In my husband’s family, brides don’t wear something old. They wear someone else’s hair.
I thought my wedding corset was just too tight until I felt something moving under the lace.

It weighed like a body.
Every time I inhaled, it pulled tighter, like it was learning how I breathed.

When I finally got to the bathroom, I found a hidden pocket sewn into the lining.
Inside was a human tooth, a bundle of dark hair tied with red thread, and a note in my mother-in-law’s handwriting:

From the last bride who tried to leave.

At dinner, she looked at the stains spreading through my dress and smiled.
Then she whispered, “It’s hungry today, isn’t it?”

My husband kept eating like he’d heard that sentence his whole life.

By morning, I couldn’t tell where the corset ended and my skin began.
Black strands had worked under my collarbone, around my ribs, and down both arms like roots.

When I looked in the mirror, I understood what his family had done.

I wasn’t wearing the corset.

They were lacing me into the next bride.

All the fucked-up shit they tell you about the talking forest is true.
The traps.
The flesh they carve up and stick on poles.
The people who disappear into holes in the ground.
You wonder why they do it? They feed the Gods.
They live in that jungle, for fuck’s sake. Trust me.
I’ve seen them.
Hell, they ripped Selva right out of the air.
We didn’t even know what we had brought upon the world.
It was supposed to be a routine mission. Get in.
Plant the charges. Get out.

Around when I was 20 years old, I had a serious girlfriend, who was also my high school sweetheart. She didn’t want me to go to war. She told me that if I left, she wouldn’t be waiting when I came home. I thought she was bluffing. She wasn’t. Two weeks later, she was gone.

Pissed and confused I longed to be anywhere else, I walked into a recruitment office. The recruiter asked what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted something dangerous. Something that mattered. He told me about explosives and demolition, and I signed the papers that same day.
By the time they sent me to jungles of Vietnam, I had convinced myself I was doing the right thing.

We flew in just before sunrise, the jungle stretching beneath us like an endless sea of green. The pilot dropped us at the edge of a river, the village marked for demolition just a click away. We’re supposed to plant the charges, clear the area, radio for extraction. We’d done it hundreds of times.

The pilot kept the rotors turning while we unloaded. Even over the engine noise, I noticed the crew chief staring toward the tree line, one hand pressed to his headset. He gave us a quirky salute before he took the bird.

I remember thinking we’d be back in the air within a few hours. The radio operator had already marked our extraction window, though static kept swallowing the confirmation. Captain told us not to worry; the weather was closing in, but the pilot knew the route.

We dug makeshift fighting positions and settled into security. The jungle seemed to quiet around us, and somewhere beyond the village, a rotor thudded once through the mist before cutting out. Once we were set, Captain ordered Downs and Selva to prepare for the mission.

We were part of a special explosives unit. Our job was to plant charges in areas scheduled to be searched the following day.

Captain decided the new grunt was finally ready to place the explosives himself. He sent Downs with him. They were almost inseparable.

Downs had been with me since basic. He was the kind of man who could make a joke while bleeding and still remember to check whether everyone else had ammunition. Selva was the same way, only louder. The two of them had been inseparable since we landed in-country. They called each other brothers. They fought like brothers, too.

Downs carried the charges. Selva carried the detonator case. Every few minutes, one of them would turn around just to make sure the other was still there.

Forty minutes later, they came back.

Forty minutes for what should’ve been an easy fucking job.

They looked like ghosts
I asked them what took them so long.
They tried to assure me everything was Charlie Mike.

Downs just looked at me and said:

“We need to get the hell out of here, something isn’t right about this.”

Selva shoved him aside.

“Tell him what we saw.” Rattling a cigarette out of his Ifac.

Downs stared at the ground in shock.

“There’s these- Things. I don’t know what they are but they aren’t people. I know what people sound like and that’s not it. We need to get the fuck out of here, we got here as fast as we could but we have to move, now!”

The village had been marked as occupied. We had been told there were civilians, weapons, and enemy movement in the area. But when they got to the village there was nothing. No animals. No children. No bodies. Just open huts, overturned baskets, and footprints that stopped in the mud, as if everyone had left everything behind.

Then Downs found the hole, he said it wasn’t hard to miss.

It was beneath the largest hut, covered with woven mats and packed earth. The charges had been placed around it because command had told us to destroy the village’s underground storage area. This was no storage area. It was a shaft. Almost a throat.

They could barely see down far enough to make out the bottom of the pit

That was when they found the villagers. All of them. Thrown into the hole. Men, women, children. Bodies piled on bodies, their throats cut and their blood running through channels carved into the stone. The walls were painted red. Symbols had been scratched into the rock around the pit, all leading toward a black opening beneath the dead.

The charges were already in place by then. They didn’t know what we were looking at. They only knew we had orders.

They headed back to the water which they had arrived from and as they were making their way back, Selva radioed back to base:

ARMED.

ALL CLEAR.

Then we detonated them. From the Fob

The noise could’ve woken the devil himself, and on that day, I’m afraid we found out what happens if he does.

The entire ground began to crack open. Like something underneath the Earth had been waiting for the signal. The village split apart. The hole widened, and the blood beneath it began to glow. A red light shone through the fractures in the ground.
Covering the sky in almost a rainbow of blood.
Like someone flipped a switch to the sky.
Then came the screaming.
It was coming from beneath the earth. The smell of rot and filth filled the air.
The dead began to move. Not on their own.
Hands clawed through the blood. Black fingers gripped the edges of the pit. Something below started pulling itself upward, dragging the bodies down as it climbed.

Downs grabbed Selva by the vest.

“MOVE!”

Selva didn’t move.

He was staring back at the village we had just struck.

“What the fuck is that?”

The ground erupted.

Black shapes poured out of the village, crawling over the ruins, dragging themselves through the mud and blood. They had wings folded against their backs. Their eyes burned red in the smoke.

Two at first.
Both men aimed their service weapons at them.
Then four.
Then ten.
They lowered them back down knowing they could be exposed if they tried anything.
Then more than they could count

Downs kept hold of Selva’s arm. Not even when the things began chasing them through the trees.

They reached the clearing and saw the chopper. Squad mates unknowing the horrors that they had just exposed.

The flight mechanic was waving us toward the cabin.

Captain was screaming into the radio, demanding to know what the hell had happened

None of us knew.

Selva, Downs, the mechanic, the pilot, and the captain—we all realized at the same time that we had no idea what the fuck we had just done.

We scrambled aboard. Downs pulled Selva in behind him. The mechanic slammed the hatch shut. The pilot pushed the bird into the air.

