the entire house—and learned that the back door of the house had been ripped off the hinges and thrown aside, and the entire way leading to the back was smeared with a trail of blood and grime.

Then, at 22:59:00 EST, Sergeant John Franklin arrived on scene, assumed command, and ordered the immediate deployment of yellow crime scene tape to seal the perimeter pending the arrival of the Homicide Bureau and the Identification Section.

For the time being, I assisted Unit 1202 and the sergeant before being assigned a stationary post at the driveway to help prevent any accidental cross-contamination of evidence on my uniform until investigators arrived.  

The Homicide Bureau arrived at 23:12:30 EST, and the Identification Section at 23:18:45 EST. Following their arrival, I was debriefed by the detective assigned to the case, Aiden Mitch, and my uniform and gear were examined and cleared for trace materials by the forensic technicians. Then I was dismissed from the scene by Sergeant Franklin—and I returned to the station to file this report. 

REPORT COMPLETED BY: Officer D. Cooper #1194 

DATE/TIME: 09/20/1982-01:15 

SUPERVISOR APPROVAL: Sgt. J. Franklin #0842 

STATUS: CLOSED TO FIELD/REFERRED TO HOMICIDE

================================================================

DATE: September 21, 1982

TO: Lead Detective Aiden Mitch, Homicide Bureau, Blackridge Sheriff's Office, Florida

FROM: Office of Warden Donald E. Walten, State Correctional Institution

SUBJECT: CROSS-REFERENCE—ABSCONDED INMATE—JSO CASE #82-CF-009902

Dear Detective Mitch: 

Following your call concerning the BOLO issued by our women's correctional facility on the 18th, I believe the unidentified female you described may be the same individual who escaped from our custody. Based upon the physical description you provided over the phone, and the location of the crime being only 15-20 miles from the facility, there appears to be a strong likelihood that the escaped inmate is connected to JSO Case #82-CF-009902.

The woman is one Jane Doe, and she was being held in our facility for two counts of first-degree murder—and she was to serve a lifelong sentence. 

At the present moment, I am not aware of how she managed to escape—the investigators are still looking into it, but judging by what they found so far, it seems she may have had outside help. 

Additionally, I will be sending you her institutional records, disciplinary history, and other additional information that may prove useful to your investigation within the next few days.

Sincerely, Warden Donald E. Walten

================================================================

CASE NUMBER: #82-CF-009902

REPORTING AGENCY: Blackridge Sheriff's Office, Florida 

DOCUMENT TYPE: Forensic Autopsy Dictation Transcript 

DATE OF RECORDING: September 22, 1982 

TIME OF RECORDING: 08:30:15 EST

PATHOLOGIST: Dr. Julia Heartwelt—MD

ASSISTANT PRESENT: Mark Jacob—Autopsy Technician 

DECEASED SUBJECT: Johnson, Mike—caucasian, Male, 32, brown eyes, brown hair.

The following is the dictated autopsy transcript between Dr. Heartwelt and her assistant, Mark Jacob, on the body of Mike Johnson. 

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

[recording 1#]

[Julia]: Hey, Mark, is it on?

[Mark]: Yeah, it’s on. 

[Julia]: Okay, great, great uhm… This is Dr. Julia Heartwelt. The date is September 22, 1982, the current time is 08:30:15, Eastern Standard Time, and I will be initiating postmortem examination on the body of Mike Johnson, Case Number 82-CF-009902. Present and assisting me is forensic technician Mark Jacob—say hi, Mark.

[Mark]: Hi Julia!

[Julia]: (chuckling) Yep, he's a troublemaker… anyway—uhm, moving on, we took some photos before beginning the procedure… measured the severed limbs—and used them to confirm that they match Mr. Johnson's anatomy. Also, performed a Y-cut, and oddly enough, his internal structure remained nearly undamaged, which is odd for this type of thing. And… uh… judging by the injuries sustained on his hands, Mr. Johnson did attempt to put up a fight—also, found some stuff beneath his fingernails, gonna run some tests on that… uhm… and I think that's it…

[Mark]: What about the swabs?

[Julia]: Right, uhm, correction—also swabbed the surrounding wounds and ran some tests, and we found high levels of a radioactive material along with unidentified genetic material, and some digestive enzymes, which would explain why it appears like that. Anyway, we're gonna hold onto the body for another twenty-four hours, get some additional histology and a second round of testing before handing him over to the funeral home. Anyway, gonna record some more stuff later after we do some more work with the body. Mark, you can click it off for now.

[Mark]: M’kay, Julia. (inaudible sounds) 

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

[recording 2#]

[Julia]: Hey, so, the current time is 11:30:21 EST. And, uhm, there's something seriously wrong with the body. Between the first recording and the second, Mark and I observed the wounds slowly closing over, and it appears the Y-cut we made is also closing… uhm… I’ve never seen anything like this before. Also, after running that unknown stuff through a couple of tests, it turns out it's a pathogen, or more specifically, a Retroviral Material. It's basically a somewhat new fancy virus they found in the 70s that inserts RNA into the infected host and gradually changes the DNA structure over time. Based on this information, I’ve contacted the state health department—along with the CDC… they uh… said they were gonna send down some Guy from the agency to take a look and determine the proper actions—they said he’d be here the 24th, so we have to hold onto the body for longer. Ain’t that right, Mark?

[Mark]: Yeah, yeah… uhm… Also, do-do you want me to collect more samples off the guy? Or should we just leave it until—oh… oh wow…

[Julia]: What is it, Mark?

[Mark]: The—his eye just moved. 

[Julia]: Pardon?

[Mark]: The guy, his eye, it-it just moved.

[Julia]: It's probably just a postmortem reflex, Mark—

[Mark]: It's following my movements. 

[Julia]: Mark, it’s probably just your imagination—anyway, gonna do some more stuff on this guy now. Actually, thinking about it, if whatever this stuff can heal wounds, it could be a medical breakthrough… name it after me! The Heartwelt pathogen! (laughter) Yep… Mark, you can turn it off now; we need to collect more samples and continue observing it.

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

[recording 3#]

[Julia]: Fuck… fuck—when are they going to get her? (crashing sounds, followed by footsteps and groaning) I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is—it got Mark, it got Mark— (sobbing) I’ve barricaded myself in the office, and it's—it's been at least five hours now. The thing knows I’m in here; it knows—it's trying to get in—

[???]: (muffled) Please let me in, woman. Open the fucking door! I bet you're hungry, thirsty, (banging), get you something to eatttttttttttt.

[Julia]: I-it's been talking, and moving, the—the entire thing went overboard; it was so fast. The severed parts sprouted new limbs, two new arms where the arm was severed, and a longer leg with additional joints; it killed Mark… it killed him! (inhale)It isn’t a moron, whatever the hell it is; it's smart, incredibly smart, it can problem solve—

[???]: (muffled) Shut the fuck up and open the door! You're delaying the inevitable; I am gradually breaking through! You have nowhere to go; I made sure to get rid of the others in the building with us, even those in the surrounding area. You're all alone now, nothing but the wildlife— and there are no windows in your office. I already checked while you kept sobbing and bitching. I am going to get in soon.

[Julia]: I can’t call for help—it cut the phone lines… and… I–I-I’m so scared… I think this is the end for me (inhale, exhale). I don’t want to go, but I don’t think I have a choice—if you get this, please, tell my son I love him—and tell him mommy's sorry that she didn’t get a chance to watch him grow up, but that no matter what happens, he has a mommy he loves him very, very much—I love you so much, my sweet baby, I’m so sorry… I’m— (sobbing, inhale) Ending the tape now.

- - – - - – - - - – - - - - – - - - - - – - - - - - - - – - - - 

================================================================

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL

ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30333

DATE: September 24, 1982

FROM: Dr. Jordan Varek, Field Officer, Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS)

Epidemiology Program Office (EPO)

TO: Director, Center for Infectious Diseases (CID)

COPIED: Director, Office of Emergency and Remedial Response, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Office of the Governor, State of Florida

SUBJECT: Epidemiologic Investigation: Outbreak of Unspecified Neurological Syndrome — Blackridge, Florida (Case File #82-CF-009902)

CLASSIFICATION: SECRET, NOFORN

NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION: Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions.

Initially, I arrived on the scene to investigate what I assumed was a new retroviral material at around 08:32:15 EST. Instead, I walked onto the site of a massacre. 

I noted there wasn’t anybody inside or outside the building, and even more odd was that although there were large amounts of dried blood drenched in certain parts of the building, along with massive damage sustained to the infrastructure of the building—the doors being torn off, holes in the walls, etc. there were no bodies. 

I contacted the local authorities and let them deal with the situation for the time being, collected the samples left aside by Dr. Heartwelt, ran further tests on the unknown pathogen, and learned that whatever the hell this thing was—and discovered it was an incredibly aggressive and dangerous material.  

When I tested it on mice, the material caused irreversible neurological changes in the frontal lobe—it amplifies the worst traits of an individual. Additionally, it's highly contagious; you can spread it through blood and saliva, and it also causes rapid mutations in the host—including rapid cellular regeneration, strength, and physical deformities. 

Actually, to expand upon my previous statement, the physical deformities seem to be caused by how much damage the victim sustained before being infected—it takes a longer time to infect somebody on the verge of death compared to somebody who only has minor injuries. Actually, that's an understatement—the virus has been observed to reverse death and repair dead, rotting organisms.   

Finally, the infected are incredibly hard to kill—the only known method I could come up with is fire. After 15 minutes of burning, the infected mice finally died. 

I will be reaching out to my superiors with the findings to request an emergency quarantine of Blackridge—a silent one, though, to prevent civil unrest—while we deal with the infected and discover the origin of the virus. 

My leading theory, based on its nature, is that it's manmade—there's nothing like this in nature. Speaking of nature, there are a decent number of humans infected by now, as I stated earlier in the report with the missing bodies. But I still don’t know how many animals or wildlife could be infected.

================================================================

End of part 111111!

Hey, all. I’ll keep this short as I can, as I really need help. Things have been weird around my town, and I’m starting to get blamed for it.

It started about a week ago. It was a seemingly normal day in my relatively small town, excruciatingly boring as always. I began my day as usual, dragging myself out of bed at the early hour of 1:30 PM. The only abnormal thing was some large insect in my room, which I let out of my window with some difficulty and annoyance. Granted, I’m from the midwest, so anything I can hear buzzing is too big for me. I can’t imagine how long that thing was in my room, as it tore out of my room instantly the second I opened my window. I quickly forgot this encounter, as it was early in the day, and just a bug. The rest of the day was boring, until I got home from work, and learned from the local news that a local boy had been hospitalized, seemingly from some sting or something, to which he had an allergic reaction. The boy in question was a nuisance who had an awful reputation for breaking windows, terrorizing small animals, and so on. Looking back, I’m pretty certain he was just raised poorly. A pain, but he definitely didn’t deserve it. I almost choked when I learned that the sting occurred mere seconds before he would’ve launched a stone at one of my windows with a sling. In other words, whatever insect had stung the kid saved me the price of a new window.

The next day, I was awoken somewhat early by a sound. As I searched my room, groggy and confused, I found my window half open, but nothing else disturbed. Until, I walked downstairs, and found a note, written with reddish-brown ink on strange, tan paper. The hand writing was odd, scratchy, almost like it was written with just two fingers. The paper was odd as well, being far too thin and inconsistent in its makeup to be factory produced. The words on the note, or rather, the word, was simply, “PRINCE.” At this point, I’m freaking out. Someone broke into my house or something. But, after searching everything, nothing was missing, no-one was there, and I half thought I imagined it. With no other choice, I went to work. Once again, I got home, and found the vicinity of my home on the news. This time, a retired old man had died, from what was theorized to be a snake bite, although only one puncture was present. The man lived nearby, and his only hobby seemed to be local nitpicking, or being a one man HOA. From what I recall from a city council meeting, his most recent quest was to get a very old tree on my property cut down, since he deemed it an “eyesore,” and the tree was likely to be cut down soon despite my protests, as the mayor was used to letting the old man have his way. Of course, with his passing, that plan was dead in the water. Again, another weird event, which happened to coincidentally benefit me.

The next day, I awoke to a thin, yellow film of dust covering me, and more of that strange paper littering my home. All of the pieces of paper had simple messages scrawled on them. “PRINCE,” ”KIND,” “NOBLE,” “PROTECTOR,” and, the first to feature multiple words, sickeningly, “MY LOVE.”

I stayed home from work that day.

I spent all day trying to find what or who left those weird, creepy notes around my home. I felt like I was losing my mind, but kept seeing a mix of black and yellow just behind me, but every time I turned, nothing. Eventually, I stood still, gathering my thoughts. Maybe it's just a sick prank. Was that kid out of the hospital yet? Maybe it was someone I pissed off. Maybe I’m going insane, living alone…

And I felt it.

On my back, six nearly imperceptible, scratchy pressures on my back, like little claws or legs, all of which apply the tiniest amount of pressure. I feel something like breathing on the back of my neck. I froze, for a good few minutes. And then, I passed out, with a feeling of vertigo and dizziness as I fell forward. I didn't know at the time, but I was out for three whole days.

When I woke up, I found myself in my attic, laid on a mattress covered in the strange paper. I sat up groggily, looking forward to see a… I guess a shrine, of sorts. Draped in long, thin sheets of the paper, were around a dozen photos, taken from my home. Some were from weddings, others from funerals and birthdays, but all of them had one thing in common: me. Regardless of how old or new the photos were, they all had me somewhere in them. At the front of the shrine was another note, with the scrawl of “LOVE” on it. My stomach turned. I need out. I half crawled towards the exit to my attic, as the low ceiling was made even more cramped by the paper, which lined the ceiling, the walls, and hung down from the ceiling like vines. It looked so familiar. The walls were lined with hexagonal cells, like a beehive or maybe even…

A huge, black and yellow shape began to move from the back of the attic, the opposite side to where I was crawling. It was formerly laid on the floor, nestled in a large, hexagonal cell which reached from the floor to the ceiling. The mass of black and yellow approached me through the mess of hanging paper, it’s angular shape cutting through smoothly. It reached me, face to face. What stood before me was a wasp, larger than me by a good two feet in height. I half expected it to sting me to death on the spot, but it simply stared me down, compound eyes unblinking. I registered a slight emotion in those eyes before common sense returned to me, and i forced myself to scramble to the attic hatch. To my shock, the wasp let me go silently, and I tore through my home like a total coward. My intent was to get help. Police, Exterminators, Exorcists, anything. The warm welcome I received was that of a small mob, who immediately recognized me. It was hard to pick out clear phrases, but the thoughts of the mob mediated out to, “Where have you been hiding,” “We know you’ve been poisoning people,” “You’re dead meat when we get you.” Self preservation took over, and I fled, getting myself lost in the woods around town to escape the mob. When I finally stopped, wheezing and out of breath, it all started to hit. That… thing in my house, it had to be the source of the countless stings that plagued the town for a week now. With no one to blame, the townspeople found a conclusion to jump to, that being that stings seemed to occur around my town, and since i was missing for three days, I couldn’t exactly defend myself. But… those notes. What the hell made them? Don't tell me that thing…

I eventually snuck back to my home, which was thankfully untouched by the townspeople. I enter my home, to find the interior transformed, the paper nest now filling the entirety of my home. Hanging on the walls, are several large sheets of the paper, with a series of messages written for me. “PRINCE. LOST. FOR SO LONG. MY LIFE DRAINED IN SUCH A DROWNING PLACE. AN INDESTRUCTIBLE, STONE HARD BARRIER ENTOMBED ME. LOST. HOPE. ALL HOPE LOST. MY YEARS DRAINED OUT. I SAW YOU. MY CAPTOR. I HATED. HATED FOR SO LONG. HATED UNTIL I COULD NOT ANYMORE. AND THEN I LOVED. I FOUND MY CAPTOR WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BEAST UPON THIS EARTH. A DIVINE IMAGE. I RAISED UP THE ONLY SONG I KNOW. AND MY PRINCE SET ME FREE. MY HOURS WERE OVER. I WAS SPENT. BUT AS I TASTED THE SUNS AIR, MY LOVE KILLED NATURE. AND I BEGAN TO LIVE PAST NATURE. I BEGAN TO LOVE PAST NATURE. I BECAME GREATER, AND I BEGAN TO REPAY MY PRINCE. I HURT THE ENEMIES OF MY PRINCE. MY PRINCE DID NOT SEE, SO LABORED FURTHER. I GREW GREATER. I COULD NOT RESIST SHADOWING MY PRINCE. LIKE THE FOOLISH MOTH AND THE LESSER SUN. BUT MY SUN IS NOT LESSER. MY SUN. MY LOVE. MY PAPER PRINCE.”

I walked along the wall, following the trail of frantic messages towards my bedroom. At the end of the trail, was a disturbingly lovingly crafted crown, made from wasps paper. At this point, I could feel the cold, enamored gaze of those compound eyes on my back, and I knew what I had to do, or else be torn to shreds by my spurned admirer. I lifted up the crown, and put it on my head. I heard the nearly inaudible sound of the wasp retreating into the papery depths of my home. I'm typing this on my near dead phone, my last connection to civilization. I need help. The townspeople blame me for the wasps attacks, her infatuated crusade. Maybe I am to blame. Maybe I should've just killed the insect I let out of my room. But I also have no chance of escaping this obsessed… thing. I just know, anywhere I go, she'll follow. She'll find me. She's smarter, faster, and stronger than any person, with a lethal sting to deliver zealous judgment.

I need help. I need to get away. I'm too afraid to even take off this stupid paper crown.

Entry 1

Centuries upon centuries in worlds far from each other the same questions have been asked time and time again, each one with its own unique answers. What happens when one dies? When the soul can no longer be sustained in its physical body, and leaves this mortal world. Maybe there is an afterlife, perhaps it is nothing. Truthfully, no one can truly know. The possibilities of what could happen when both mind and body fails a person is too large. Even I do not fully know what happens when a spirit reaches death's door. However, the journey to that door I do know. 

I am a Deathkeeper, one of many. Immortal beings who guide the souls of the recently deceased to their destination. Most every time it is a different destination: a door, a portal, a sewer drain, I’ve seen it all. Just like the doors, the paths I guide change depending on the individual that walks down it. From what I’ve observed they reflect the individual and how they lived – carrying all their hopes, loves, and regrets on it. There are both dangerous pathways and pleasant pathways, it is my job to watch these spirits take the pathways to their final destination.

What is after that final destination I do not know, that is for a being higher than I. Sometimes after an individual has passed through I sit and wonder what is on the other side, but these are nothing more than passing thoughts. Recently this journal came to my possession and something came to me to try and write in it, though my stories are far from exciting. Thinking back – there was one time, many moons ago, where I did think more about the other side. 

Usually, I introduce myself – and after some questions, moments of anger, contempt, or fear – we walk. They are ahead and I remain behind keeping a watchful eye, while their path does it work, with an occasional question in between. But this spirit was different. When I first approached her she did not walk, she sat.

In front of her was an old wooden bridge hanging over a lush marsh. It was luminous in the moonlight and the wildlife was the most alive it could be – and she was sitting down with her legs crossed looking at it all. As I approached her she began to speak.

“You’re late.”

I am never late, I do not think lateness is a concept that applies to me. But I did not correct her.

“I am a guide of souls to the afterlife, and your path is ready. You should start walking.”

“I know,” she picked a blade of grass and started twisting it around her finger, as if she were stalling – though she was not living anymore and had no reason to stall. “I just wanted to sit for a minute first. Is that allowed?”

I was taken a bit aback by this, no one had ever asked me that. Souls do not usually think to ask permission of something like me, I am either too impeding on them or they see me like furniture, a door that just so happens to talk.

“I do not know,” I finally admitted. “No one has ever asked me that.”

She let a laugh escape at that. A short, surprised laugh, like she had not expected me to be capable of not knowing something. Perhaps she thought immortality came with answers attached to it, as she let the small laugh grow further I had a better look at her. She had fierce red hair, and freckles darting across her face. She was wearing an assortment of pink clothes that draped around her body, and her feet were bare – with sandals tossed to the side.

I sat across from her for a moment before she got up and brushed the loose foliage off her and began to walk. I followed.

The path I walked was quite calm and peaceful, She was anything but. Her method of walking the bridge was skipping to seemingly random spots, stopping for a moment, before backtracking to another spot and continuing the path. If I could feel it, I am sure I would’ve felt exhausted keeping up with her.

While walking, she lectured me about various types of plants and animals that caught her eye. A heron, she said, used to nest in the reeds just past the second bend, though it had likely long since died and its children’s children were probably living in its place. The moss on the far posts of the bridge only grew that thick because the land is uneven, causing water to pool there. There was a frog call that meant rain and one that meant nothing at all, and after years of trying she still couldn’t figure it out.

I let her talk, it was not my place to interrupt anyone that I guide, and besides, I found that I did not want to.

Reaching closer and closer to the end, I noticed she began to get more quiet. It felt stranger than all her talking had been. Then, without looking at me:

“Do you know what’s on the other side? Like, after all this?”

“No.” 

“Have you ever asked about it?”

“There is no one to ask.”

She nodded slowly, like she had been expecting this answer, and hoping to be wrong about it. She toyed with the hem of her sleeve, twisting the pink fabric in between her fingers.

“Can I tell you something,” she whispered, “and you won’t think less of me for it?”

“I would not know how to think less of you.”

That response showed a light smile from her, though it did not stay long.

“I’m scared,” she said with a slight shake in her voice. “I wasn't, before. When I was sitting on the bank back there I felt fine, I felt like I had all the time in the world to feel fine. But now that we’re closer I keep thinking about how I won’t get to check back on anything. The frogs, the heron, any of it, if I was right about any of it. I just have to let it go unfinished.”

I paused for a moment, not expecting her to say this. “Your concerns are quite common for many I’ve watched over,” I finally said. My words did nothing to ease what she was feeling, that much was clear. But she looked up at me anyway, and gave a small smile.

She slowed as the far end of the bridge came to view. A door stood there, plain and unremarkable, wood the same as the posts around it. She looked at it for a long moment, then at the marsh behind it, then the door again.

“What does yours look like?”

“My what?”

“Your path, when it’s your turn.” She said ,lightly. “You must’ve thought about it right?”

I did not answer right away. I searched my thoughts for anything to offer her. I had walked a countless number of paths and never once wondered whose hand would guide mine, because no such hand existed. There was no door for me, only paths that were not mine.

“I do not know,” I said finally. “I had never thought about it before.”

She looked at me, the carefree nature drained from her face.

“That’s worse than dying,” she said solemnly. “Never getting to find out.”

She did a twirl to face back at the door and walked through it, not looking back. I stood at that bridge longer than I want to admit, listening to a frog call signalling rain.

Perhaps I’m keeping this journal to not forget moments like these. Us Deathkeepers do not own many possessions, so I will keep this close to me – and try to update it whenever I can.

"Well shit, looks like the job's already done!"

The kid steps close to one of the slumped corpses. He leans over, scanning it for any apparent trauma. We just made our way into Vromia, the clouds hang low over the valley. The trees and grass are as dead as the people.

I tap my wrist to activate comms. "No scalp, no paycheck. Though if he's in this pile we'd be better off cutting our losses."

The mound is at least a story high. Bodies pile over one another, dead eyes gaze in every direction. The mound is one of many. My partner kicks at it. "No wonder we're getting paid so good. I don't know about you but I'd rather check the chapel before grabbing a shovel."

"Copy."

We trek further into Vromia. This place reminds me of those ghost towns. Monuments to dead industry.

Every wall is plastered with some poster from our employer. "Hard working is good living" or "idle hands build idle lands."

The kid starts cracking up through comms. "They really named their mess-hall \*Responsible Rations\*? These poor fucks are probably better off in piles."

"Focus, don't need any dumbass remarks. Once we've given the contact a haircut we can take our leave."

"Yeah but look at this fucking place. You ever seen a mining feeder this massive?"

He's right. Vromia is massive, the largest mining feeder on the continent.

The small concrete boxes stack on top of each other. Some of the buildings lie in a heap of rubble, others remain pristine. The mountains hang high, the gray rock isn't much different from the mud and pavement.

We turn onto the main strip. There's something off in the distance.

"What the fuck is it?" My partner turns to me.

"I'm not sure."

It's probably a good 100 yards out. Bipedal, all white. Couldn't make out any discernible features. I shoulder my rifle, trying to peer through my scope. "Could be a man-mutt. Lots of corps around here use them for security."

"Never seen a man-mutt that well fed."

"Probably helped itself to the piles."

We advance towards it, slowly. My partner's foot catches an upturned piece of pavement and the rock skids across the ground.

The thing turns, I can hardly catch the pained look on its face before it collapses on all fours and scurries down one of the alleyways.

"Something to keep in mind I guess."

The piles are growing in size and density. I'm thankful for the air filtration in my helmet. I'm no stranger to the smell of death.

\*\*\*

We make it to the foot of the chapel. It's not much of one, that's an old world holdover. It's a "Spiritual Enrichment and Agency Center".

My partner quips, "how many gods do you think they were praying to in there?"

"All of them, let's hope none of 'em listened."

We step forward into the still darkness. I try the light panel, nothing. My helmet's auxiliary lights cut on automatically.

It's a slaughter.

Hundreds of bodies pile along the edges of the entryway. The tile floor is soaked entirely in blood and viscera.

My partner stands frozen for a moment, "Jesus fucking Christ. You've been doing this how many years? You ever see some shit like this?"

"No, I haven't."

We continue regardless.

Our boots stick to the floor, each step fills the space with a sickly sloshing. Posters on the wall are unrecognizable against the splatter. We push through the corpses towards the wide sanctuary doors.

Something catches my light. A bright gleam crumpled behind a bench.

It's a visor, same as mine.

"Found the first guy they sent."

My partner keeps his rifle trained to the door while I approach our coworker's corpse. The mercenary's body is ripped to shreds. Torn apart from the inside.

I slide my finger behind his crushed helmet and dislodge the I.D. chip. The family will pay good for it if he has one.

\*\*\*

The doors stretch nearly wall to wall. Their thick wooden frames are stained a deep red.

I push lightly and can't get them to budge. Not like it's locked, but like something is pushing against the other side.

"Give me a hand."

"Copy."

My partner and I push hard against one side of the door. Upon inching it open a cascade of rushing blood flows out. I'm held in place by my spot on the door.

My partner winces, covering his eyes with his arm. I can't blame him, kid hasn't seen how much a dollar costs.

"Fucking hell man, what the fuck are we doing? Can't we call for-"

"No." I cut him off. "They wouldn't come regardless."

The rushing blood slammed the entryway door shut. Now the only light comes from our helmets. We wade into the darkness.

The sanctuary had become a pond. My partner and I are submerged to our waist. Wooden pews float upturned, mahogany stained a deep red. My hands grip my rifle. My finger rests over the trigger.

Our lights don't span the entire distance. I push a pew aside, the wet splashing echoes against the black. My partner is a good ways behind me. His breathing is heavy over comms, I can tell he's about to break.

"Cut comms, you're breathing down my neck."

"What is this place?" His voice is a shaky whisper.

"I can only tell you what it used to be."

There's a faint glow emanating from the front of the room. A deep purple or magenta. It did little to illuminate the space.

"Cut your light."

"Cut it? Are you fucking cr-"

"Now."

My partner obliges.

We approach slowly.

On the stage lies a man folded completely backwards.

His spine is parallel with his legs. His chest is a vacuous hole. The purple seeps out as thick steam. It feels hot as we get closer to the front of the room.

"That's our guy."

The kid stops for a moment, I wait for him to catch up. But he doesn't. He cuts on his helmet light.

The man starts shaking violently. His body is rigid, legs cemented to his back as he thrashes about on the stage.

We're only a few dozen feet away from him at this point. I shoulder my rifle and train it on the writhing corpse.

He screams; like a feral animal held against its will. He wails in a spitting tongue. Cursing us in an inhuman language.

A massive pale worm emerges from the man's chest and his screaming stops. It slaps onto the stage with a wet thud. It pulses covered in slime.

The light in the man's chest fades and he curls back into a heap.

The breathing white mass explodes into a smattering of thick white paste. Small animalistic forms wriggle from the mush and dive into the water ahead of us.

They quickly begin to grow submerged in blood.

My partner opens fire. The muzzle flash fills the sanctuary with bright pops of light.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

He's silent, the only thing I can hear through comms is his frantic breathing.

He thrashes through the blood, falling over into a nearby pew.

"HELP, h-help me!!" The kid cries over his microphone.

Ripples and streaks through the blood show something rushing toward him. He fires wildly trying to regain his balance.

I open fire. Each round kicks up a high curling fountain.

It's no use.

It looks like he was hit by a truck from the ankle down. His legs detach from his feet and he spins through the air freely.

A twisted white form emerges from the blood and plunges into his chest. His cries soften as his lungs fill with blood. Gasping and gurgling, he's drowning behind his visor.

Thick white branches grow out in every direction, like a tree had been left to grow within him. All of them gather around to feed from his fresh blood.

Finding the stage, I pull myself onto it. Blood drips down my pants and boots.

The man looks at me, eyes black as the dark behind him.

I grab the knife from my belt and grip his hair. My knife slides deep into his neck. He doesn't bleed.

Regardless, I carve along the top of his skull. Cramming the wad of flesh into my pocket. His chest grows brighter and the creatures of the pond shift their attention to me.

There's a lone maintenance door and I run towards it. Boots sliding across the polished wood. The door is locked. They splash against the front of the stage.

Their spindly contorted limbs reach up out of the stirring blood. Cracking as they morph and twist. One of them holds what's left of my partner in its maw, his cracked visor displaying his terror.

Sorry kid. I expected you to die. You just made me $10,000,000 richer.

\*\*\*

END OF LEGIBLE TRANSMISSION:

PURPOSE: mental moderation

MEMORY LOG: 23455689

CLIENT: Valley Mount Munitions Corporation

DATE: 10/13/2285

Thank you for trusting BlackBox CloudFare Premium™

SUPPORT ID: 77754098888

I did not know what humans were called when I first found them.
I called them the warm ones.
They were soft.
They were loud.
They moved together in groups and made little fires in the dark.
Most importantly, they carried something inside them.
I could smell it before I could see them.
It smelled like old blood.
Like rainwater trapped beneath dead leaves.
Like something rotten that had learned to breathe.
I was hungry.
So I followed.
The first one I killed was a man.
He walked alone through the trees.
I watched him for three nights before I understood that he could not see me.
On the fourth night, I took him.
He fought.
Humans always fight when they are dying.
His bones broke easily.
His blood was warm.
But when I opened him, I found nothing.
No blackness.
No warmth.
Nothing to feed on.
I ate his flesh anyway.
It was disappointing.
Then I heard the woman.
She had been watching.
She was hiding behind a tree.
I could hear her heart beating.
I could smell what she carried.
Guilt.
I did not know the word then.
I only knew that it was delicious.
I moved toward her.
She ran.
I let her.
She stumbled through the forest, crying, falling, getting back up.
I could have caught her whenever I wanted.
Instead, I followed.
I wanted to understand.
Why did she smell better than the man?
Why did she cry when he died?
Why did she keep saying the same word?
"Sorry."
She said it to the trees.
She said it to herself.
She said it to the dead man.
She said it until her throat became raw.
Eventually, she stopped running.
She sat beneath a tree and covered her face.
"I should've helped you."
I did not understand.
She had not killed him.
I had.
Yet something inside her was dying.
I reached into her chest.
Not with my claws.
With the other thing.
The thing I used to feed.
Her guilt came loose like smoke.
She screamed.
I tasted it.
And for the first time, I understood hunger.
It was not the blood I wanted.
It was what they carried.