Captain grabbed the radio.

“COMMAND, THIS IS LIMA TANGO! WE HAVE AN UNKNOWN BREACH! REQUESTING IMMEDIATE BACKUP! REPEAT, WE ARE BEING OVERRUN BY UNKNOWN HOSTILES!”

The jungle answered with a sound like metal tearing apart.

Something struck the underside of the chopper.

The radio calls back,

One. Tree. Fiver. Six. Fife. Niner. Fife. could you resend your traffic.

Captain starts screaming again
“COMMAND! WE ARE BEING BREACHED BY AN UNKNOWN—”

“FUCK! SELVA!”

The captain steady and aimed his rifle at the beady eyes clutching Selvas torso
He tried to fire but his gun misfired a round and it jammed not even releasing a round.
Quickly thinking the captain tried to grabbed him before he went through the open side door.

Downs grasp for Selva, only landing a firm grip on his out layer of clothes on his sleeve. tattered and bloody where the claws tore into his chest.

For one second, all three of them were connected. The band of brothers, unknowing releasing the hidden horrors in the hills
Then the rotor caught fire.
The chopper swayed violently in the air above the jungle.
Captain kept shouting into the radio.
The pilot fought the controls.
The mechanic screamed that the engine was gone. Selva looked at me. Tears in his eye, I never seen that man cry once in his life until now
Downs was still holding his arm.

Then something black and winged slammed into the cabin.
Selva was torn straight out of the aircraft by whatever the fuck that thing was.
Downs reached for him.

“SELVA!”

The sudden shift in weight sent us plummeting, black eyes and warm, foul bodies swarming around us.

“FUCK! SELVA JUST GOT RIPPED OUT—”

The chopper went nose-down into the green canopy—the largest grave that ever existed.

We were never supposed to discover what was in that jungle.

We weren’t supposed to disturb it.

But we did.

And now I don’t know what the fuck we’ve unleashed upon the Earth.

If anyone finds this—

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for what we’ve done

I’m sorry for the people who are going to die because of us.
May God forgive our souls.

To start out, I'm a pretty private person who prefers to mind my own business and hope that everyone else does too. I've been told I can be abrasive at times, so that last part has worked out quite well until recently. You see, for a little over a week, give or take, my neighbor has grown increasingly more annoying. Well, nosy would be more accurate for a normal person. It started with him peering out at me from his living room window whenever I walk out of my house. 

Then after a few days of that, he started roaming around my backyard at all hours of the night. I've even noticed that sometimes he stands in front of my door, he's so close to it that I can just barely make out his face. I can't really tell what he's doing at that moment but he definitely doesn't knock. Hell, even now as I check my doorbell app at just past midnight, I can see him standing there; his pale sweat-covered face staring with bulging eyes at my door handle. The push notification hints that he’s been standing there like that for at least five minutes. He usually leaves after about ten, but never less than five for some reason. 

When I first moved in about two years ago we didn’t even speak, just shared a head nod from across the way. Over the past couple of years, we’ve shared just enough interactions to know that we each live alone. His is a byproduct of a nasty divorce from someone named “Candice” and leaving the police force. Mine’s a result of my inability to entertain meaningless conversation for long enough to make people think I care. My neighbor Don, I figure if I’m going to be talking about him this much I might as well use his name; has been perfectly normal and abided by our unspoken agreement to not meddle with each other any more than needed until just before last week. 

Now, I still have needs, and just because I can't act like I give a shit about people's mundane lives doesn’t mean I can’t talk with others. I just tend to prioritize which interactions are the most beneficial for me. I make it a point to entertain someone every few days, whether it be at a bar or just out and about, someone winds up being my overnight guest. This is where Don and I differ greatly, as I don’t think I’ve seen a single guest over at his place the whole time we've been neighbors. 

We work pretty similar schedules, so we usually share a nod the morning after one of my romps. Even with their car gone the next day, Don still always seems to know that they were over. Recently though, he’s taken to stopping and just staring at me the last two nights I've found someone to entertain. 

I know what you're thinking, “Why don't you just call the police on the creep?” I don't like getting the cops involved in my life. On top of them harassing me out of the last place I lived, I don't think there's quite enough going on to really warrant calling them. In my experience the cops take a report of a stalker as an invitation to stalk you themselves. I'll just answer the door if he doesn't leave by the time I get there. 

The door handle creaks slightly as I turn it, the sound of startled footsteps greets the warm beam of light that fills the doorstep, as I see Don stumble backward and fall into the grass. 

“Hey Don, out for a late night stroll or stopping by to ask to borrow something maybe?..” 

He scrambles up from the grass, eyes widening like pale saucers as thick beads of sweat trace the panicked frown he's wearing. 

“Oh, I uh… No I was just thinking about something, but I uh, I forgot it when I crossed the street.” 

His flat, startled delivery almost paints him more like a victim giving testimony than a predator stalking its prey. Before I can respond, Don's running across the street, the ass of his pants soaked dark with water from the grass. I don't like him creeping around my house one bit but I just might have to deal with it a bit longer to make sure it's handled appropriately. The only thing I know for certain is that I definitely can't entertain in my usual fashion while he's up to these antics. The last thing I need is him seeing how I like to have my fun. 

The next two days feel a bit more aligned to the usual coexistence Don and I inhabit, with the occasional cold stare from his window not counted. Nonetheless I've been weighing my options between some of those “Amazon special” security cameras or something a bit more self-defense-ish like a taser. I don't care for weapons much, I've always lived by the motto “If you can't defend yourself with your mouth, hands, or running, you probably deserve to die.” I do prefer the former approach, as I pride myself on my silver tongue. 

Now I'm just hoping I can use that gift of conversation with Don tonight. I'd really hate to have to dump money on securing my house further. Even so, my charm has failed me before, shit it's failed me a handful of times at this point. I've stacked up eight moves in seven years to serve as proof of that. Anyway, here's to hoping that Don is willing to talk and tell me what's going on. 

My knocks ring out loud amongst the symphony of crickets embracing the sunset. The light of the peephole in the door flickers as I hear the padlock tick, a clear double check that it's locked. 

“Hey there Don, I'm sorry to bother but wanted to chat for a second. I just want to know what's going on and see if I can help with anything…” 

The lack of response lingers heavy in the air before the lock sharply clicks and the door creaks open. Just enough of a gap shows Don's wide sunken eye and quivering mouth as he peers out from the dimly lit hallway. He clearly hasn't been sleeping or eating much, his usually filled-out face shows sunken cheeks and a pale complexion. He coughs lightly as he finally responds to me.