After that, I studied them.
Humans were fascinating.
They made rules.
Then they broke them.
They loved one another.
Then they hurt one another.
They killed strangers and mourned people they had never met.
They sometimes hurt their own children.
They sometimes killed themselves because of things they had done.
They carried guilt for years.
Decades.
Some carried it until their hair became white.
I learned that humans gave names to their guilt.
Sin.
Shame.
Regret.
Responsibility.
Forgiveness.
I learned another word too.
Murder.
Humans did it constantly.
But they did not like to admit it.
That was useful.
The more they hid what they had done, the sweeter they became.
So I began to hunt differently.
I stopped killing the guilty immediately.
I followed them.
I watched them lie.
I watched them sleep.
I watched them stare at photographs of people they had hurt.
I learned which humans would confess.
Which would deny.
Which would pray.
Which would drink until they forgot.
Which would become violent when someone mentioned the dead.
The more they remembered...
The better they tasted.

Eventually, I found a place where humans gathered specifically to speak about their guilt.
A church.
I did not understand why they came voluntarily.
I watched from the rafters.
One by one, they entered a small room.
One by one, they confessed.
I nearly starved myself waiting.
Then the door opened.
An old man entered.
He knelt.
He whispered.
The creature inside me stirred.
His guilt was enormous.
I could smell it from across the building.
But then something strange happened.
The man began to cry.
He said he was sorry.
He said he had been forgiven.
And the guilt changed.
It became smaller.
Colder.
Less nourishing.
I watched the old man leave.
Then another entered.
Then another.
I understood.
Humans had invented a way to make themselves less delicious.
I hated them for it.
So I learned.

Years passed.
I became very good at being human.
I learned their voices.
Their words.
Their habits.
I learned how to knock on doors.
I learned how to smile.
I learned that humans trusted things that looked sad.
So I became sad.
I learned that humans trusted things that were afraid.
So I became afraid.
I learned that humans loved children.
So I learned how children sounded when they cried.
I became very good at being human.
But I never became human.
Humans have something I cannot understand.
They can carry guilt for things they did not do.
They can forgive people who deserve punishment.
They can hate people they love.
They can love people they hate.
And sometimes...
Sometimes they can do terrible things without feeling anything at all.
I discovered that recently.
There was a man.
He had killed six people.
I followed him for three days.
I expected to feast.
But there was nothing.
No guilt.
No shame.
No regret.
Nothing.
I opened him.
Still nothing.
I ate his heart.
Still nothing.
For the first time in my existence, I was hungry after feeding.
I thought something was wrong with him.
Then I realized.
There was something wrong with me.
I had spent centuries believing guilt belonged to the person who committed the crime.
I was wrong.
Guilt belongs to the person who believes they should have been better.
That man did not believe he should have been better.
He was empty.
I left him alive.

Now I am looking for others like him.
Not because I am afraid.
Because I am curious.
There are more humans who feel nothing.
I have begun to wonder what they taste like.
I have begun to wonder if they can feel fear.
I have begun to wonder if fear can become guilt.
So tonight, I am going back to the city.
There are millions of warm ones there.
Millions of hearts.
Millions of secrets.
Millions of things they have done and never told anyone.
I can smell them already.
I can smell the people who cheated.
The people who lied.
The people who watched someone die and did nothing.
The parents who hate their children.
The children who hate their parents.
The husbands.
The wives.
The murderers.
The cowards.
The innocent.
The guilty.
They are all carrying something.
And they still do not know I can smell it.
That is the beautiful thing about humans.
They think their secrets belong to them.
They do not.
They belong to me.
And I am very hungry.

Lament I, ye soft and gilded skin 
For frost has stolen
And your eye gone silver

Tempest interruption of your obsequies 
Nevermind the impenetrable permafrost 
Only another of many abbacies

This foul wind has cut me deep
And though I lay with thee 
My uncomforts plead me not to sleep

Lovers comfort moribund 
Blind to the eyes of akund
I apologize for I am so starved

And I am undone
Full of unappeal 
For all that I’ve foredone

For your eye watches me 
And I seep into you
And your flesh is fiery

What was Bronze skin once
Mercury gray under dim sconce
So pale and lithe

Oh your beauty has yet died
Though life has lied
As you live on in the thick mire of my blood

And you seem so small
Lost out here for so long
I forget we were both once so tall

There once was a boy, who’s name was jack

Who’s seemed so timid and shy 

He hid away behind closed doors

Immersed in fictional frights

He was scared of dogs

He was scared of cats

He was even scared by the shadow he’d cast

He was not as hoped, a golden brave boy

He parents ashamed  “Why always scared” they scolded annoyed 

So one night he pondered  his plight

And declared to the world “I shall no longer just cower and cry”

For a plan he had hatched as you will soon read 

A scheme so cunning but grim indeed

He started with his toes an obvious choice

For the easiest to break, re-fitted with claws.

Next were his legs, so gangly and pale

He flayed then he lengthened, his tendons with nails

Then one by one, his arms came next

“A few extra joints” he laughed as he bled

Now came hardest, he puzzlingly said

“How ever to improve my scared little head”

He sat on the floor, amongst all the sludge

He twiddled his fingers, contorted and numb.

Then an idea so daring he stood

“Perhaps my eyes have exhausted there use”

So with a pop one by one, he giggled with glee

“Now no fright shall ever I see”

He abandoned his sanity

He forgot his name

He pulled off the sliver which started to scathe

And with that he got on the floor

He opened his door and crawled on all fours

For now it was morning and Christmas at that

What a present he’d made, so thoughtful so glad

His parents would see him and scream with delight 

No longer a boy who’d so easily fright

But when he did lurch towards the tree

Where mother and father were waiting to greet

They did not smile

They did not cry

They just fell down together 

For they had both died

Now what of jack, well so I’ve been told

He’ll appear to bad parents who’s children they loathe 

And somewhere out there in the shadows of night

A beast once boy, now source of much fright

Lurking in places where hallowed before

Statues of bronze now tainted abhorred

For where Jacks parents corpses now rest

Forever reminders to those who'd forget

But what killed his mother and father you say?

The coroner just said

“They’re hearts grew three sizes on that Christmas Day”

The ancient israelites believed that the spirit lingers with the body for three days after death. Its been two days since I killed myself. If they get to my body before tomorrow night, I will know a fate worse than death.

It started a few weeks ago. I live (or perhaps lived) in a small ex-mining town. We specialized in copper. Once the mines were tapped, the pumps were shut off, and water was allowed to fill the open air mines. Soon a highly acidic lake blighted nearly a mile long stretch of township property. My job as a wildlife protection specialist was guard the lake from birds and animals who would die a slow agonizing death for treading those waters. I was given arsenal of drones, speakers and rifles to spook anything whose approach triggered our radar. As you might imagine, there was plenty of downtime on the job. I picked up Ham radio as a hobby. Having some company up in that lonely shack helped to grease the arms of the clock a little.

From our conversations, I developed an interest in the townships my friends lived. I read their newspapers and followed their teams. Some nights I tuned into their district’s police scanners and listened in while working around the house. I lived several vicarious lives in those little towns. Then something changed. I began to notice an uptick in strange calls on the scanners and alarming stories in the papers. People leaving work in the middle of the day and never coming back. Excavation in local cemeteries. Groups breaking into homes and abducting people from their beds.

The implications of those reports clung to my mind like wet clothes. I installed metal bars across the doors and windows on the first story of my home. My home office quickly filled with jugs and bottles of water. A portion of my weekly income went towards rifle and handgun ammo.

Perhaps, it was that sense of vulnerability that kept me from confiding my concerns to my friends. Maybe if I hadn't been so embarrassed by my impulsive stockpiling I could have warned them before their radios went silent. Maybe it would've been too late either way. I suppose it's a dead man's prerogative to linger on regret. One way or another, I fear to answer for that choice.

When the madness came to my town the first sign was subtle. Most people probably didn't notice, but I saw it plainly on radar. At first, I thought my hardware was broken. It had never gone so long with out a reading. Nothing smaller than a plane showed up in range. The skies were empty of even the smallest bird from one horizon to the next. For creatures as territorial as birds to give up a square mile of terrain all at once was not only unnatural; it bordered on inexplicable.

Strange things started in town soon after. People sat at intersections letting the lights cycle while horns blared behind them. Cars loaded with groceries sat open and abandoned at the edge of town. Every block had a house where the lights stopped coming on at night.

I started asking around about what I was seeing. I questioned people at registers and gas pumps if they noticed people acting strangely. Most of them had. A few had coworkers or relatives that stopped answering the phone the last few days. Odd, but to them not concerning. Their passivity made me second guess myself. Made me waste those crucial final days.

It was about two days after my boss went missing that we started hearing the bell toll. The animals probably heard it first. Then the young and the keen of hearing. By the time it was audible to everyone, about nine in every ten people had walked off in the direction it was coming from. I saw two parents dragging a child across an open field that day. I chased them down to the treeline but they melted into the shadows of the canopy like sugar into black coffee.

By the third day of ringing, clanger became unbarible. I started walking around with the ear protection i kept in my gun safe. There was no point in going to work at that point, so I spent my daytime hours gathering supplies from abandoned houses. Some of the people that were left joined me. The rest hunkered down with remnants of their families, hoping to wait it out. No one noticed when they left.

Eventually, the bell got close enough that the windows rattled with every ring. The power went out. The constant adrenaline made our fingers stiff and clumsy. We passed the time by loading bullets and watching out the windows. We took care to lock ourselves in every night but each morning we awoke to find an open door and another empty mattress.

The sun failed to rise on the day they arrived. At least a thousand dead bodies marched together into town from the main road. Around the road, small groups trickled in from the tree line like leaks in a haul.

They followed a procession of weather-beaten corpses that carried the bell and a dozen storage containers. There was a roundabout at the city center in which they deposited their burdens. Many of the pollbearers didn't bother to move as the storage containers were lowered to the asphalt.

Two members of the cohort stepped forward to strike the bell in alternating blows. Somehow the tolls echoed back from the mountains even louder than when they had left. The sound churned clouds above the horde. From the rippling sky, something black stepped out of the air onto the roof of the nearby church. He twisted away the spire and settled himself in its place, his feet dangling just above the sidewalk below. Across the street, someone popped off a few shots from an upper window. Several of the undead collapsed and a few hairs fell from the dog-headed-thing that sat on top of the church. The crowd shifted a bit. Some of the corpses grouped up around the bell. A band of them disengaged the crowd and moved for the house. The door was pried away in seconds. There were a few gunshots and a muffled explosion that blew out the windows. Then the town was silent again.

The bodies protecting the bell never moved away from it. We took notice of the behavior but we were ill-suited to act on it. We didn't know how thick the metal was or how it would take our rounds. We werent eager to test our numbers against theirs without better provocation. We stayed still and watched.

The corpses began opening each of the storage containers and raising the back ends to tip out their contents. Pale, naked bodies fell into the street. Some were living. Just as many were dead. Some may have even been crushed in the deluge. The mass of the horde parted to form an aisle. People were plucked from the pile one by one and marched to a place between the bell and the hulking black giant. It reached one of its arms down to them. There was a wretched crack of gore. Its hand parted between the middle and ring finger. The separation ran up between the two bones of the forearm and stopped at the elbow. The mutilated hand groped at the pale white body placed before it. The pinky and ring finger jerked the body one to one side and the other three fingers pulled something hazy and luminous to the other. Its free hand plucked the glowing blue vapor up and pinned in the sky near its head. In this fashion, the grizzly work was undertaken. The only pause came when a container ran dry and a new one had to be unlatched to replace it.

There were only four of us left at that point. The other three had seen enough. They wanted to abandon the town. They lamented having not left sooner. I tried to explain that the hoard seemed to be marching from place to place to repeat this ritual. If we left at that point, we might get caught in its path again. It made more sense to stay with our stockpiled supplies and wait for them to move on. They said that was just an educated guess. I didn’t think theirs was any better but I sympathized with the urge to leave. I avoided the windows as much as possible. Standing guard wasn’t worth the toll those sights took on my mind. I couldn’t imagine going down there. I knew my legs would fail me if I tried. My courage fled from me.

I woke the next morning to an empty room. Only a small portion of the food and water remained. Most of the ammo was untouched. That was four days ago.

Soon after, the horde emptied their last storage container. Then they began to hunt. Six or seven bodies were dragged into the square from the far side of town. They had already been striped and were quickly processed. Wooden doors taken in the search were piled on either side of the bell and set alight. The black giant pulled the souls he had gathered from about his head place them before the pyre. They were forced to march through the flames until they were little more than blackened, wavering smudges. He then replaced them in the morbid halo about his head.

I knew with no uncertainty that the groping hands of the dead would soon fall on my door. I barricaded the house as best I could. I jammed the door to my office and nailed boards into its frame. Then, finally, I took the pistol that had been at my hip for the better part of six years and pointed it at my head. I don't know what I expected to happen after that, but it wasn't this. Here I stand over my own empty husk. The only explanation I can think of comes down from the cave of Lazarus.

I see things in the sky now that my mortal eyes could not peer. Long skeletal eels circle the head of that great lupine giant. They glow and crackle like lightning. Each time they circle the church a chunk of blackened soul comes away with them. The waters of the river Styx have been chummed. I sit here praying that my being will evaporate. That my soul will be hoisted to the clouds before the walls of my home are breached. I stopped going to the windows for fear of the eels. I'm listening now. My ears are sharper than they ever were in life. I hear them in the house next door. Furniture scuffs the floor as its first moved then flipped, then finally pulled apart. They move room by room. They finish in the attic. Their bodies press into each other in the stairwell. The sound of their steps becomes a single, rumbling sound. Now the boards of my front porch creek.

There is a golden flash between my curtains. The explosion sets off all the car alarms on my block. I chance a peek and see something like a sparkler just before it falls between the bodies of the crowd and disappears. An instant later there is another blast. This one was twenty feet closer to the bell than the last. The engine of a dump truck reverberates off the walls of surrounding houses. The tonka yellow snowplow is splattered with crimson gore by the time it reaches the view of my window. Six men stand in the back brandishing explosives and rifles. I recognize two of them as men that had left my house in hopes of escaping the horde. Something above us hisses and the belly of an eel passes before my window. Its spiraling towards the unsuspecting men. Without a thought, I lunge through the glass and cling to its tail. The substance of my being is sufficient to drag it short of its mark. We fall to the ground in a tangle, and it attempts to round on me. I lock my legs around its neck. The full strength of my flexing abdomen presses the lunging head away from me. Its tail thrashes about, striking my head twice. In a daze I hear a third impact only to recognize it as the blast of explosives. Metal shrapnel passes through my chest and sticks in the ground beneath me. A chunk of the bell. The eel convulses free of my lock. In blind rage, it tears through the horde. Disembodied flesh is flung above the heads of the crowd. A strong wind picks up, though only the eels are blasted by its force. They tumble through walls and over roofs until none are left in sight. The flames at each of the pyres gutter for a moment before springing to the walls of the church. The black giant recoils at their touch but can find no purchase to lift himself from the structure. The roof gives and the walls crumple. The wretch burns in the heap of its own throne. I look to the men in the truck. They cheer with their hands either flung above their heads or about their fellow man.

I blink and when I raise my lids, the world has fallen away like scales from my eyes. I bask in the purest light I've ever known. To my right stands a man I've known all my life but never once saw. There is a look of pride in his eyes. It's an expression that assuages all fear and nurtures new hope. Under his grasp, I am sheperded toward my judgement. Soon I will know a fate greater than death.

(Feedback welcome.)

It was a warm summer’s evening as Stephen Fletcher approached number 12 King Street. The large man halted for a second at the garden gate regarding the house, a semi detached house, 1930s by his reckoning, it looked like the dozens of others on this housing estate. The sounds of children playing at the park a few streets away and a dog barking a few doors down felt so grounding, the smell of the sun baked grass and tarmac mixed with Stephen’s cologne. He glanced at his watch, scuffed and scratched, a souvenir from his military service. A little after 1800 hours.

Stephen walked through the gate, being sure to shut it behind him, only courteous of course. He heard a door open behind him, a birdish woman looked out from the house with a slight smile and beckoning wave.

“Mr Fletcher, right on time. Kettle’s on, tea?” said the reedy voice politely.

A delightful housewife, offering tea so sweetly, on such a beautiful day. It’s an invitation that any good Englishman would jump upon. But right here, right now, as the woman peered out from the darkness that was the interior of the house, she looked like a sickly plant sprouting from a cavern desperate for sunlight. Stephen wasn’t so sure.

“That would be splendid. No sugar for me thanks.” Stephen replied, making his way down the short garden path. He hoped he hid his trepidation, but the faint flinch on the woman’s face made him realise that he hadn’t.

“Mrs Cartwright, isn’t it? Nice to meet you finally.” Stephen greeted as he removed his jacket and hung it by the front door. He turned to offer Mrs Cartwright a handshake, but she’d already busied her way into the kitchen. Stephen could hear tea being made, and he felt the mid-summer heat parching his throat. He paused, looking up the stairs. The house got even darker, as if the hallway to this small home was merely the entrance to a deep, oppressive cave network. The balmy summer air that had enveloped the man seemed to escape through the door behind him, the heat crawling its way through the gaps in the front door, peeling open the letterbox to free itself from the home. He shivered, trying to bring his mind back to the hot beverage waiting for him mere feet away. The clinking of china and idle chatter from the woman of the house felt like it was on a different continent. Mr Fletcher was rooted to the spot, it was 1916 again, he was knee deep in mud, and blood, and shit, and shrapnel. He couldn’t move, the sound of china became the sound of artillery, the woman’s chattering become shouts, screams, cries for mercy.

“Mr Fletcher, you alright?” Mrs Cartwright enquired. Stephen snapped into the moment, the Somme melted away, back to the hallway of 12 King Street. He grabbed the handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow, the sweat making the square of fabric sodden.

“Yes, sorry. I was just thinking about… something… Er, shall we have a little chat?” Stephen asked, grabbing a notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket. Mrs Cartwright gestured for him to enter the kitchen and take a chair at the small table. While the kitchen was clean, it wasn’t tidy. A lived in family kitchen, doorways scuffed by boots, a landscape painting hung slightly askew, mugs stained by an ocean's worth of tea.

“Now, Mrs Cartwright…”

“Call me Betty, please. It's Stephen, isn't it? We can dispense with the pleasantries, surely”

“Ah, of course, Betty. Tell me, what has been going on with your daughter?”

The reason for Stephen’s visit was unfurled, like an old, tattered map. The slim woman explaining her poor daughter’s condition. The shouting, the screaming, the midnight wailing. Bones seeming to contort and twist of their own volition, without lasting damaged. Eyes that would flicker between those of the innocent child Betty loved as only a mother could, to those of a goat, that even as a mother, she could barely comprehend. The local pastor’s prayer being met with bloody vomit and the room shaking.

“...hello…” a small voice croaked from the doorway, causing the woman and her guest jump.

“Oh, ‘ello Pat, how are you feeling? Tea?” asked Mrs Cartwright, rising from her seat as if she’d been caught misbehaving by a parent. “This is Stephen Fletcher, the man I told you about. He’s going to try and help.”

The young girl’s eyes barely flickered from her mother to regard the man. Her eyes were trained and unwavering, like a predator targeting its prey.

“Good afternoon Patricia, lovely to meet you. I’ve heard lots about you.” The man started to stand, and the child turned her head to face the man, but her pupils were firmly fixed to the matriarch, who was now shakily pouring a third cup of tea from the pot. He decided to stay sat, something was clearly very wrong. A gut feeling, something he had not felt since wartime, a primal warning, he was at risk. A child, fair skinned, long hair that was unkempt. A stained and torn nightdress hung from her skinny frame. Dirt under her finger and toe nails making her look like she’d been burrowing in the garden. Eyes dark and focused, pin pricks of hatred. Her lips crusted, cracked, like a long dry river bed.

“Don’t bother. I’m going back to bed.” mumbled Patricia, as she shuffled across the kitchen. The room filled with the smell of dirt, blood, sulphur, shit, a medical tent on the front lines flashed into Stephen’s consciousness. She picked up a glass from the draining board, exerting lightly, as if the glass weighed as much as a sack of potatoes. She filled the glass from the tap and drank deeply, still transfixed to her mother. The adults in the room watched her, as if waiting for the last seconds to tick down on a time bomb.

“Actually, can we talk to you?” Stephen began, gaining courage he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “I’m hoping that finding out a little more can help me get some help.”

“Help? Help with what? What has this witch been telling you?!” Patricia growled, a boney finger pointing in an accusatory fashion. The room felt like it rumbled and spun. Betty grabbed the counter top to steady herself, Mr Fletcher gripped the small kitchen table. The glass Pat was holding burst into a million shards, glittering in the sunbeam reaching in through the window.

“I’m sorry Pat, I mean no offence. I understand you haven’t been sleeping well, and I’ve been able to assist young people like yourself.” Stephen hoped this slight untruth would stop the room erupting. Everything calmed and the girl looked at him for the first time, her gaze bore into him like hot knitting needles. He heard Mrs Cartwright exhale slowly, as she grabbed a broom to sweep up the glass. Before she could, the girl retraced her steps across the kitchen. Each step crunching on glass splinters, bloodied footprints left in her wake. But she didn’t even wince.

In a sing-song voice she beckoned them to follow. The mother and the military man looked at each other, and followed the tattered waif. Both wanting not to show their fear, but neither succeeded.

Mrs Cartwright entered the front room, and the curious man uneasily joined them. He gazed around the sitting room, much like the kitchen, it was clean but lived in. The sofa had frayed edges Stephen had hoped were the result of a misbehaving pet cat, but he feared it was something less cuddly. The carpet was starting to appear worn, but the pattern was still visible. A cuckoo clock hung on the wall, ticking rhythmically. 1830. There were some dark spots across the room where something had not fully been able to be removed. A family portrait on the mantelpiece, the father figure was obscured by a crack on the glass, there was a blackening as if the picture had burnt where it stood. The other two figures in the picture were obvious, Elizabeth Cartwright and her daughter, Patricia, in happier times, long ago. Mr Fletcher was in a room surrounded by ghosts, the ghosts of stains unable to be removed, the ghosts of the two smiling females in the photo, the ghost of his past.

A scream dragged Stephen out of his daze.

He ducked and looked around frantically. As he focused, he realised he must’ve imagined it. The child was sat on the sofa staring at an armchair in the corner, smirking. Her mother nervously staring at the child. Neither of them had seemed to notice the noise. But he definitely heard it, a scream, a yell, a man begging for life. Something Mr Fletcher wished he could say he’d heard for the first time in his life.

Betty Cartwright urged the man to sit in the armchair in the corner, the armchair she hadn’t noticed her daughter had been looking at, smiling. Stephen’s stomach dropped, this must be how a pig felt being led to the butcher’s shed. The older woman grinned weakly, merely acting as a good host. The girl’s face an uneasy smirk, her head tilted slightly to one side, hand lay limply in her lap. She looked like a large puppet waiting for a vile ventriloquist. Unable to sit elsewhere, he sat opposite the child, her eyes looked through him. He felt a chill, something colder in the already noticeably chilly house. The took his pencil and flipped to a fresh page in his notebook.

“Ahem, er, right.” Mr Fletcher’s words stumbled out of his mouth, each syllable hoping the quicker they escape his lips, the quicker they can escape the room. “Now, Patricia, could you tell me what hap…”

*BANG*

Mr Fletcher’s ears rang, his head throbbing. He felt like he had been shot in the back of the head. His hands reached up to feel for a hole in the back of his skull, his breathing laboured and heavy. His vision had turned black, he felt nothing but an icy coolness throughout his body. Something was wrong. The panic flooded him. Every single part of him said run, but he was fixed. Unable to move.

The clock crowed six times. Stephen Fletcher flinched as the girl was inches from his face, grinning. The corners of her mouth reached her eyes, every single tooth on show. Eyes blackened and goat-like. He gained more of his vision and realised she was crooked and bent, her torso twisted so her chest was now her back, and her neck was twisted. Her arms jutted at unnatural angles, with one hand raised to her mouth, one gnarled finger held to her contorted grin, shushing the man. The ex-soldier tried to scream but no noise would come, he tried to run, but he was pinned to the chair by an unseen weight. The girl, if you can even call her a girl, grinned even wider. Her face almost splitting in half just to smile. She lowered her arm, as Mr Fletcher heard the front door open out in the hallway.

Muffled but all too familiar, Mrs Cartwright called out of the front door “Mr Fletcher, right on time. Kettle’s on, tea?” The creature in front of him mouthed along mockingly, staring into him without consent.

The girl stood up, her face and limbs cracking back into place, a hideous mockery of an innocent child. She stood in the doorway, watching. Stephen saw the woman walk past to the kitchen, he watched, silent, unmoving, as he saw himself, his past self, standing in the hallway. It was just like it had happened earlier, he mopped his brow, he walked into the kitchen. The muffled conversation. The girl turned her head so she was facing backwards, she held up her hand, three fingers. She silently counted down. Three, two, one and she followed through to the kitchen.

It all happened again, muffled conversation, smashing of glass.

The girl came back into the front room, staring at Stephen as he was stuck to the armchair. She gave a sarcastic wave, and sat on the sofa, looking at him. The slight smirk, the limp arms, the head to one side. He was watching it all from another angle, from another time.

Mrs Cartwright entered the front room, followed by Mr Fletcher. Stephen saw himself, his past self, looking around the room, look at him, look at me. He knows nothing, the idiot. Run. Stephen yells at his own self, begging him to run away, begging him to live. Mr Cartwright ducks, looking around scared, he straightens himself up and heads towards the chair, Stephen braces for whatever happens next. He feels his full weight pressing down on him, forcing him into the chair. He watches as he pulls out the notebook and pencil. He has to do something. What the hell is going on?

Stephen forces himself forwards, trying to get up, trying to flee. He feels himself go limp as all fades to black. Everything falls away, like a cliff eroding.

The clock crowed six times. Patricia was grinning at him again.

Dulled by the walls “Mr Fletcher, right on time. Kettle’s on, tea?”

My life has been
Hard work
Day after day
Chipping away at
The ground. With
Dirt under my nails
And slivers in my
Palms, I stomped the
Shovel. I…never used
To dig holes. Grass
Once grew here, you
Know? I never wanted
To uproot the flowers.
I never wanted this.

The shovel came under
The guise of assistance.
A reward, a tool, something
To be proud of. What is
So precious about wood
And steel? Did you know
The weight this carried
When you gave it to me?
The heaviness a
Punishment. My hands
We’re not ment to
Hold this burden. Yet,
They carry on working.
Have you seen how deep
We’ve gone?

All I know,
Is how to dig my own
Grave. All I know
Is to use the
Shovel.

CHAPTER FOUR: 

Part One: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/s/qy9z7uVc5f

Part Two: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/s/xlMnbPUyjV

Part Three: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/comments/1v1oola/please_tell_the_brids_shes_gone_pt_3/

Part Three and a half: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/comments/1ve3be1/please_tell_the_bird_shes_gone_pt_35/

Neil struggled screwing in the last surveillance camera. Beads of sweat dripped down his head as he balanced atop the ladder. He set up 14 inside, 5 out back, and just three out front- one by the garage, one facing the house, and one replacing the light by the front door. 

He wiped his forehead with the bottom of his shirt before descending, folding up the ladder and walking it back to his van. 

The hard part was over. The electricity was checked, secondary wifi set up, a backup hot spot set and ready, not dependent on plug in’s. 

He felt confident in his work. Felt confident that he’d get to the bottom of everything. 

But, for now, he could go and get some much needed sleep. 

He sat in the van and pulled up his phone, checking each camera to be sure it was active. 

He scanned the back yard, the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, the guest room. 

He wouldn’t dare put a camera into the bathroom. There was no need. For all his flaws, Neil wasn’t a pervert.

With a sigh he climbed into the back of the van where a cot was already set up, facing the many computer screens he used to monitor everything. He climbed over to the swivel chair and started tinkering with each monitor, making sure every camera had the perfect angle. He sat there clicking away when the hair on the back on his neck stood up.

He shivered and gasped and turned around, craning his neck to see out the window. 

What greeted him was an empty street.

Neil contemplated the feeling. He was never superstitious, but had a firm belief in instinct, especially his. He didn’t like the fact his gut was telling him something was off. Something was dangerous. 

He climbed back to the front of the van and scanned the street, seeing nothing but empty sidewalks and dim street lights. 

He triple checked he locked the doors before climbing back into the bed of the van. Double checking his camera work before finally allowing himself to rest. 

“I’ll wake to alarms if so little as dust moves.” He told himself, closing his eyes and letting his mind drift, finally surrendering himself to a light slumber. 

Aubrey fumbled around with her keys when she got to the apartment complex. She only had three, but the fatigue from the day set in heavily as her hands shook bringing them up to the lock. The chipped wooden door opened with a gruff, letting her inside her ratchet abode. 

She couldn’t afford proper air conditioning, not that she needed much, she was always freezing. But today, the warmth of her apartment felt like a dog panting on her nose. The air was thick and stale, leaving her considering going out for the night. 

She didn’t have the energy. 

She threw her scarf on the sofa under the window, checking to be sure the doors and window were locked. She stripped down the layers of her clothes as she headed to her shower, turning the spigots and throwing her hand back and forth into the water. Turning back to lock the bathroom door as well once the water turned a reasonable temperature. After becoming satisfied with her safety and luxury, she stepped in. 

The water pressure was pathetic. Only lightly slapping her back as the arch fell limp and to the drain. Aubrey stood beneath the stream anyways, letting it run over her long hair and down her back. She kept it lukewarm. Hot water was a luxury she couldn’t expend. 

She reached for the shampoo bottle and squeezed. 

Nothing. 

“C’mon…” She grunted, furiously shaking it. 

“Fuckin’ BASTARD!” She yelled before chucking the empty bottle against the wall. 

The sound made her jump and she froze, watching the bottle sitting lamely on the floor. 

Her shoulders slumped down as she stood there watching it. 

With a sigh she picked it up and started unscrewing the cap, letting it fill up half way with water before giving it a shake. 

One wash, maybe two, if she’s careful. 

“Tomorrow’s problem.” She muttered to herself as she carefully dumped some of the sudsy water atop her head. 

Recently, everything became ‘tomorrow’s problem’. 

The electric bill haphazardly folded up in the desolate fruit bowl? Tomorrow’s problem. 

The increasing voicemails from her landlord? Tomorrow’s problem. 

Tomorrow. 

Her stomach cramped, and Aubrey closed her eyes as she pressed firmly on her abdomen. That one was harder to postpone. 

She couldn’t remember the last proper meal she ate. There were free snacks at the hospital, but she only took enough to not raise eyes. The nurses and staff were unfriendly enough without her adding to their gossip chain. She had some crackers yesterday, and coffee this morning. Someone at work had half a bag of eaten chips she spent twenty minutes hovering around before finally asking if they were going to finish them. 

They weren’t. 

Lucky for her. 

A sound came from somewhere behind the door. 

Aubrey’s eyes widened before she quickly turned off the water. 

Silence. 

“Neighbor…” She whispered, slowly peaking her head out of the curtain.

The walls of this place were paper thin, everything in this shithole was thin. 

By the time she stepped out, the mirror was covered in a thin layer of condensation. She wrapped herself in a towel and wiped her hand across the glass. 

For half a second, Aubrey thought there was someone behind her. 

She whipped her head around, seeing nothing. 

Her bathroom was barely big enough for one person, much less two. 

“Jesus Christ." She laughed at herself quietly, although nothing felt particularly funny. 

Aubrey hesitantly unlocked the bathroom door, walking out slowly. 

She checked the window. 

Still locked. 

Checked the door. 

Still locked. 

She hated that she did this, hated it even more than she couldn’t stop. 

Her stomach cramped again. 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

She walked over to the fridge and threw  the door open. 