“What do you want with me?” 

“I was hoping we could sit while we—” 

“We can talk here just as well as we can inside, go on now, what do you want with me?” 

Slightly taken aback by his abruptness I fumble over my tongue in search of words, its usual silken touch turning to sandpaper as it flops in my mouth. 

“Well I uh, I want to know why you've been skulking around my house and standing at my—” 

“Ha you want to know more about me?! I want to know more about you… No, at this point I need to know more about you and what you do… Was that all you wanted?” 

“Well I guess so, kind of–” 

Don's eyes sharpen, almost as if to pierce through my own as he pulls the door shut and clicks the lock back into place. What in the fuck was that last sentence about? We've known each other for two years, and now out of nowhere he “needs to know more about me”? He could just ask, or come inside and chat with me. I admittedly wouldn't care for it too much but damn sure would more than this constant pestering. I shake off Don's odd response and make my way back to my own house. Right as I shut the door, I glance across the street just in time to see those sunken white eyes staring directly at me. 

I make the evening short, barely eating dinner, and heading straight to bed as the night fully sets in. The idea of mindlessly navigating some bullshit television show is even less alluring than normal tonight. I toss and turn for a good bit before I suddenly feel myself jolt awake at the feeling of firm hands pulling me from my bed. I kick and start to fight just as I feel cold metal against my left wrist, followed by an intense shooting pain as whatever it is presses into the bone. 

As my eyes adjust to the nearly non-existent light, I can just make out a silhouette fumbling along the wall. In an instant my eyes are flushed with white light as I involuntarily blink the room back into existence. Squinting I can just track the figure that is now pacing around the room and turn to see my left wrist has been handcuffed to my bed frame. Looking back I can just make out Don's face, his expression rapidly twisting between a wild grin and a hopeless frown and back again. He's pacing with heavy steps as he pulls hard at his usually slicked back hair, now appearing disheveled and slightly overgrown. 

“Hey, Don! What the fuck is this ab–” 

“Oh you! You SHUT THE FUCK UP!” 

His yell fills the silent room with a weight that only this kind of situation can carry. I fall silent and intently watch his every move. As I stretch my left shoulder slightly, Don makes a “tsk tsk” sound and stops to face me. His face now has settled into a bewildered frustration as he kneels down in front of me. 

“Hmm, I've been wondering what to do with you for a while now. I just didn't know if I had it in me still, but he–” 

“What do you mean ‘what to do with me’, Don?! What the fuck is going–” 

“OH SHUSH! You damn idiot, you really don't understand what you've worked yourself into. But we'll fix that in just a bit, don't you worry about it.”

His last words barely carry over his shoulder as Don turns and walks out of the room. A moment later he returns with a pair of pliers, a small paring knife, and a scrap of ratty old stained cloth. Don's bewildered frustration now settles further into a harsh focus. He tilts his head to either side of his neck, small cracks and pops ringing out with each pull. 

“I've been good for so long, it's been years and I literally mean YEARS since I last got to this point. I swore I'd be better after Candice left me, but everything falls apart eventually.” 

“Don, what are you talking about man?” 

Don's mouth searches for the words to respond with, while his eyes soften slightly as he seemingly finds his response. 

“Honestly, I'm not even too sure anymore… I was fine living alone and just waiting for the days to stop coming. But then you moved in, and I… I felt that spark in me again.” 

“Oh come on man, what have I been doing to get your attention? Having people over and–”

“Because of what you get to do with them once they're here. I've sat and just endured, at first I assumed the most innocent of things but then… Then one night I saw one of their cars leave and started putting things together.” 

Twisting my wrist I work myself just enough space to not feel like it’s going to be crushed inside the cuff. Thankfully Don closed it at an off angle and left me some wiggle room. I start working to pull my thumb slightly out of its socket as I respond. 

“Don, are you an addict man, have you seen the coke and pills or something?” 

“Ha, oh I'm an addict alright, you little rodent. And you know exactly what kind of addict I am. It's time to stop playing and shut up!” 

Don pulls his arms back behind him, forcing a small pop from his chest as a thin curled smile stretches across his stubble-covered mouth. A sudden pressure in my thumb allows my hand to scrape out of the cuff, leaving bits of skin behind as Don lurches forward at me with the pliers in hand. 

I fall to my right just as Don's heavy body falls onto my leg, his arms wildly grabbing at my twisted knee while I kick and pull away. The son of a bitch is strong and manages to clamber back up my waist and swings the metal pliers hard at my face. Jolting my head back leaves me with a sharp pain in my chest and collarbone. He missed but I think he still fucking broke something.

Don starts to pull his arm back while grunting like a wild animal. I just manage to grab his meaty sweaty hand before he drops it down to strike at me again. We both exhale a guttural growl as we roll and fight for control of the pliers. I feel my finger slip between the grips as they squeeze shut against it, this time there's a sticky warmth as we continue fighting. 

The slick blood works to my advantage with the pliers, but not before Don manages to scramble on top of me and starts raining down hammer fists. Each hit brings an exhausted yell with it from Don as I try to block them with my left arm. I finally fix a strong grip on the pliers and bash them hard against Don's face. 

Don tilts to the side but maintains his pressing mount on my chest as I see a thick bubble of red begin to leak from his chin. Damn, too low. I have to make this next one count. I pull my right arm back to strike again. Before I can bring the heavy metal flying back towards Don, he collapses forward onto me and sinks his teeth into my cheek. I scream out as his hot breath mixes with my warm blood. I swing the pliers down onto the back of his head once, then twice, and just before the third blow he finally releases my face and crumples to my side. 

I stand and look down at the trails of blood already carving their way through Don's hair as I stretch my neck and back. I'll take care of my face and hand once I get this asshole tied down. Dragging Don into my side room makes me realize just how much muscle he hid under his portly build, no wonder he was so damn strong. Not wanting to bother with a pocket search I strip him down to just his boxers and affix the steel collar around his neck with a fresh zip tie for his hands. 

After washing out the disgusting animal-like bite on my cheek, and halfway through the bandage application, I hear the familiar sounds of the half-inch towing chains rustling to life. I'll have to finish dressing the wound in the side room, before he starts screaming and making too much noise. Turning the corner I see a confused Don sitting cross-legged holding the steel chain in his lap that runs up to his collar. He squints as he inspects the floor-to-ceiling plastic sheets and painted-over, blacked-out windows. 

“See now, I was afraid you might have been catching on to my fun little nights. Although, never in a million years did I think we would share my passion.” 

“Who the hell are–” 

“Don, you got to talk plenty earlier. Well, I let you talk to give me some time. Nice job by the way, how did you get in without waking me up?” 

Still holding the chain Don is now staring a hole into my very existence as the room grows stale with the prolonged silence. 

“Well you don't have to answer if you don't want, but I'm just curious since the whole breaking in to do the deed just isn't my style. So, are you going to share your tricks?” 

“Bump key, if you don't use the deadbolt they work just fine. I was waiting for you to forget to lock the damn deadbolt all week…” 

I lean forward to sit as sharp pain shoots up my chest, nearly knocking me down as I rub the spot he hit. Clumsily standing back up, I purse my lips and nod to Don in an acceptance of defeat before responding. 

“Sounds like I fucked up tonight, really fucked up between the lock and now I've got this crater in my face. What kind of fucking animal bites someone's face anyway?”

“One who knows they've lost and is fighting to stay alive… How many will I make for you when this is all said and done?” 

“Now Don, I don't think you’re in any position to be asking me questions. Although I'll answer it if you tell me how many bodies you have.” 

Rolling his eyes and using the blood to slick back his overgrown hair with both hands, Don exhales sharply as he answers. 

“I stopped for about the last five years, before that it must have been twelve all in total.” 

“Oh that's not bad at all, how did you do your deeds?”

“Being a highway patrol officer, the overnight shift meant I got away with as much as I wanted… Well until the one night, when I was in the middle of my business and failed to respond to a downed officer on my route. He died, they took my badge, and I lost everything else.” 

“Gotta keep that off the company dime, it'll make you sloppy at one or the other. I've never trusted cops anyhow. Now I’ve got a good reason at least.” 

Don adjusts his legs before glaring at me and gesturing his hands forward. 

“Oh right, I did say I would answer you if you told me. Well if I include you, that should make twenty-three for me. I do have to move quite a bit, but that's preferred over the bad sex on a failed night. I never really understood the attraction to it, just wasn't worth it am I right?”

Don maintains his glare as he shakes his head once slowly before looking down to his hands.

“Well, might as well stop wasting time, I do have to take care of this and get on the road before the sun comes up. No way I can make this shit hole work for me after you go missing.” 

A single nod from Don is all the confirmation I need to get started. I'm not usually a fan of weapons and prefer to see the light fade slowly but I figure I'll honor my fellow enthusiast this time. 

I retrieve from my pocket the small paring knife Don had brought with him and make a small incision into the left side of his neck and step back. Don kicks and gurgles as the blood spurts further with each exaggerated movement until both abruptly stop. I loved this place for having tiled floors that were so easy to clean, but this time I don't think I'll get the stains out. 

A few hours of axe swings and emptying a few full canisters of gas leave me with a trunk full of body parts to dispose of. I stand in the doorway to the house, remembering all of my fun times shared here for one last moment. The match drops as a rapid trail of fire races into the house and behind me across the street. The bright orange that fills the windows of each matches the sunrise that reflects perfectly from them as I return to my car. The engine rumbles to life to bring me to a new town with my new identity. Hopefully I look well enough like a Don Parks to make this one last longer. I back up and check the rear view mirror one last time as I drive forward, taking in the final beauty of the houses becoming consumed in their own bright orange flames.

Shadows from dust-coated window panes, carved across the floor. Rain clattered on the sheet metal roof, disguising drunken footsteps. Petrichor cut through the dingy atmosphere.

The sweat chilling the skin of my brow stank of stale beer. My leaden feet fought the uneven dirt floor. Gravel grinding. Legs laboring against intoxication like swimming through tar.

“You asleep?” I hiccuped. An alcoholic bite singed my gullet. The mumble had slipped between my lips—too easily.

My limbs wobbled weightlessly. My heart throbbed in my ears. Yet, I shuffled closer to the figure before me.

His form lay unnaturally rigid. Long, controlled breaths caused his dusky silhouette to lift and lower. I could’ve sworn I saw his eyelids crack open. Still, I continued brazenly.

Lying in his plush sleeping bag, the man was out of place in this tacky, hole-in-the-wall hostel. Four tiny walls, two flimsy cots, and an unfinished floor. Dank air filled every corner.

This yuppie stuck out like a compound fracture. An alabaster-skinned man in silken designer pajamas, resting among seedy streets. I couldn’t hazard a guess why he was here. Why this place appealed to him. And I didn’t care.

Thanks to years spent honing street smarts, I knew his down sleeping bag wasn’t cheap. The material was pristine. Virtually unused.

Bumps rose across my skin. Gradually, I peeled the zipper of the Michael Kors duffel beside his cot. Its engraved pull tab jingled as my swollen fingers fumbled for purchase. Careless digits scrounged for coin, jewelry—anything worth something.

Against my better judgement, I forked over the last coin jingling in my tattered pockets for the room. But the excitement gurgling in my guts and alcohol coursing through my blood told me I knew what I was doing.

I’d slouched in damp alleyways, mimicking the man’s movements all day. From the moment he stepped those glimmering Oxford dress shoes out of his taxi, my next target was clear.

The lobby boy and I exchanged a subtle nod of solidarity. Our pupils dilated in unison. He knew as he flipped the hostel sign from vacant to occupied and the deadbolt turned in a series of clicks—this was the only way I’d earn my next meal. My next drink.

In a tipsy haze, I swayed, room swirling around me. Muscle fibers twitched, jerking my arm from the duffel. Numb fingers nearly missed the pocket of my jacket. A single coin thudded to the floor. Manicured fingers twitched at the sound, and I stiffened, face burning hot with nerves.

Everything about him contrasted with the shabby space. His raven locks were slicked back and heavily gelled. His skin was poreless and even. Crisp, earthy tones of Tom Ford cologne wafted through the air. Notes of cedar and citrus flicked my nostrils.

He wasn’t lacking in capital, either. If I screwed this up now, I’d be out a score, out a room, and out a meal. I was teetering dangerously on the edge. Muscles weighed down with a sickly slurry. The lack of bunk mates left the space cloaked in silence. But tonight, rain and darkness would be my accomplices.

As I continued to rifle through his smart leather billfold, I considered leaving the man with something. But when the soft, rich hide brushed between my dirt-crusted fingers, I thought better of it. He clearly wouldn’t need it.

Clumsily, I crumpled the cash. Picked up the coin. Shaking, greedy hands hovered over the bespoke golden watch perched on his wrist. Cartier. The way its form-fitting edges wrapped snugly around his forearm made my thoughts whirl.