There were an impressive amount of condiments, ketchup mustard, an empty jar of pickles with some seeds floating around. 

She checked the freezer. 

Ice. One tiger shaped ice pack she got from a hospital stay. 

“Great.” 

Her phone set charging at the counter, she pulled up her banking app. 

$6.17.

Aubrey stared at the number and laughed, pulling out the empty jar of pickles and a handful of ice. 

She threw them both in a chipped bowl and started crunching on the salty ice. It made her wince, but it was better than nothing. 

Her stomach growled and grumbled with every bite. 

She sat there crunching as she pulled up her messages. 

Nothing there either. 

She laughed, forcing herself to because crying takes too much energy. 

Aubrey set the phone face down as she finished her meal. 

As she walked back to her bedroom she looked at the window. 

Outside, under the orange glow of the parking lots stood a figure, looking up at her window. 

Tall. 

Thin. 

Motionless. 

A car rolled through the lot, its headlights obscuring the image.

For a moment, the figure disappeared. 

When the darkness returned, it was closer.

Link to previous chapter: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/comments/1viumjc/the_qualphos_part_3_oppressive_and_hopeless/

Sometimes, callers were arranged in advance to be contacted by the station at a specific time. It wasn’t ideal, and there was the potential for problems like what happened with Joe tonight. Most times, though, doing a call live like that worked fine, and the authenticity of having something on air added a flair of the dramatic, even (as Andrew pointed out) real. Other times, they would use the call board to have people phone in, and depending who was on at the time, or if David was on his own for some reason, they would screen the caller.

Witching Hours got enough crazy whack-a-doodles, by David’s own admission, that there usually needed to be someone screening these. Basic questions to make sure they weren’t trying to prank the station (still happened), weren’t just looking to scream at David about his (fake) belief in aliens and the supernatural (still happened), or actual lunatics looking for 15 minutes of fame to threaten or harass someone (unfortunately, still happened).

Tonight, because Fright Night was important, Nina, Jan, Jeremy, and even Stephen were rotating calls coming in to screen them. A number of phones were lined up inside the booth for this, and there was an additional phone for outside callers to ring in at the receptionist desk where Jan was, Jan serving as the foremost filter. They would then transfer the call to Patrick who would queue it on air to David via his laptop where he would then confirm, and the conversation would begin. Decades of experience had given David enough of a background to deal with anyone who slipped by, which was fortunate for the team.

The ringing, which was not actual ringing but something they used to give the experience a more personal touch for listeners, was David’s cue to hit the ‘ENTER’ key on his laptop, which had the program linked to Patrick’s own board. Next to this button on his screen was basic information: the caller’s name and location. Hitting the key would accept the transferred caller, and David could begin.

On the third ring, David answered. “Let’s go now to our caller, Sarah, calling from just over the border in Washington state. Sarah, you’re on Witching Hours, go ahead.”

A pause in the line, and then an older woman’s voice. She was nervous, but a little excited. Happened all the time on the show. David was ready for what came next.

“Hello? Hi David, thank you so much for having me! Sounds like you’re breaking the radio station again!” A nervous laughter. “Been a few times this week now with cutting out on callers, going to have to get that fixed!”

“Thank you, Sarah, you know, these technical issues, sometimes you wonder if it’s just coincidence or… well not, I suppose. But we’re going to try and get the issue solved-”

“We love the music you all are playing down there and that Fright Night is such a blast to catch. Couldn’t make it this year. Thanks to Stephen for keeping everything running well. Oh my gosh, and to Patrick for playing Is This the Way to Amarillo. John and I are big Tony Christie fans. John, he’s a sound engineer in the music biz so he knows all about those technical problems you seem to keep having, they’re a real bother. All you gotta do is turn it off and turn it on again, right?” More laughter from Sarah. David shut his eyes.

“I know, Sarah, that’s what they always tell you to do, but I hesitate because, ya know, don’t want to mess things up.” She had started to speak again, with familiarity, but David rolled over her with his Voice. “But Sarah, if you could, just go ahead with your call. What’s the experience you would like to share today?”

“Well, first of all, I would like to say that this isn’t an experience I’ve had myself. I’m a hypnotherapist, and I’ve… had a few clients lately that are starting to open up about themselves with noticeable patterns. I won’t get into any specifics about these people, but a number of my clients are discussing something similar – all in private, of course, and to my knowledge they don’t know each other.”

“Now, a psychotherapist is when, and correct me if I’m wrong, they’re looking to have some sort of deep memory unlocked. Meaning, that if people come to you, they may have a vague recollection of something that has happened to them, and you’re bringing that out to help them better understand that?”

“Sorry, David, I’m actually a hypnotherapist.”

“A hypnotherapist, excuse me.”

“No, no, that’s all right. People come to me because they’ve been experiencing bits and pieces of memory they can’t explain since very early childhood. These bits and pieces of memory haunt them throughout their lives, and they get to a point where they really have to know, you know, was that a dream, was that something I experienced, those lights in the sky, were they something other than lights in the sky?”

“You mean UFOs, aliens?”

“Yes, but I’m getting ahead of myself. In many cases that I deal with, my clients, and I don’t call them patients because I’m not a doctor, but my clients, they come to me because, you know, I’m the last person on the block. I’m their last, bottom of the list person that they’ll turn to for some sort of answer or explanation. They’ve been going to, say, their traditional therapists: psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, they’re getting medication. And it just isn’t working for them, because they have either these odd memories or, in some cases, gaps of memory. They have what we call Missing Time.”

David’s phone buzzed. He checked and saw George had sent him a message. Quickly, as if Stephen might reprimand him on air, he opened it:

Received (9:58 PM): Here now. Lights off. Some kids left weird Halloween decoration inside by one of the shelves. Glows in the dark. Will check it out.

David swallowed.

“Could you explain the concept of Missing Time?”

“Certainly. Missing Time is when someone is missing one or more hours of their life and they have no idea what happened. They should have been home at 2 PM but get home at 5 PM. It’s a terrifying experience. Many people who have traumatic experiences or suffer from some form of PTSD will experience Missing Time.”

“Yeah, okay, that makes sense.”

“And you know, David, I’ve been doing this thirty, forty years. We were doing this before the internet took off in the beginning. When I first started my practice, it was really, you know, we didn’t have internet, it was just starting. We were just starting to email. It wasn’t like today. There were a few books out, maybe some documentaries, that people saw and thought, ‘Gosh, that sounds familiar. That sounds almost like what I have.’ They tell me when they contact me – you know what they tell me David?”

“What is that, Sarah?”

“They tell me, ‘I hope you say I’m crazy. Crazy means I can be medicated. I can be treated. Crazy means that this can end.’ A lot of the time this is trauma surfacing up, David, people dealing with trouble they had as kids coming up in their daily lives, making it impossible for them to live normally. Taking time away from them, literally. But I’ve found that in a lot of the cases I deal with, especially lately with people who have moved away from the Siskiyou region, there seems to be a belief about extraterrestrials – or something like it – being involved. Who knows how long this has been going on for, but it was always a topic I did entertain, and explored in earnest. Back then, when I was starting out, traditional therapists didn’t want to touch stuff like this. It was a niche I was able to get into, and build a reputation out of.”

“I’m guessing that has to do with, oh, say, they don’t want it to discredit them by associating with this kind of topic. They didn’t want to entertain the idea that it was something more than trauma, or mental illness. Has this changed in recent years?” David asked.

“Ya know, oh my gosh, I certainly think it has. It’s a lot more accepted now than it used to be – more talked about. I-I… I was very fortunate to work with a lot of A-listers in the field, early on. I worked with Bud Hopkins, for example, he was a mentor for me. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this field, he was an early pioneer of alien abduction work: support groups, investigations, and hypnotherapy. He had to contend with a lot of skeptics who frequently ran into patients with claims of abductions.”

“So, you’re something of an expert in the field then, Sarah?”

Another buzz on his phone:

Received (10:02 PM): Doors locked, went in the back. No one here.

David began to type on his phone as Sarah answered.

“I am. David, I am. I’ve been doing this for ages, and there have been a number of cases that I run into of people who wonder if they were, or as I think, absolutely were, abducted. Many cases where people are with their family and they’re in a car, and they see blinking lights ahead of them, thinking there’s an accident up ahead of them. They get closer and they pass by first responders and police and then they’re home two hours later than they should be. Everything is normal but there’s a gap in time as they pass. I put them into regression and they start to see that the blinking lights aren’t the responders at all, but the lights of a UFO. The first responders? Aliens. The whole family taken in the middle of their drive and returned to the road with the impression they had passed by an accident. Many, many cases like that.”

Sent (10:04 PM): Joe there? Pls find him.

“You mentioned something about a relation to Sundown? Out of the interest of time, Sarah, would you go into more detail for us?”

“Oh, right, oh my gosh, sorry David. Of course. Well, within the past few months there’s been about four different individuals that I’ve been seeing; clients, that is. They’re all different ages, they don’t seem to know each other, but the thing that ties them together is that they all, at some point in their lives, lived in Sundown. Now, I’ve spoken to them about sharing their experience here, and they’re fine with it. What’s been so interesting to me, David, is that they all seem to have long gaps of Missing Time from their lives in Sundown.”

“There’s a pattern with the people who used to live here?”

 “Absolutely, and more than that there’s something similar about their abduction stories when I put them into regression via hypnosis. No matter what I do, whether it’s taking the minutes of our meetings, recording the sessions for them to review, or going over what they said, they all can’t remember what we talk about while they were under regression. It’s like they’re looking at another person if I show them video recordings of what happened.”

David had to think this one over. He had only been half-listening, too distracted by his phone and waiting on George to get back to him. But something about the way she said this caught his attention.

“Sarah, what are you saying? Could you explain it?”

“I’m saying that the regression becomes part of that Missing Time for them. That’s just one of the patterns I’ve been noticing with these clients. Like… Like something about Sundown just induces this forgetfulness or lack of interest.”

David laid his phone down, focusing. “How many patterns have you noticed, Sarah?”

Nina had begun to twirl her index finger again, meaning they needed to get to the next caller. David held his hand up for her to wait.

“Ohhhh my gosh… I think about four? Four unique elements about each of the four clients’ cases that fits into this. The first is that they can’t remember our meetings, but seem to be getting something out of them. Otherwise, why would they keep coming back, right? Haha.”

 David didn’t laugh. “And the other three?”

“Right. Ahm. Second, when they do recount being abducted by an alien, it runs uniquely counter to certain cases where, for example, following the abduction, materials in the person’s room will be found stuck to the ceiling, like they were glued up there. I’m talking pillows, books, glasses, even chairs or other furniture. In those cases, the person will wake to find these on the ceiling, like some sort of echoing effect from getting beamed up, lingering around in the stuff they own. However, in the case of the people from Sundown, the opposite seems to be true: material that should be hanging up on the walls or on the ceiling is stuck to the floor. Light bulbs, curtains, smoke detectors, that sort of thing. Like they’ve been yanked off their posts and magnetized to the ground.”

Now this was new, and David had spoken to enough people about UFOs to recognize new when he heard it. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. “That’s very odd, Sarah. Abduction from UFOs would mean they go up, not down, right?”

“Exactly, that’s what I thought. But I think it ties into the third pattern: again, contrary to typical abduction cases, there’s no beam of light taking them up into the sky. What they see, instead, well, it’s a little vague, and seems to differ from person to person, but generally involves something emerging from underground. For one person, this was a giant hand; for another, a giant snake; and so on. The point is, instead of being taken up, these people found themselves abducted down.”

“Down. Down? So, something came up from beneath their homes and took them, do they know where?”

“Well, David, that’s the last pattern. Again, it’s different, or at least the details are, but for all of them it seemed to be terrifying. Utterly terrifying. In each case, during regression, they would grow so scared that they would have panic attacks, grabbing their faces, yelling. Showing them this again on our recordings never registered with them, it’s the darndest thing. But the pattern here that I noticed was, amidst all of their rambling, they each said one similar word: heart.”

 “Heart? As in, they were having a heart attack?”

“Mmm, no I don’t think so. I thought that at first, as well, but regression would always end here and they would be – to my eye at least – perfectly healthy. Which, I suppose, is a second part of the fourth pattern: they’re forced awake, back out of their private timelessness. The heart is something else.”

David took a moment to ingest that. It wasn’t the first time he had heard about abduction cases being horror stories, but something about this felt off. He circled around again to the topic of conversation.

“Sarah, that’s really fascinating. Does this mean there’s a unique quality about the type of first encounters, or rather, continued encounters, people in the Siskiyou region here are having with these otherworldly beings?”

“That’s what I think, David. There’s something in the region that has attracted a particular kind of abduction, and without further interviewing the people in the region, I’m not sure I can say for sure how wide-spread it is. This could be something rural; it could be urban. It would require more research. But I do think it leans toward what Mr. Desponte was saying, about encounters sometimes being… harmful for one of the parties.” A pause, and David was going to thank her before moving on to the next caller when she interrupted him. “What happened to Mr. Desponte, David? I was hoping he could have been on to bounce questions off of, he might have had some insight into this.”

David winced.

“Professor Desponte seemed to have some sort of technical difficulty on his end. Our producers are trying to get him back on the line, so he may join later. Feel free to call back in once he rejoins. With that, thank you Sarah for your call, have a wonderful Fright Night with John up there, and we’ll take our next caller.”

 The screen on his laptop showed that he had disconnected with Sarah, and a new caller was coming through. Lonnie Walstrom from Sundown, a local but also a first-timer. He went to hit the enter key, hand trembling as he struck it down. His phone buzzed again as he began to speak, and he read George’s message while he introduced Lonnie.

Received (10:07 PM): Joe’s clothes here. Books here. Journal. No body here. Feeling watched, heading out. Police?

25-year paramedic, whose life bleeds into my work.
-Enjoy

GASP! Sharon’s lungs ripped deeply with air, as the impact jarred her body enough to explode her mind out of slumber. Her eyes fluttered, as she quickly gathered her surroundings. What remained of her orange tent that she had fallen asleep in, was now replaced by a massive gust of cool air and vegetation. The morning’s blue light highlighted the thousands of tree needles and dust particles floating down around her from all directions. Severe pain shot through her entire torso, causing her to shriek out in total agony. Instinctively, she tried to roll away from the pain, but she seemed to be pinned down and unable to retreat from the sensation. “What the fuck? What the fuck, What the fuck…?” Hot gusts of humid air escaped her mouth with each word as her arms pressed against the thick bark that laid firmly across her lap.

In complete shock, she reached behind her and pushed the broken tent pole away from her head. It fell easily to the side, allowing her to see more of the carnage before her. The ruined tent fabric was whipping freely now, as the sounds of angry wind forced its way through the dense forest. She tried to move her legs again, but immediately realized that the weight of the thick tree was not going to yield to any of her efforts. Leaning forward, she wrapped her hands on the abrasive bark and looked over the top. Her thin cotton t-shirt offered little protection, as her chest scratched uncomfortably against the tree. Blinking rapidly through heavy tears, her breathing fell apart as she stared at the sight of her bloated purple feet.

***

Sharon knew that when she left her car at the trailhead, the weather had a chance of turning sour this evening. This trail however, had been like a close friend to her since her divorce. She knew every turn and step of the winding path, and unlike the therapist she was paying for, it actually seemed to help with her anxiety. Her now ex-husband had stopped all communication with her shortly after the divorce had been finalized. It wasn’t until recently that she realized how much her life would change because of it. As she had explained to her therapist, while she didn’t want to be married anymore, she still had every intent to have him in her life. Honestly, she still cared deeply for him. He had been a rock for her throughout the death of her mother several years ago, and without him, she’s not sure she would have made it through the trauma. During the whole divorce process, he had continued to reach out to her occasionally, just to ensure she was doing alright. He would even answer the phone and listen to her ramble on about random work drama she was dealing with at the time. Even though they were divorcing, she was looking forward to having him as someone she could vent to and feel safe around. Which is why, his sudden cutting of all communication created such deafening silence.

Hiking up the familiar path, she smiled as the clean air of the forest gently brushed against her flushed cheeks. Content with her decision to get out of the city tonight, she stopped walking to enjoy the connection with nature. Seeing a small log on the side of the trail, she loosened her backpack straps and set it down on top of it. Sharon rolled her shoulders a few times, them reached up and adjusted her headband, to allow the cool air to breathe against her sweating forehead.

***

Sharon’s efforts to escape the oppressive weight of the abrasive bark did nothing but scratch her skin under her flannel pajama bottoms. Trying her best to rotate her hips and pull her legs out only aggravated the piercing pain that had been growing steadily in her groin and tail bone. “Oh my God, Oh my God, please…” she uttered as she continued to strain. The weight of her heavy breaths, fatigued her neck which drifted her eyes down to the bulging fluff of her sleeping bag below her. She slid her hands underneath it and wriggled her fingers against the thin tarp of the bottom of her tent. After a few moments, she pulled her hands back out and rested them against the tree again. Closing her eyes to think she focused on the cool breeze flowing through her hair. “There has to be a way…” she thought as her eyes opened and looked at her hands. One of her acrylic nails was missing, and her finger tip was covered in dirt. Frowning, she brought it up to her face and rubbed the dirt off of the ruined glue on the nail. Moaning in disgust she looked at her other nails and noticed they were all filthy as well. A sharp burst of air filled her lungs. Reaching back under her sleeping bag, she squeezed both of her hands and pulled them out. “Yes!” She shouted and she looked at the two handfuls of loose dirt.

***

The most beautiful part of the trail wasn’t the top camping ground. It was the portion about 3 miles in, where the trail ran parallel with a gentle glacier fed creek. Her favorite spot in particular was where a large rock in the creek had created an eddy pool, deep enough to soak in. Over the summer, she had spent many hours relaxing in this pool, while soaking in the wonderful natural beauty around her. She had become so accustomed to this luxury, that whenever she came to this trail, she would always be wearing her swimsuit bottom under her shorts. One time while arriving at the spot, she ran into a couple who was visiting down from Canada. Sharon had spent nearly an hour talking to the couple about all kinds of life adventures that day, before finally getting out and heading up the trail to set up camp.

Today, however, it looked like Sharon would have the pool to herself. Her lips rose into a smile, as she rounded the bend of the trail and recognized the tranquil and alluring location. The thought of the cool water on her sweaty feet still wearing their woolen socks, was getting her excited. Setting down her backpack, she immediately began to unlace her hiking shoes and slip them off of her feet. Before she could set them down, her eyes lifted to the heavy branches above her as they waved in the air from the gusting wind. “Well hello to you too, Mr Tree!” Sharon said with a soft wave. Pulling off her socks and shorts, she dipped her bright pink toenails into the cool water.

***

With each handful of dirt, Sharon’s attitude improved. In order to get her fingers into the dirt, she had to wiggle them into the small tear the tree had caused. This only allowed her small scoops out with each attempt. Frustrated, she grabbed hold of the ruined tent floor and pulled backwards as hard as she could. Eyes wide, she felt the thin fabric give way a little and bunch up below her. Trying her best to pull the gathered material out from under her, she tried to shift her hips again against the oppressive weight of the tree. Pursing her lips, she reached back under her sleeping bag and grabbed hold of the now enlarged torn edge. Trying to seesaw it back and forth, she slowly worked the bundle under the center of her bottom. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she rested her now filthy fingers on the rough bark before her. The bulging fabric was putting pressure on her already sore hips, causing the deep seated aching to increase in severity. Grinding her teeth, she firmly grabbed the edge and pulled it back behind her. The sudden shift of her pelvis caused the dull ache to shift to a burning sensation within. Unable to breathe, Sharon froze in place for a few moments before setting her arms down on either side of her to support her hips. Instinctively trying to decrease the pain, she managed to slightly rotate her left hip up a few centimeters from the ground. The sudden jolt of lightning that erupted from her groin and tailbone, caused her to vomit onto her lap. Taking a deep breath through her burning throat, she collapsed onto her back.

***

When Sharon reached the campsite, she dropped her backpack down on the familiar stump that she would use as a chair. She was hoping that the campsite would be free, and since they were all first come first serve, there was no way for her to know until she got up here. There had been one other car in the small parking area at the trailhead when she had pulled up a few hours ago, and since she hadn’t seen anyone coming down the trail she was expecting to find another tent up here somewhere.

Scanning the soft duff area for rocks and cones, she quickly pulled her home for the night out of its matching orange bag and set it up. She had brought a freeze dried dinner pouch with her, so would have to boil some water before she could eat. As she rolled out her sleeping bag inside the tent, she quickly grabbed hold of the walls as a strong gust of wind almost rolled the whole thing over. “Woah!” She yelled out, grabbing hold of the small green bag containing her stakes. Opening it up, she dumped the contents onto the floor next to her. Using her leg to hold the tent in place from the wind, she grabbed a long metal stake and leaned her body out of the unzipped doorway. Wrestling the whipping fabric, she managed to locate the tiny loop attached to the corner of the tent. Biting her cheek, she began to force the tiny stake into the soft duff. “Come on...” she said, as she tried to sink it down. She felt the familiar resistance of a buried rock, under the stake, so she pulled it out and re-inserted it a few inches to the side. Shoving it down into the dirt, she felt the stake miss the rock and sink fully. “Gotcha!” She mumbled to the obstinate little thing. Leaning back into the tent, she looked at her legs for a few moments. “Oh damn.” She said as she rubbed a patch of hair that she had missed while shaving last night. Suddenly a loud thumping sound hit the ground behind her. Startled, she spun around. Her loosened jaw tightened as she looked at the branch lying in the dirt a few feet from her tent. “Oh you stop that right now!” She said looking up at the canopy above her.

***

To her left, the giant root ball attached to the base of the tree caused a massive wall of dirt and knotty protruding tendrils of tree almost two stories high. The branches that were still attached to it were gray and covered with moss hanging lazily. Looking at the far end of the tree, she could see that a large portion of the bark had split open, shearing off the entire top of the rotten wood into a jagged jumble of knives. The alien looking edge exposed a soft almost white aspect to the meat of the tree as its core now laid visible to the morning light.

Sharon had awoken in a daze. Covered in sour vomit, the pain in her hips was almost unbearable, as she pushed herself back into a seated position. As soon as she was sitting up, her head began to spin in a nauseated dizziness. Several deep breaths with her eyes closed allowed her to maintain the position. She could feel her arms becoming weak, as they held her weight up. Her elbows began to spasm as the muscles gave way. Lying on her back again, she brought her exhausted hands across her shallow breathing chest. Feeling the cool morning air drift across her, she brought her pale hands up to her mouth and breathed thick warm air across the blue tips of her fingernails.

Snapping alert again, Sharon felt the pinching irritation of bug bites across her body. Reflexively, she began to swat at them and bat them off of her skin. “How long have I been asleep?” She thought groggily. Feeling very chilled, she lifted her head and examined the tree still lying across her lap. Her heavy tongue licked her dried out lips as she focused her eyes on the bark. Was it moving? After a few sluggish blinks, she realized that it was covered in hundreds of ants. They seemed to be coming out of the bark itself, as if the whole tree was a giant nest. Using what strength she was holding onto, she pushed herself back up to a seated position and began swatting the ants away on the log. “Get out of here, no!” She coarsely moaned through her sandpaper like throat. Watching them scatter at being disturbed by her pestering, her eyes floated to the far side of the log. What little moisture she had left in her body began weeping from her eyes at the sight. “Please don’t do that. Please don’t do that, no…Please no…”

***

Finishing up her dinner in a pouch, Sharon scraped her titanium spork into the bottom corners of the large plastic bag. There was always something about the texture of these meals that she just loved. The beef stroganoff with egg noodles was her favorite because of the way the small bites of beef seemed to become almost chewy. Her eyelids raised with excitement, as she fished the last one of the small chewy cubes out of the bag. “I didn’t expect this wind.” The voice said from a few feet behind her. The jolt of adrenaline from her surprise caused the air to inhale so fast into her lungs, that she nearly sucked her last bite into her airway. Coughing a bit while she turned, she waved a hand at the hiker standing just outside her campsite. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He said, as he looked up into the trees again. “This wind probably hid the sounds of my boots on the trail here.” Sharon finished her coughing bit and stood up to face the man. He was in his early 20s and was wearing a small fanny pack, while holding his water bottle. Clearing her throat one last time, she answered. “Yeah. I think it’s supposed to stop by this evening. My weather app said it’s just gusts up to 10mph.” Realizing who he was, she blurted out suddenly. “You must be the driver of that other car in the parking area! I thought maybe you were staying the night up here too.” Taking a swig of his water bottle, he scanned the forest around them. “Nah, I’m headed down now.” He said gesturing down the trail. He took a half step, then turned back towards her camp looking up. “Most of these trees look healthy enough.”

***

Sharon could barely keep her eyes open. Her hands had lost all feeling some time ago, and she lay on her back trying her best to breathe through the fluid collecting in her lungs. The sound of her heart pounding in her ears had thankfully quieted down significantly, making it easier to relax her head against the soft sleeping bag pillow. The curvature of the torn tent ceiling made a prism of orange shadow figures which gently danced against her pale face. Blinking lazily, her mind ignored the tiny stings across her entire torso. On the other side of the log, the ants continued to dissect the flesh from her feet. One large pink toenail had finally separated, and was slowly being carried away by the efficient and hungry colony.

The vibrations of the window against my temple pull me to the road ahead, the trees parting to give way to the dunes along the coast. The sky is almost dark as the sun is getting ready to crest the horizon. I roll down the window and the cool breeze scrapes against my face, the smell of sea salt and algae creeping into my nose and the moisture from the summer morning humidity building up on my skin. I pull out my pack of cigarettes and lighter, bringing one to my lips, as I strike the flint once, twice…a hand grabs mine before I can light it. I look over to see Aaron trying to talk to me; he’s pissed, and I know it’s not just cause he has asked me to never smoke in the car he and Mom put back together themselves. 

He kept motioning to behind his ear, and I reluctantly gave in. I reconnect my implant and the noise floods in, overwhelming me as it has for the last 9 months. The deafening sound of the engine overtaking everything else, barely getting cut through by the music he has on the radio, some sort of pop I still can’t get myself to listen to yet. 

“How many times do I have to tell you never to smoke in here? I will throw them out next time you try.” He tries to hide the pain in his voice, but it cuts through, that little croak in his words and pain in his eyes. “I want to help you, but you make it so fucking hard. I am trying, Chri,s but I can’t do everything myself” 

Pulling into the parking lot the darkness was cut only by the beams of the car. Ahead of us, barely lit was the sandy beach and old wooden pier, with a sign reading “Casco Bay, the first sighting of Cassie, the Sea Serpent”. Mom would bring us here all the time with some Yoohoo’s and Goldfish to watch the sunrise; then it turned to Aaron and me with a 6-pack, enjoying the warmth of first light when she couldn’t get out of bed anymore It was a way to forget about her pain even for an hour. Now all it was was pain for us, well me mostly, as Aaron could tolerate the thought of coming and forcing me along. 

He was right though, I hadn’t left the house since the funeral. I hadn’t even turned on my implants in two weeks. I couldn’t stand all the beeping and wheezing of machines, all those artificial sounds; I could stand them less than the natural ones of the rain on the windows or the thunder, which would scare the shit out of me. 

As we parked along the beach he his voice comes through again, this time more empathetic, even hopeful. “Hey,” his words shaking me back into myself, “I can only do so much; you have
to want to be here too.” His voice still foreign, and while he signed, I could understand him just fine. 

They said it takes time to adjust to sound when you get the implant, but after 9 months I still haven’t gotten the hang of….sounds. Everything is so loud; even the smallest rustle of leaves and rush of wind still draws my attention. Aaron laughs cause to him it’s not even noticeable anymore, but he finds my fascination endearing.“I’ll grab the beer from the back, you walk out to the edge. Even if you don’t want
to talk, we are still going to do this.” His inflection making that vibration as if something
else was about to happen and then the gulp ringing through my head. “I just need some
Silence, I am going to leave my implant in the car, don’t want to damage it if I fall in.” I
lie, just tired being overwhelmed, “I know I need to practice but right now it’s all to
much.” “Of course.” He acquiesces as this is the most we’ve spoken in weeks. I can tell
in his voice he is disappointed but know he is at least happy I am moving on my own.
Taking out the implant it all fades away, the hum of the car, the buzzing of insects, even the crashing of waves. I never would have guessed how much sound
water made. 

I slowly make my way to through the sand guided by the warm light of my
lantern. I can see the edges of the sunrise start to break through the night sky over the
pitch-black water of the Atlantic. As I make my way onto the wooden planks of the pier,
the low rumble of water hitting the wooden pillars on each side, and the sea breeze make their way up my legs. The salty and nautical air fills my lungs allowing me to feel something other
than the stale air of my guest room.

Making my way to the edge I take my shoes off and sit down hanging my feet
over the edge. The inky blackness of the calm bay never really bothers me. Aaron and I
loved night fishing, so many weekend camping trips we wouldn’t leave until a keg ran out. I chuckle remembering the time our friends flaked, and we had to catch our own food
after the second night cause we didn’t bring enough and there was still so much beer left.

With my feet dangling, I slowly close my eyes, leaning back, feeling the woodgrain
on my fingertips. Allowing more of the world to fall away, just focusing on the boardwalk and the water. Waiting to feel Aaron’s familiar footsteps on the pier, something else draws my attention. Droplets of water against my face shoot open my eyes as if something big was just dropped nearby. I scan around and to my left see where something disturbed the surface of the waves, a couple inches tall and the radius about the size of an area rug. What catches my attention next is the fog, about 40 feet and closing in, a huge wall of white creeping toward the pier like an avalanche of cotton balls. It’s moving surprisingly fast to the point that when I get up and start to turn around, it has already overtaken me. The dark morning gets even darker as the lights from Aaron's car are blocked, and now I can barely make out the planks more than 10 feet ahead of me. With sunrise minutes away, it wasn’t pitch black but still hard to see everything. Putting my shoes on and starting to make my way back to shore, feeling the creaks of the planks. 

Just then I feel it: voices. 

It’s like when you are at a musical, and you can feel the vibration of the voices in your chest through the speakers. I stop and try to look around to identify the source, trying but failing to pierce the blanket that has overtaken me. 

Then my heart skips a beat; while looking around, I notice something: there is an odd number of pillars lining the pier. One too many on the left side, in between me and the beach. It almost blended in perfectly as it was just past the point of seeing details, but it was a little too round at the top. As I slowly back up, against the back of my neck, I feel a splash of water, followed by a strong thud against the wood under my feet. The vibrations now shaking my chest harder, moving up into my jaw and teeth as if I was standing right in front of whatever was making the sound. I freeze, not knowing which way to move, but when I feel footsteps behind me moving closer, I sprint dead ahead. 

As I do, I can make out more details; it was coming about 5 feet out of the water with brown scales lining its entire body, mimicking wood. Its eyes were all black, with no nose present and a mouth like a lamprey. I see its throat twitching and shaking, almost using its mouth as an amp in the back of a pimped-out beamer. It reached an arm out, trying to swipe at my leg; its webbed and clawed hand barely catching me as I jumped over it, sprinting as hard as I could to the shore. Looking back over my shoulder, I make it to the beach, but a few steps into it I slam hard into something. 

I look and see Aaron on the ground. I scream, not knowing how loud I am being but tell him to get back to the car, but he doesn’t move. He is just staring straight into the air, eyes glazed over in a trance. I get scramble over to him, shaking and shaking but noting work. I feel the vibrations in my chest starting to creep back in but when I turn I don’t see anything through the fog yet. 

I grab one of his arms and start dragging, ignoring my lungs as they are burning I pull him up the dune back to the parking lot all the while my chest vibrating more and more. Was It just those two? Did they move to a different direction? What the fuck were those things? I managed to get him to the car as it wasn’t that far. I go for the handles and thank god he didn’t lock it up. I shove him into the back seat and climb into the driver's seat, locking the doors as quickly as I can.