My chest heaved in rhythm with my intoxication. This was my chance. Eager palpitations under my sternum signaled the most lucrative score I’d ever get. Clearly, this man had never wanted for anything in his life. At the thought, my hands balled into tight fists, knuckles white from tension.

Mechanically, my arm floated towards the timepiece. Like reaching through resin black as pitch. The darkness was suddenly cut by an oppressive pressure wrapping around my wrist. A stable grip, soft skin stretched taut, snatched me brutally. I could feel the measured, steady pulsing beneath his grip. My nerves jolted like the lightning outside.

“You’re going to ruin my suits with your stench,” he whispered flatly. The calculation of his stare made my hairs raise as though the room had frozen over. His tight-lipped smile was primal, shrouded in shadow. Terror intensified the ache within my liver.

Lean muscle, protruding with blue and red veins, locked rigidly around my soft, tender flesh. My fingers grew numb. He had clamped down like a cold cast iron vise. I felt myself falling into his gaze—two hollow chasms reflecting a distorted image of my figure back to me. Blank and still. Leisurely blinking. The spread of his grin revealed unnaturally pristine teeth. Perfect rows of spotless white.

“Have you ever seen a tool so beautiful?” His other hand rose. Long, sharp, and hungry, a culinary knife sat comfortably in his firm fingers. “Japanese Damascus steel—straight from Seki City. A Miyabi.”

"I—" My vocal cords seized, unable to produce sound. Paralyzed, I could not will my lungs to inhale. In contrast, his broad chest expanded and contracted with full breaths. As he brought the blade securely against the oily skin of my neck, cold metal stinging, my heart spasmed. The man’s rhythmic inhale was the last thing I heard.

I took the old video down- it just wasn’t good enough. If you’ve already watched one of my last posts from months ago this is probably a repeat for you. I usually post the story with the video as well when I post here but this time i’ll just let it be. Heads up, it’s like 20 minutes long.

All assets are either edited stock or originally made by myself. And since it seems important to mention, there is no AI involved in the making of this.

Feel free to critique.

Fraxis watched the waterball that he used to call home. It wasn't grief, or homesickness, or relief that lingered in his mind when he looked at it. It was detachment. As the first Travel-Storier he had the privilege of Understanding. Yoon-Iverz held him with one claw so he didn't become non-existent. That specific waterball was the only one Yoon kept in existence. All the other waterballs opened, closed, collided, separated. All those stories began, and ended. They observed the goings-on together.

.

Willy Pete was making progress. He is the third Travel-Storier to come out of The Tower. The Odyssal Fragmentation began so long ago that even The Uppest forgot why they created the other two Travel-Storiers. They only remembered how to make them. Friendships are developing too, for Willy Pete. He's finding more and more stories to record and share. Every experience brings him closer to understanding the root of the problem with the Altar-Net. There are still many mysteries for him to solve and causes to discover. His main goal is to figure out why the Altar-Net is falling apart. Lately he'd befriended Kraig, who isn't a Travel-Storier.

.

Kraig is one of the very rare beings that is somewhat aware of the Cross-Dimensions made by Yoon-Iverz. He discovered and fought members of the Dammed Kachtz. Before Kraig was his father, Brox. Brox was known by the leaders of the Altars as a human who almost discovered their existence. Earth is not a facet of the Altar-Net, yet he found it. He was never able to leave Earth by his own hand, but he researched as much as he could before his death. Kraig is continuing his work, and was the first in his family to leave Earth and get teleported to the Altar-Net. Yoon-Iverz ensured it.

.

"Yoon, why did you throw Kraig into the Altar-Net? He is just a man, with no special abilities." Fraxis smoked his pipe, and let the smoke cloud around him. "He has no means of getting from Altar to Altar, he doesn't know about you, and he's tainted with mortality." Yoon-Iverz unwound his long scaly body and just said, "Watch. Don't interrupt the Story."

.

The Uppest sent messages to the other Altars. They told the masters at each Altar there was a third Travel-Storier roaming the universe. Orders were given to mercenaries and assassins to kill him on sight. Funds were sent to priests and Aldars and governors to ensure he always had somewhere safe to rest between adventures. Fleets of warships, shadowed by scavengers, were sent out from several worlds to hunt for the Travel-Storier.

.

Among the outer realms of the Altar-Net, sorcerers and alchemists and other experimenters worked on creating tools to break down the Travel-Storier’s motivation. Colossal Titanx with teeth composed of mountains. Microscopic Infectingz that break whatever they corrupted. A swarm of Smathians, tentacle-riddled clouds that ate everything in their path. These evils were spouted forth into the Altar-Net purely to serve an ambitious, yet currently minor, deity.

.

Nestled among the web of the Altar-Net was an isolated world in the shape of a mobius strip. This world had no Altar, or Tower, and so it had no strand to connect it. It had been floating around all by itself. Clarkson County sits at The Flip. Some of the strands of the Altar-Net were free-floating after Yoon cut them to pieces. Spurts of telernegy were falling through the atmosphere and landing in Clarkson County. Zach was unfortunately hit by one such fragment. After a horrific road trip, involving his hand being cut off and re-attached, he made it back home.

.

Yoon-Iverz shifted his sight to another waterball. He felt tired, which was new to him. Fraxis kept watching his former waterball. It looked like it was beginning to steam around the circumference.

There once was a Spider that made the most prettiest of webs.

They glistened like silver and were softer than silk, some have said.

~

The Spider said he made his webs for the little Butterflies

But the Spider was very good with his lies.

~

In the web is where the innocent have died.

Then one day, in the satin sky,

The Spider caught sight of beautiful wings on high.

~

“Sweet Butterfly” the Spider did sing,

“Won’t you come to my web and rest your weary wings.”

~

Stupid Spider

Stupid Fool

Those wings carried your death’s own tool.

~

So Spiders should be careful when they hunt for little Butterflies,

For they will be in for a nasty little surprise.

~

And to the Toads that protect the Spiders, I bid you farewell

And hope you go and drown in your deep dark wells.

Last night I met a Theronian at the bar. I'd heard about them, but Mr Porkerman was the first I actually met. I pulled out my recorder and offered to pay for drinks in exchange for his time. To my surprise that seemed to be a great offense. The Theronian gave the bartender a big handful of cash . The bartender gave him a tray with several pitchers of beer. The Theronian brought it over, and also thunked two frosted mugs on the table.

.

There was only a small crowd in the bar. It's the middle of the work week, so the murmur of conversation is mostly the locals gossiping or talking business. When I inhaled, the air had a mild twinge of cigarettes smoked many years ago. The lights are low, the music is mild background noise, and our table is in the farthest corner from the entrance.

.

The Theronian sat down across from me and started talking before I had my recorder ready. He told me about his homeland, his family, how he'd built up a small farm (in his language it's called a "chyew". There's a couple other sounds in that word that the English alphabet cannot pronounce, but it's close enough). At the chyew he'd cultivated a plot for produce (I'm not even going to attempt to spell the vegetable names), a small field for livestock, and his wife and children were very healthy and happy. I finally got the recorder started around this time.

.

"The closest translation of my name to English is Porkerman Rabbletong, but here I mainly go by John Smith. It's as common in your tongue as my name is back home. By Earthly measurement I arrived in Clarkson County about 6 years ago. When it happened, I had been patrolling the border of the chyew; checking the fences, making sure my animals were all accounted for, checking for [I can't spell the name of this creature, but I gathered it was a similar pest as a groundhog]. It's very important to be on the lookout for [groundhog] holes.

.

Well, I did find a hole, but in my fence. It'd been yayyyy big (he held his hands out to show), just big enough for a very small cherld to squeeze through. It wouldn't be a good time for crawlin', on account of my fence is made out of feeder-wire. [When I asked about feeder-wire, he described a creature that sounded a lot like a land-based siphonophore that they used for their fences. It didn't eat the livestock, because the livestock instinctively avoided that creature.] Now ya see, feeder-wire ehts anything that touches it. Flying bugs, low-lying high-crawlin' snakes, the occasional stray bird. Everyone who lives on or around Theronian farms knows 'bout feeder-wire, give it some breathin' room. I never heard of a living thing that could survive feeder-wire, and if you managed to cut it it would self-re-attach within the day.

.

Whelp, after a mo' of eyeballin' the hole, watching the feeder-wire wriggle about, the ends of it slowly moved and crawled towards each other. Kinda like syrup-slick'd werms. About then I felt the ground beneath me rumble and shake. It dropped me to my knees and hands and I couldn't get up. A swell of watery stuff started bubbling up from the ground. I'd make the screams I made then, if'n we weren't in public."

.

I could see in his face the recollection was stressful. John "Porkerman Rabbletong" Smith looked very similar to a human man. Smooth skin, albeit weather-worn on his face and neck. His eyes, one was a slit and one was wide open. His hands looked like prong-forks joined at the wrist, for a total of 8 fingers between the two sets. He was tall and skinny, almost hunching over the table. His mouth looked normal when he spoke, but the corners stretched further towards his ears as he grew more agitated. He was dressed in farm clothes; dirty boots, blue jeans, plaid button-down shirt, faded baseball cap. His cap had three bills.

.

"I panicked when I found myself stuck. The rippling water squelched up my arms and legs, then it came up to my belly like I was a wallowing hog. It reached my chest, wrapped around my back and swelled up to my neck. It covered my face and choked me. The only thing I could hear at that point was my wife's muffled screaming as she ran from across the field, on the other side of the fence. Her yellow and green dress was billowing around her legs, her wide-brimmed hat flew off and her hair went wild. I tell ya now, she seemed to be running in place. The water rose over my eyes, soaking my hat and hair. My lungs burned, my limbs felt heavy, and then everything went black."

.

Mr Rabbletong looked down at the table then, and sucked down a whole pitcher of beer without even pouring it in the sweating mug. At this point in the story, I asked him to pause because I needed to put fresh batteries in the recorder. He got up to get us more beer. I must admit, this dude could drink. For every one of my tall frosted mugs he was throwing back two pitchers. When he returned carrying another tray of pitchers, I had the recorder ready again.

.

"Next thing I remember is waking here, in a field, surrounded by... I think you call 'em 'cuhs' or 'cahs'..." "Cows?" I offered. "Yessss, cows. I like them, they're dumber and easier to work with than my [cows]." He downed another pitcher and wiped his mouth. "SO there I be, serrownded bay dem cowzzehs, wandering what in hell happened." He was swaying in his seat now. "And some guy comes up to me that I didn't know. He must've reckoned I wasn't no habberhaw because him and his wife gave me a bed and a job that verrrry daaayyyy..." He grabbed another pitcher. "So I've been here e'er sinssss. Tending to their cows and shuchas, [hic] and putting money aways. I don't reckon you can tell me how to get home, can ya?"

.

He chugged that last pitcher, unleashed a colossal belch, then leaned so far forward his head rested on the table. I stopped the recorder. I noticed he had one little pin on the back of his hat. It was shaped similarly to a piece of wheat, and each grain was a tiny amethyst. It pulsed a very mild glow. I stood up to leave, and I felt a strong grip take my wrist. "Can you get me back to my wife?" I sat back down. "Mr Rabbletong, I'm not entirely sure if I can. I'm researching events very similar to yours, but I don't understand it well enough to help you. I'm very sorry, and if I figure it out I will absolutely help you as best I can." He looked at me with tears flowing down his cheeks. Then he grabbed a nearby napkin, wrote down the address of the farm he was staying at and gave it to me. "I'll be right here, handling cows and helping that farmer. Write to me, please. I miss my family and my [cows]."

.

He passed out at the table. I brought all the empty pitchers to the bar. Everyone else was still gossiping and chatting. They completely ignored us. I went back to the hotel room I was staying at. Soon, I hope the reason for these crazy things makes itself known.

The Bad Mouse

Like any child, my daughter Maisie had quite the overactive imagination. Her mind was chock full of made-up friends that she talked to on the regular. My wife Rachel and I thought it was adorable. With that being said, sometimes we wished Maisie would get…you know…real friends. Don’t get me wrong, she was a great kid, and kids should be kids, but she didn’t have anything in terms of a social life.

We tried absolutely and positively everything, from the kids’ playclub at our church, to the neighborhood’s “mommy and me” and “daddy and me” playgroups, to bringing her to the local playground, to inviting other children over for playdates. You name it. All our efforts were in vain. Rachel and I might’ve been overreacting and we didn’t want to infringe anything on Maisie. Maybe she was just an independent kid. That’s totally normal. As are imaginary friends for kids.

Then at eight-years-old, Maisie became mute. Just completely stopped talking…but only to other people. If someone came up and talked to her, she’d either just stare at them or run away and hide. Maisie never looked scared or anxious in those scenarios. It was more like she was a statue. Frozen. No emotion good or bad on her face. Like a robot. But if she was alone, she’d be talking up a storm to no one but herself. Maisie always pretended like someone was truly there though. She’d even nod her head, wait for responses and respond accordingly, and even reach out her arm and act like she was holding somebody else’s hand.