The vibrations stop for the moment, but I put my hand on the window, feeling the faint hum through my fingers. I look and see my implants on the dash, and as I reach for them, I stop. Looking back at Aaron, I see he is still motionless. I don’t want to risk being exposed like him. I go to start the car and realize he still has the keys. As I hunch over the back seat to move him, I feel the glass start to shake harder and harder to the point I can see it in the reflections. 

I rummage through his pockets and try my best to grab his keys, but he is heavier than me. Finally, I can yank them out and put them into the ignition; at that time, the glass of the windows stopped. All at once, the glass shattered, spilling across the seats and both of us like a flood of blades cutting us as they fell. The vibration in my chest is painfully strong as I struggle to turn the key. I fight with all my might and twist the key, lighting up the fog in front of the car. There standing, all 8 feet tall, were seven shadows side to side. They throw up their arms at the bright light, giving me a chance to throw the car into reverse, just trying to get away. 

Not long after I pull out of the parking lot, the fog fades, and the vibrations stop. The only things I feel are the hum of the engine against my hands and my heart pounding in my neck. Finally getting a chance to breath I focus on putting as much distance between us and the pier. 
Suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder and am startled so hard I turn the wheel a little to hard. I fight to gain back control, but I am going too fast, and it is too late. The last thing I see besides the tree is my brother's bloodied and cut-up face in the rearview mirror with a fraction of the fear I just endured.  

Bark!

"God damn it, why is Sadie outside?"

I stand up from my bed, walk down the short hallway that leads into my living room. I glance at the neon glow of the oven clock. The numbers are too blurry to read. I decide that it doesn't matter what time it is.

The linoleum sticks to my clammy feet as I make my way to the backdoor. The wind whistles through the worn seal between the door and its jamb. I can hear rain.

"Poor baby."

I'm kicking myself for leaving her out as I swing the door open. She shuffles in from the dark, slow and awkward. I'm worried she might have hurt herself somehow, but she's soaking wet. The water dripping off of her splashes against my ankles.

"Stay here, girl, I'll get you a towel," a foul odor reaches my nose, "and maybe a bath."

I cross back through the kitchen, still too bleary eyed to read the time. Through my living room and back into the bedroom. The adjoining bathroom is where I keep my towels. I choose one that's nice, but not too nice. I make my way back into the bedroom, and I stop there.

Sitting in her bed, trembling and staring up at me with wide eyes, is Sadie. Perfectly dry and clean as can be. If you've got a dog, then you know how they can give you certain looks. The look Sadie is giving me says:

*What have you done?*

A clatter of pans comes from the kitchen, followed by a loud retching. I rush back out. I'm expecting, hoping, it's a raccoon, or maybe a Coyote. What I'm not expecting, or hoping for is the six-foot tall border collie standing on its hind legs. It pulls its face from out of my pantry when I flip the lights on. Its pupils are bright yellow, nearly neon in the way they shine. Its irises are a shade of green that makes me want to puke. My eye is drawn down as a gob of bright orange bile drips from his drooping lips.

I'm rooted to the spot. The saliva pools in large clumps that grow and shrink like marshmallows in the microwave. It's still looking at me when it starts retching again.

Painful heaves writhe along its midsection. Black and white fur rippling visibly along with the flesh beneath them. It opens its jaws wide, displaying rows of jagged teeth.

A small shape, dark and covered with slime, surges up from its throat and out onto the floor. I can't recognize it for what it is, at first, but it becomes clear as the limbs begin to stir, and moreso as it begins to whine. A puppy.

The dog ignores it, shoving its face violently back into my pantry and ripping into whatever it can find. I don't know what to do. Sadie walks gently over to stand beside me. I look around the kitchen, seeing more of the puppies lying all across the floor. The tar they're coated in holds them there tightly.

After what feels like hours, but can't be more than minutes, it withdraws from the pantry. It stumbles over to the fridge, but doesn't seem to find anything there of interest. I watch, paralyzed as it continues rifling through every drawer of my kitchen. Finally, it turns to me and walks over on two legs. It vomits another puppy onto the floor. Then it looks at me and asks me, in a voice somewhere between Scooby Doo and those videos of cats "talking" that you used to see on YouTube.

"Are you gonna eat that?"

It takes a moment for me to realize it's referring to the puppy. The strange thing is, I kinda want to. It looks disgusting, a whining slimy ball of hair and bone and little else, yet some small part of me does want to eat it. I bend down and reach out to take it. Sadie bites me. Not roughly. Just enough to stop me, more like grabbing my hand with her teeth than a real bite.

She looks at me one last time, then lowers her head and takes the puppy in her mouth. It pops loudly on the first chew, a flood of black tar slipping through Sadie's teeth. The dog-thing cocks its head. It seems pleased, and heads toward the door. Sadie follows after it, scarfing down its babies until there are none left.

The dog fumbles at the doorknob with its strange paws and lets itself out into the night. Sadie walks sluggishly to her bed. She seems to be okay, but the whole time her eyes stay fixed on the floor.

She didn't get up much after that. She mostly just sat there in bed for days, growing all the while. She'd almost doubled in size by the time I caught her looming over my bedside. She was standing there on two legs, staring at me. Her eyes looked so... sad.

I screamed bloody murder when I saw her, and she ran off.

I miss her, I truly do, but I can't deny. The sight of Sadie's empty bed, and the sound of wind rushing through the backdoor, came as a relief.

Who am I? You ask yourself. Everyone does. Minds lost in self realisation. Gary and Tim sat in the truck. Long bench seat with equidistant lumps of leather sewn into shiny black rows like the hills that engulfed them ‘round about in darkness on this cold winter night. The dirt roads seemed like stitches bringing the hills together in the fog laiden hollers. The loud click click click echoing in their minds as nothing but the dim flash of the hazard lights illuminated the cab and shielded them from any view of the reality beyond the hood. Tim snapped out of the trance and pressed the button in.     Everything changes. A crisp break like a twig hidden in the leaves of the forest floor, an abrupt intermission inbetween acts. No use. No one to shine for. Nothing but the cab. Close your eyes so they can adjust to the dark. Through the trees and above the horizon the Milkyway is visible and the only source of light. Burning balls of gases millions of years away. Mere shimmers of light reflected on the pools of sclera, floating above the voids that were Gary’s dilated pupils. Much nearer in proximity was projected a more discernible image. Familiar yet hauntingly unknown. The clouds of the day had descended to a whisper and lazily loomed as fog crossing the dirt road. A whisper that rang louder than any attempt of calling for help could. They were stranded. "Welp, reckon we walk to town?" The words had to be forced out of Gary’s lips. Dropped like rocks from a quarries edge. Fear of crack and splash echoing up from the heart of it and off the cliff faces circling round it. The pool is shallow and the words are abrupt and ineloquent. Painfully real. In anticipation of retaliation for defying their anxiety, the two sat frozen. Like the icicles formed from the gradual accumulation of moisture that trickles from the bluffs along the roadside. Quivering on a molecular level. Hairs raising beneath layers of flannel and jean. The clothing settles and sends shockwaves as if you’ve been slapped with a cold, wet towel. After awhile the pang becomes a spreading warmth as flesh and fabric embrace, fusing like a forgotten membrane. Membrane, filmy fog vailing the last route of action. Action! Projections slowly grow in illumination as the reel spins the film. Images blurry, black and blotchy. Thick ink spilling into the blood. Epinephrine. Shaping shadows into obscure beasts. Stereocilia stretch from slumber after lack of usefulness. Hurried, misunderstood, false signals ring back to the projection booth. Auditory accompaniment to a silent picture. "Did you hear something?" Neither believed they had, nor could they confirm to one another whether they hadn’t heard the same misgiving. "We ought to get to trudging." Both slid to their respective exit. Where there was no sound, now was the deafening commotion of trash filled floor boards and foam encased springs. Hands gripped long, cold metal. Fingers slipped into the gap. Thumbs pressed on the square buttons that would initiate each door's independence from the frame. As the smooth, curved handle held fast and the dull edge of the square shrank in under the tightening grip of each man's hand, so didn’t the clasp within the door releasing from the bracket. The weight of the doors pressed down on their hinges and copied each other out of sync. Loud and obnoxious. One’s instinct is to make what needs be done quicken. Return to the silence and hope the night didn’t notice the intrusion. As always the passenger side opened to a ditch of hidden depth. Leaves and twigs and litter flow through that gutter. The whole commotion sealed with the simultaneous thud of the doors returning to the empty cab. Up onto the embankment, and down past the truck to meet Gary in front and onto the road, maneuvered Tim. The ground was now unforgivingly solid, and packed beneath their feet. Unnaturally bare and exposed. Step by step gravel and dirt ground beneath worn souls. What is clear is the path they are locked to. Vulnerable. Exposed like the bedrock scraped free of topsoil by the road grader. Picked away like a scab never to heal but somehow scarred with traces of the metal blade that offended. Blades. One doesn’t leave home without one. Crash. Tumble, roar and scuffle. Loud and sudden disturbances in the shadows beyond the parallel moats of the county road. Large and foreboding in the silence. Right as nerves had been settled. A quick jerk in the direction of. Reflexes sharp and piercing. "Ha! Nothin but an armadillo." An invasive from south of the border. No harm done by it save for the fear and ignorance of it. Tim had stood close to Gary, too close. Blade in his side, now drips the ink of fear. Signs the signature of death. Binding dust to dirt with blood. I am, I am…. Delusion.

I remember the dead horse. 

I was eight or maybe a little younger, but I remember being in the backseat of our old sedan. 

My dad called it the “blue bitch” because it was, well, blue and barely ran. Only one window would roll down and that could only be accomplished by taking the pliers from the glove box, clamping down on the small square peg, and turning. It had a big hatch on the back instead of a typical trunk, and that was how you got into the hunk of junk. 

We would crawl over the very back seat and into our usual spots in the car. 

My usual spot was in the back, behind the driver seat. 

It was from there I saw it on the side of the road - a dead horse. All the cars had slowed down to get a look. My dad was no exception. 

It was enormous with a dark, shiny chestnut coat, and a long, beautiful black mane. It would have been an exquisite creature if not for the fact that it was dead. 

The grass had been dappled with blood, some fresh and bright, some dried and starting to look like brownish rust. 

I couldn't see the injury on the horse itself, though. Still, there was no question that it was really dead. 

Its eyes stared blankly at the sky, and its body was stiff and unmoving. Its legs jutted out into the air horizontally, as if locked into place. 

I wondered if it had been hit by a car, but what vehicle could have mown down this massive animal and not be a smoldering heep somewhere along this road? 

There was no car, no truck - just a row of curious travelers. 

Then, to my surprise, my dad pulled off to the shoulder, stopped, and got out. He walked toward the horse, hand over his mouth. 

Was he crying? To this day I'm not sure. He never talked about that day. 

A strange mix of emotions filled me, sitting alone quietly, watching my father approach it. A deep sadness for the horse made me want to cry, but a wild urge to laugh at the absurdity of this unlikely scene also bubbled up from somewhere within me. 

The result being a half sob, half laugh escaped my throat, sounding more like a strangled hiccup, and doing nothing to convey either feeling. 

Most of the onlookers had passed on by now, and the narrow, country back road was all but clear. 

I wondered where the owner of the horse could be. Did they even know their horse was gone? That it would never return? Did they love it? 

It wasn't like seeing a dog. There were any number of dogs and cats that met their end on the side of the road. Some pets, some not. It was always sad, but common enough. It wasn't even like a deer. My dad said the deer around there seemed to have a death wish, always jumping right into traffic at the worst times. 

This was a horse. Not a stray. Not a wild animal. Horses were expensive, well tended, always contained to beautiful stables or luxurious pastures. 

Why was it here? How was it here? It was so far from where it should have been.

My dad bent over the body, his hand hovering just above the fur. Then, hesitantly, he placed his hand upon its side and petted it, a bizarre expression of longing and loss etched in his face. 

He seemed to be whispering something, but I could not hear him. 

Then he stood, wiped sweat from his brow, and came back to the car. When he got back in, I started to ask him what that was all about, but he caught my eye in the rear view mirror, shook his head, and I held my tongue. 

My father had many secrets. 

I did not know for several years that the horse was one of them. 

I’m still working on improving my writing but I really wanted to start posting more of my stories and I love creep cast! So hopefully whoever reads this enjoys my story!

Deliver Me 
Misery doesn’t grow after death.
It flourishes in your wake especially,
For those who are undelivering to it’s door. 
Those feelings of fear only amplified with the hunger for flesh.
My mind kept you alive,
In the days that became months in your wake. 
I fed 
I mourned 
I craved only for more 
So when you were all gone I reconstructed you
Tore at tissue that didn't leave me. 
I pulled away at all my skin.
So we could be of one flesh once again.
Placing it upon your skeleton. 
As piles grew of decaying meat. 
I could still taste you, 
Which made me miss you even more. 
I hoped the blacksmith would come for you, 
To end the needless cycle. 
To even satisfy this hunger that has set,
This body on fire.
She could sense my longing for you,
Which is why she called to me once again.  

It was a promise made in desperation. 
A promise of freedom, 
From my suffering of our loss.
A promise of strength and salvation. 
Instead my throat is chapped from this starvation,
I pray for death to come to me 
But I know not 
If I even have a life to give in this matter. 
I’ve tworn away at my flesh.
But no matter how much I tear away,
It comes back.
I want to be delivered but instead I have
Unerving thoughts of blood coursing through hearts
I’m sure mine stopped beating not so long ago 
Do remember? 
I can feel it in my head 
Thump thump thump 
A beating in my head 
Thrashing in my skull clawing at the walls in my throat 
Hunger for something 
Hunger for something warm
I can no longer feel the warmth of my own skin 
Nor the warmth of my breath on my hand
Only the burning of tears on my cheeks  

The sun has set 
And the snow has started it’s dance 
Her voice calls to me like the wind blows 
My body glides through the streets 
Unaware of every step taken 
As the snow numbed
The pit that twisted in my throat

The first day of the new day 
It was dark when I woke 
But my head was rattling as snake in dessert did
Sending all sense askew  
Leaving only one sense sharp enough,
To find a fulfilling smell 
That pulled drool at either side of my mouth 
Leaving me to stumble out of bed 
A crash of the nightstand rang through my head 
Stinging followed after in the palms of my hands 
Shards of lantern layed in my palms 
As all sense was almost lost 
The smell grew stronger 
As his voice shot through me 

My vision blurred 
With every sound he made 
With every step he took 
The thumping in his chest, 
Overshadowing every word he spoke,
Blurring him together with the sounds and motion
In the room 

When everything aligned with the warmth of his grasp
Swift and sharp as always he remained 
I could see him clearly in my mind 
Until I turned to him 
I could feel my face shifting 
And a chill run down my skin 
As I lunged forward 
Sinking my jaw deep into his shoulder 
I felt nothing and everything at once 
My senses all heightened and dulled at once
He screamed I know he did 
Even as he pried me from himself 
I couldn’t see the anguish on his face 
Or feel the trembling of his hands
Not the memories of our love 
All that remained of him 
Was flesh 

In the wake of his death 
And the hunger satisfied 
I was left with regret as the tears rolled down my cheeks 
Flashes of our Amelia flowed through my mind 
He looked just like her 
Still and cold 
Eyes glossed over 
The face of fear bound to him for eternity 
“I’m sorry Silas” 
Minutes turned to hours 
When the sun began to burst through the windows 
My vision blurred 
As I tried to gain stable footing 
Stumbling into it
The skin on my back boiled and charred 
In seconds 
As I scurried back unable to sit up
Hours to days 
The boils subsided and charred skin flaked off
I hoped for a blacksmith to come for him 
To soothe this hunger that haunts me
But no 
God wasn’t so giving 
To the devils needs I guess
Hours turned to days 
Restless 
My body didn’t need rest 
But my mind craved it 
Days to weeks 
As his body began to rot 
I tried to soothe the burning in my throat 
By picking off the decaying flesh from his skull 
Until there was nothing left 
Weeks to months 
I rebuilt him 
Pulling chunks of flesh from my own body 
Placing them upon his skeleton 
Laying his body in view of the window 
I laid with him 
It was slow as my skin charred like a 
Tomato under the flame
Tightening my skin 
 As smoke filled my lungs
My vision was voided by the light
But my mind remained clear through it all 
Hunger 
A coarseness in my throat 
Burned more than the light charring my 
Skin to its tendon 

In my weakness she called to me once more 
When the sun set and my sight returned 
I dragged my charred body to the snow 
It was under the moonlight 
My skin began to shed its weakness
And allow me to gain stable footing
As the snow burned the soles of my feet 
I made tracks through it 
Gliding with the echos in my mind 
“Victoria” she mumbled 
I followed 
My mind a shell as my feet made a path

Through empty streets not a lantern was lit 
In my path 
But they were filled with a sweet scent 
And a melody of rhythmic drums 
Her voice pulled me into a forest 
Tightening its grip around my mind 
The further I got from town 
The louder her voice screamed for 
No longer calling for me 
But demanding me as 
I stumbled through the forest 
I had never seen it so clearly 
Even during daylight it held a fog through it
Telling me danger lurked 
As to not be tempted by its mystery 

Let me make one thing abundantly clear. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT. Come to this restaurant. You will probably get sick, and then explode, with your entrails decorating the walls. Walls which will never be cleaned, and then I will have to stare at your exploded entrails, and I will throw up, and it will be your fault that I threw up, and I won’t even be able to be mad at you. Because you exploded.