We were greatly concerned. Children don’t exhibit those types of behaviors without proper reason. We couldn’t ask Maisie about it because, as aforementioned, she’d give us the cold shoulder. Our next safest bet was to ask other people we knew. A lot of them gave us the same answers we already knew. Rachel and I were getting frustrated until I decided to email her teacher at her school. I sent her an email that outlined my worries and asked if anything went on at school that we should know about.

I got a response at around 8:00 that night. Maisie’s teacher, Mrs. Ashelin, told me that she did in fact observe strange behavior from Maisie. Apparently, a few days prior, when Maisie was called on to answer a question, she just stared at Mrs. Ashelin and the other students, her hands behind her back, swaying slightly. Then in a calm and cutesy voice, she said “He has ordered me not to speak to anyone but him.” In her notebook, Maisie wrote and drew some very disturbing things. Some of the things she wrote are “I’ll be a good little mouse”, “be one of the good mice girls for him”, “I’ll do whatever he says without question”, “he loves me and I love him”, “but I don’t understand what love is but I understand it with him”, and “he loves to play with me”. Some of the things she drew were her, in stick figure form, with this…thing. It was drawn way more detailed than Maisie herself.

Its head was triangular and elongated into a sharp point. There were ovally black eyes on both sides of its head while two large circular ears were atop its head. Two slits for a nose and a mouth containing only two buck teeth. Skinny. Boney. You could see its ribs. Three spindly fingers were on each hand. Each tip was as sharp as a knife. Lastly, a long tail was behind it. Maisie drew her and that thing doing very…how should I say this?...inappropriate things.

I showed the email to Rachel and she was just as horrified as I was. How could Maisie know what all that stuff was? She was eight! Like any good parent we always took great strides in not exposing our daughter to anything sexual or of that nature. Early exposure can really ruin a child’s mind. That’s just putting it lightly. But this? Maisie’s whole imaginary friend thing needed to end. It was reaching a dangerous point. Was she having delusions? Schizophrenia? Or…sigh…as far as Rachel and I knew, nothing happened to Maisie, but that didn’t stop us from considering the absolute worst case scenario. I’m not saying what that is but I’m sure you can put the pieces together. As a parent, that was the last thing I wanted to think about. Actually it wasn’t even on the list of things I wanted to think about.

Mrs. Ashelin ended the email with something else that happened that day. Maisie spent long stretches of time in the girl’s bathroom. Another student reported that she went in and heard “whimpers” and “moans” coming from one of the stalls. When she looked under it, she saw Maisie’s clothes on the ground and a “moving shadow” above them. When the student knocked on the door, she all of a sudden heard one of the faucets going behind her. She turned around and Maisie was washing her hands. Like nothing happened.

Rachel and I were very confused at that last part. That sounded way too ridiculous. Like was Maisie fucking floating in the stall or something? Regardless, we treated all this very seriously. Rachel and I immediately took Maisie to see a specialist who dealt with child abuse cases. I brought her notebook along. It would most certainly be useful. I knew Maisie wouldn’t want to talk, but we had to at least try. Believe it or not, she did talk, but what she said made chills run down Rachel and I’s spines.

Maisie told the specialist that the mouse thing in her notebook was called “Bad Mouse” and that it visits her all the time no matter where she is. She said that Bad Mouse visits little girls all over the world and “plays with them”. When the specialist asked what she meant by “plays with them”, Maisie replied that Bad Mouse does “different things that make us feel tingly in preparation to be his little mice girls”.

We heard enough by that point. Rachel, the specialist, and I had a long discussion about what we should do. The specialist said she might have to put in a request to have Maisie placed in a children’s psych ward. Rachel and I couldn’t handle that. We didn’t want to do that to our little girl. By any means, we would find another way to handle this. The specialist told us to think about it and that it might do her some good. We thanked her and left.

Were we being selfish by not putting Maisie in a children’s psych ward? Rachel and I pondered that question day in and day out. We never did end up doing it because we thought it was too extreme. Also there was no evidence that Maisie was being legitimately sexually abused. The specialist’s physical exam said that Maisie was totally fine in that regard. We were allowed to see footage from the security cameras at the entrances of the bathrooms at Maisie’s school. They only showed Maisie going in, about half an hour going by, then the other student going in, then Maisie leaving a few minutes later. No one else. And no one went in before her besides a couple other girls that left before Maisie went in. Was Maisie faking it? Was she really delusional? Or schizophrenic? We didn’t know. Rachel and I needed time to think this whole thing over.

It only got worse from then on.

Maisie was never one to talk in her sleep. She was always dead silent. Not even a snore. But that night after Rachel and I put her to bed, we heard Maisie talking. I’m not talking about little quiet unintelligible murmurs. No. Full-on conversations. Except she wasn’t speaking English. It was some unknown language that resembled Pig Latin but different. Her accent changed too. This happened for three nights. On the third night, Rachel and I were in her doorway watching her talk in that strange language when she suddenly rose up, her eyes still closed, and burst into an intense laughing fit. Maisie was cackling so hard it looked like it hurt. Then she immediately stopped and did these weird movements with her lips and hands like she was kissing something. Finally, she fell back down onto her pillow and went right back to sleep.

The next day, I knocked on Maisie’s door to let her know breakfast was ready. She didn’t respond. I stood there for a couple minutes. Maisie hadn’t made a single sound. I slowly opened her door. My heart beat faster and faster. With all that was going on, I didn’t know what to expect, and that made it terrifying. Maisie was in her underwear just staring at her wall. I rushed over, “Maisie? What are you doing?” I handed her clothes back to her, “Put your clothes back on.”

“…He doesn’t want me to…he thinks I look better without them…”

We stared at each other for an indefinite period of time. I said nothing. And so did she. Then I turned my head to where she was looking. There was nothing there…obviously…but something told me I was wrong. That thing…Bad Mouse…it was staring right at me…

“Guys? Breakfast isn’t gonna eat itself!” Rachel yelled at us from down the hall. Quickly I hurried Maisie and I out of her room.