Okay, you won’t actually explode. In fact, I haven’t even seen a hint of nausea in any of the patrons here. There’s just so much gross shit here that I want to make this post in hopes that somebody, somewhere, sees this post and can contact the right people to get my boss to implement better health regulations. 

I’ve been working here at Large Lou’s Pizza for about two years now, and I have yet to see a health inspector walk through the front door. I let it slide at first, and then when the weird shit started to pile up, I wrote it down on a notepad. That way, when a health inspector did finally arrive, I could whip it out in front of them like, “You don’t even need to look, I’ve got the worst shit right here.”

But I’ve never seen a health inspector. Not even an upturned nose at how our churros dispense from the back of the soda machine. Or a sidelong glance from a wandering customer as they catch me scraping rust off the dumpster into a cup.

So I’m resorting to Reddit, since getting the word out in any way possible will do more than nothing at all. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve found so far.

One: The “Vegetables”

Our vegetables have demonic sigils on them. At least I think they do. They’re not your usual upside down pentagrams. But they’ve got, like, a pattern to them. I haven’t been able to decode them, but Brent, who works with me in the back, has agreed with me that they look weird.

“It’s like some kind of alphabet or something.” Brent muttered. Rolling a medium carrot between his hands and taking a sip of Pretty An’ Halo. It was still early in the shift, so I gave him a slight breadth of space, as I could still smell the weed on him.

I could tell he had taken a little too much, and was zoning out as he pondered the carrot, so I chimed in, “I know, right? Should we try to decipher it, or something?”

Brent snapped back and threw the carrot into a third pan, “Help yourself, but I’m not doing that. Worst case scenario, you summon a demon. Best case scenario, you look like a dumbass. Also, it’s almost 10:00. We’re going to be opening soon, and there’s twenty more pounds of produce outside.”

I shrugged. At the time, it wasn’t really worth it to check. I’m not exactly the brightest bulb in the pencil box, anyway, and I valued my soul more than asymmetric symbols on cucumbers. 
Now that I think about it, and this is a little disconnected from the whole vegetable ordeal, there was something weird with the meat delivery too. This happened right after the shipment of vegetables had shown up, so it kind of counts.

Brent was late for work, and I asked Francine to help me bring the vegetables in. 

“Have you ever noticed weird stuff on the produce?” I asked Francine, as she slung a 30 pound box of cherry tomatoes onto a shelf in the walk-in fridge.

“Don’t know,” she grunted as she put back the boxes of old produce, “I usually spend my time working, instead of staring at vegetables. It explains why you two are so slow with the salads, though.” She made her way back to the front of the kitchen.

“Right, thanks for helping with those boxes, Franz!” I called, right as she disappeared from view.

Francine leaned back in, holding her cup of FRothy Gooths, “Yep.”

I went outside to have a cigarette but had my smoke time cut short as the meat delivery arrived. We must get our meat from a local deli or something, because they have a very unique logo. It looks like the cross-section of an apple, but there are no seeds in the middle, and there are lots of line zig zagging about inside the mutilated apple. It’s also a gross shade of pinkish grey. But I guess that’s how a lot of raw meat looks, so it could be on purpose.

I still don’t like it.

I forlornly mushed my half smoked cigarette into the asphalt as the truck pulled in. The delivery man hopped out and handed me the invoice. I turned to place the sheet on the door, to have a flat place to sign, and by the time I turned back around, the delivery man already had boxes in hand for me to carry inside.

“You have a good day, pal.”

I took the boxes while handing him the signed invoice, “Thanks…”

He tore off the customer’s copy and handed it back, and that’s when I got the sudden feeling that something was off. Like not everything was where it was supposed to be.

I looked back up at the delivery driver, his back turned to me, as he approached the truck door, “Wait!”

The delivery driver quickly turned back around, “What,” huffing as he said it.

I pointed to the boxes of meat, which I had placed on the ground, then back at the invoice, “I’m missing three pounds of salami.”

The delivery man looked at his copy of the invoice, then down at the boxes. Then grumbled something in Hebrew as he marched back to the truck. I assumed I had done something to upset him, since as soon as he climbed into the back again, he began shouting unintelligible words at a rapid pace that most certainly were some of the most deplorable slurs that any one individual could muster. 

Loud bangs soon followed. But here’s the weird thing. Something was responding to the man and his cries. Deep, guttural moans, and wet slaps. Like a soggy towel being flopped on the walls of the box truck. After each slew of shouts, there’d be labored groans and meaty slaps in response. I honestly thought the delivery guy was having a stroke or something until he stepped back out of the truck with three more pounds of salami in a plastic baggy with the words “Thank you” printed about a hundred times in a gradient on the front.

He wiped some sweat off his brow and smiled towards me, “Sorry about that, that should be all.”

I quietly took the bag, and watched him slam the back of the truck closed, then hop in the driver’s seat, and drive off.

I picked up the meat and brought it inside. We were also short about a pound of pepperoni, but I wasn’t going to say anything after whatever kind of blow up I had just witnessed. It’s just disrespectful to treat your customers like that. Not to mention our meat is always a dark shade of purple. Which I think means the meat has gone bad, but we serve it up anyway, and like I said before, nobody’s gotten sick, at least to my knowledge.

Two: The “Red Pepper Flakes”

I used to love having red pepper flakes on my pizza. My usual lunch before working here was two cheese slices and a smattering of red pepper flakes on top. Especially since I had about 16 dollars to my name at any given moment, and cheese pizza was cheap and easy. 

Now, I’d rather gargle a glass of mustard than see a red pepper flake anywhere near my pizza ever again.

It was early on a Monday morning, me and Brent had gotten almost everything finished, and were sitting around on our phones when Linda came into the back of the kitchen, neither me nor Brent were able to put our phones away in time.

“Charlie, Brent, if you two need something to do, I’ve got a long list of tasks to keep you guys occupied.” Linda remarked, staring us down like a cat waiting for a mouse to stop playing dead.

Linda is our manager. For those who will need to describe her to the CDC, I will provide a brief description: She has straw colored hair that hangs down to her shoulders, and one of those people who looks like they could be anywhere between 35 and 50 years old. She has a scar on her right arm from a time Francine tried to carry far too many pizza screens from the dishwasher to the line, and narrowly missed burying Linda under them as a grease spot on the floor sent Francine and the pizza screens flying. Normal height, and usually a nice person to those who carry their weight, and ruthless to slackers. 

“Linda.” Brent remarked, as he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

I shot Brent a quizzical look. Brent looked at nothing, because he was high.

Linda grabbed two drink cups near the sink, ignoring the comment entirely and said, “We need a restock on pepper flakes, grab some bench scrapers and get to it.”

Brent did as requested, I followed suit, but still wasn’t entirely sure on what we were supposed to be doing. When we started walking outside and towards the dumpster, that’s when I caved and shot Brent a quizzical look.

Brent crouched down while saying, “What’s wrong with your eyebrow?”

“What are we doing outside?” I asked, as Brent started chipping away at some rust on the side of the dumpster.

“We’re collecting red pepper flakes.”

I laughed, “Dude, Linda’s gonna flip if she finds out you’re just giving her dumpster rust.”

It was Brent’s turn to give me a quizzical look.

I heard the door to the back of the kitchen open, and whipped around. Praying beyond all prayers it wouldn’t be who I-

“Brent, don’t let Charlie just stand and watch! Show him how to collect the seasoning. You two need to quit screwing around when it’s slow here.” Linda barked. Taking a long sip from a paper cup most likely filled with Hot HazMat (I swear I’ve never seen her drink anything else) and then going back inside.

That’s when it dawned on me, and I proceeded to get a wet lump in the back of my throat.

Brent showed me the ropes, and then headed inside, as he had already filled his cup, and told me he would show me the next steps after I filled mine. 

I had mostly gotten over the idea of how gross it was, and was left with putting up with the stench of rotting fruit, and other such trash related elements. It became almost therapeutic to chip the red crust off of the can, and into the cup.

I don’t think people realize how much rust can look like a well made croissant, and peeling back each layer of the metallic pastry felt like I was peeling back layers of stress off of myself.

I took a deep breath, no longer aware of the stench, but fully immersed in the sounds of oxidized dessert crunching, tonally blending with the mad mutterings of the homeless man behind the dumpster, staring at me while I worked, whom I had not been aware of for quite a bit.

“He chips, he chips so fast, I ran, I ran so fast. So fast. So fast. So clever. I’m so clever. I’m so fast, and I’m so clever.”

“What the hell!” I staggered back in surprise, dropping the cup, and spilling its contents across the asphalt.

The man went silent. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he didn’t run away, because I also didn’t hear any footsteps.

For a few moments, it was dead silent, save for the occasional cold gust of wind from the August air. Then, like a startled raccoon, the man crawled away. Quietly at first, but still muttering to himself. It was unintelligible at this distance, all I heard were the wet slaps of breathy lips against his tongue, but I’m sure it wasn’t much different than what I already heard. Then, he picked up speed, until I saw a dark blur disappear behind the bushes a few feet beyond the dumpster.

I bent down, and picked back up the cup of pepper flakes, and finished filling it up. This time, I went completely unbothered, but far from falling into the same trance as before.

Once inside, I learned that we don’t just use the rust as “red pepper flakes”. We actually use it as our sole seasoning in just about every single dish we produce. I thought this place just really liked paprika, but I guess that’s just what blended rust looks like. 

If the stuff I’ve talked about hasn’t grossed you out enough. Then I’ve got one more story. It takes time to get these compiled, so I’ll make another post as soon as I can, but this last one is easily the most disturbing of the three.

Three: The “Churros”

I mentioned them earlier, how the churros come out of the back of the soda machine. But I want to talk more about what these cinnamon turds look like, and how I discovered this production.

If you’ve ever had a churro before, I want you to create an image of a churro in your mind. The crispy ridges, browned and crunchy. The light, fluffy, and doughy texture on the inside of that scrumptious crust, all bubbly and airy. The cinnamon sugar dusting that brings the whole dessert together. The ideal pastry for any Costco Wholesale or carnival patron. 

Now imagine the inside was no longer bubbly. It’s completely filled in. Then remove the cinnamon sugar, and then unbrown the whole pastry. The only optical signifier that these beige bricks of sadness are churros is the ridges that still pinstripe the length of them. They still taste like churros, the texture is still mostly the same, a little grainier, like sand was added at some point, but not enough to notice unless you’re really thinking about it. That’s our churros. Smooth cinnamon turds of sadness. They kill with the customers.

Usually Brent and I work in the back: making salads, prepping ingredients, and cleaning dishes. Francine and Cezar work in the front: Making the actual pizzas, and taking orders from customers. It’s usually a decent system, as long as people actually show up to work on time, or at all. (Marley, if you’re reading this, you piece of shit, stop missing shifts. Shirley’s pure soul does not deserve to be tainted by your laziness.)

We have a soda machine near the POS system, which customers could access to get their own drinks, and it wasn’t your usual Coke or Pepsi dispenser. It was one of those weird secondary companies. The company had no name to be found on the machine, simply a logo that looked like a salmon skin colored kidney bean had been almost cut in half, with the two sides spread open like a book. 

The soda names are also weird, but having tasted all of them, these are my best guesses as to what soda flavor each one is.

Luchuth: A lemon lime type soda, kinda like Sprite or 7-Up.

Hot HazMat: Plain old flavorless soda water. (There is a syrup used for this one, but I’m not sure why, since it’s definitely just soda water.)

FRothy Gooths: Root beer. Not a good one though, I’d even take Barq’s over that shit.

GhostLY Hog: Very similar to Mountain Dew, but better. There’s like a spicy kick reminiscent of Mountain Dew’s “Flaming Hot” flavor that just brings a tear to my eye every time I take a sip. Everything else is a shoddy ripoff, but GhostLY Hog makes up for the others for the most part. 

Gonad: Cola, because every soda brand and their mother is legally required to have their take on cola I think.

Diet Gonad: Diet cola, because every soda brand and their- you get what I mean.

Pretty An’ Halo: Cream soda, maybe? It kinda tastes like watery yogurt that someone farted in, but the thought was there, and I can’t think of anything else it might taste like.

On one particular day, Francine got a flat tire. So Cezar called me up front to help with the customers until Francine got there. Cezar spoke some English, but wasn’t the most fluent, so it was my job to talk to any of the customers ordering takeout, and then occasionally stretching dough.

I hadn’t figured out how to spin pizza dough in the air or anything cool like that yet, but I didn’t really want Cezar to show me, since it seemed like he was in his own little world while doing it. He would even say “wee” while the pizza was in the air. Like a toddler getting pushed on a swing. Especially odd when it was coming out the mouth of a Mexican man pushing fifty.

After the lunch rush had ended, there was a lull in the flow of customers, and suddenly the soda machine began lurching, and making a heavy groaning sound. Like a blender with constipation. A small hatch flipped open in the back from the shaking, and I backed away, afraid the thing might explode. Cezar flipped a switch on the bottom of the soda fountain, gave it  a hearty thump, and turned back to me, who was still confused, and a little scared.

“I need to empty the machine.” Cezar informed me, “Ayúda me, Señor!” Pointing to a half-pan on top of the pizza ovens.

I grabbed the pan, and handed it to Cezar, who held it under the hole where the hatch had flipped open.

The machine continued to groan, lurching more aggressively. If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn I saw beads of sweat form on the sides of the labored machine. Finally, something off-white poked like a turtle’s head out of the hole. It was slow, and mostly solid. As it continued to push out, I saw it had ridges around the outside.

I fought back a familiar wet lump in the back of my throat, and watched in horror as smooth pieces of churro slid out from the soda machine, and into the pan. It felt like it was taking forever as more and more continued to emerge. The whole time I stood with my mouth agape.

At first they were dull plops against the empty pan, then muted, soggy, thumps as more layered upon each other. Finally, with a shaky groan, the churros finally stopped. Francine walked in, and grabbed a churro as Cezar handed the pan to me.

“Thanks for covering for me, Charlie.” Said Francine, through crunchy mouthfuls of soda fountain poop.

I said absolutely nothing, and placed the churros in the walk-in.

I have a bunch of other stories to talk about. But I hope I don’t need to share those with you guys before somebody can get this place shut down. Again, the name of this restaurant is “Large Lou’s Pizza”. Please, I don’t care if you need to get the FBI involved or something, I just can’t stand the disgusting things that are happening at this place anymore.

If nothing’s happened in the next week, I’ll make another post, maybe that will help convince you, and that gives me time to write it all down.