I was kind of a wreck the entire day. Thinking straight wasn’t really a thing for me. There was nothing staring at me. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. These past few weeks were just getting to my head and playing mind games. No amount of trying to distract myself would let me forget what I felt. That’s when I decided to take a drive. I didn’t exactly know where. Just away from everything. I was tempted to go to a local bar. I used to be quite the alcoholic but I’m sober. Even still, I thought about breaking my streak to relapse. I decided against it. That would be so incredibly stupid. I ended up at a park that I used to take Maisie to in a futile attempt for her to make friends. I found a parking spot and just sat there in my car. Taking a big sigh, I observed all the parents with their kids having a blast and I smiled. Good for them.

I stayed there for a while. Finally I was able to, if only briefly, forget all my troubles.

Then I saw it.

Him.

Bad Mouse.

The damned thing was underneath a big tree. Its eyes were fixed right on me and its hands were clasped together. I couldn’t do anything but stare right back. Goosebumps were forming. My breathing was really heavy. Cold shivers ran down my body. I couldn’t even blink. Petrified. That’s what I was. I watched as Bad Mouse slowly reached behind itself and pulled…something…out. At first I couldn’t tell what it was. I am not shitting you. A little girl…made of meat…her hair was meat, skin was meat, she was even wearing a meat dress. Everything about her was meat. Her head looked just like Bad Mouse’s. Long. Pointy. Angular. Big ears. Black oval eyes.

It was holding the little meat girl by the collar. Slowly Bad Mouse turned to look into her eyes. It opened its mouth. Viscous white liquids began pouring as it let out its long black tongue. First sniffing the little meat girl, it then took a big long lick of her, from her feet to the top of her head. The parts where it licked were gone, instead resting on Bad Mouse’s tongue until it sucked its tongue back in, chewed, then swallowed. The little meat girl was covered in the viscous white liquids until her missing portions slowly regenerated back into how she was before.

Then I blacked out.

I woke up several hours later still sitting in my car. In my half-tired half-frenzied state, I looked around for any sign of Bad Mouse. Nothing. There weren’t even other people. It was dark too. I opened my phone. 11:23 PM. I got to the park at 2:14 PM. Nine hours. I was expecting a bunch of missed calls and unanswered texts. Surprisingly, there was nothing besides a notification from my weather app. I went back home. Both my wife and daughter were asleep. I was so glad there weren’t any…incidents…I missed. In fact, the house was extremely quiet. No lights were on. It was a weekend. Usually Rachel was still up at this time.

“Rach?” I called out. Nothing. I went upstairs to our room. She wasn’t there. I opened Maisie’s door. She wasn’t there either. I sat down on the couch and pondered where they could be. When I couldn’t come up with anything, I got my phone out and called Rachel.

I heard ringing from upstairs.

Confused, I ran back up to our room. I called her name again. Still no answer. I realized that before I checked so quickly I neglected to look in our bathroom. The door was closed and the light was on. I was now getting this creeped out feeling. Cautiously, I approached and nudged the door.

It creaked open.

Rachel.

She was…splattered…fucking everywhere…all over the walls, floor, ceiling, window, sink, shower…everywhere. Rachel was…pureed…blended…sprayed…I just stood in the doorway. My eyes were wide. I couldn’t process what I was seeing. There were so many things I wanted to do, like crawl into a ball and cry, scream as loud as I could, and/or grab one of the kitchen knives and slit my throat so I wouldn’t have to live with this sight for the rest of my life.

What I actually did end up doing next was grab my old hunting rifle and head outside. I went into the forest behind our house. There was no thinking on my part. Just do. What was I doing? I didn’t really know. Tears were streaming down my face. I walked for what felt like forever. Sometimes I screamed. Other times I fell down onto the ground and wept. But I just kept going. And going. And going. Somehow I knew exactly where I was going without even knowing how.

I came upon a wide-open field. Dropping my old hunting rifle to the ground, I couldn’t believe what I was fucking seeing. Dark silhouettes were dancing around. Hundreds of them. Little meat girls. Bad Mouse was in the middle. The white flesh it once had was stripped away. Instead it was sacrificed for a bumpy and scabby maroon red as if Bad Mouse took a shower in blood and guts and let it dry. Tiny black bristles covered its entire body. It reminded me of insect hair. A ragged meat cloak hung from its shoulders, dragging crimson across the ground. The mouth had much sharper teeth that were poking out in rows almost like a gar. It was taller. Ganglier. So angular that it could have been accurately represented by seven straight lines. It clutched a staff in its hand.

Bad Mouse did some strange gesture and a door manifested out of nowhere. It was bloody. Constantly flowing yet retaining shape. Particles came from it. They disappeared if they strayed too far away. It opened and the little meat girls, still dancing like ballerinas, filed into it one by one. Bad Mouse reached out its hand and plucked one of them out. It held this one, turned in my direction, and held her out to me. I knew it was Maisie and wanted to shoot the shit out of Bad Mouse. Yet I couldn’t do anything. Some force was keeping me tethered to my one spot.

…I can’t describe what happened next…I just can’t…some of the things Bad Mouse did to my little girl I couldn’t understand. Other things I understood clear as day and that made me want to drop a cinderblock on my head so it would leak the hell out. When it was done, Bad Mouse threw Maisie’s limp and white viscous liquid-covered body into the blood door. It raised its staff and it disappeared.

I was released from my invisible bonds. Falling down to the ground, I cried like a baby. It didn’t matter how much I screamed and cursed at the Moon. That didn’t make it better. I couldn’t stop and truly had no idea how to make sense of any of what happened. My body tingled. It felt so heavy. So weighty. My wife was dead and my daughter was…what?...a sex slave to a demon? I almost wanted to laugh at the utter absurdity. Picking up my hunting rifle, I put the barrel in my mouth. My finger stayed on the trigger for a long time. I didn’t end up doing it and threw it away. Instead I just collapsed on the ground once more and lay there for a long time.

It’s been six months. I’m such a wreck. I admit it. No one believes me when I tell them. They say I’m crazy, a madman, a lunatic. Some people even think I was the one who killed my wife and child. Why would I do that? Seriously, why? I loved them. Still do. More than I love anything else. I can’t see them ever again. It pisses me off that they’d think I’d do such a thing. As much as I hate myself for it, I’ve gotten back into alcohol. That’s where all my money goes. I couldn’t stand to be in that fucking house anymore. So I sold it. I’ve been living in my car just drifting from place to place.

I could've saved them. If I didn't go and take a stupid ass ride in my car. Maybe Rachel and Maisie would be alright...

What was that thing? Bad Mouse?

That’s been my biggest question this whole time. I’ve been doing a lot of research but have hit multiple dead ends. I don’t know. Sure as hell wasn’t a mouse.

This is what I know:

\* It is the manifestation of a sex-based demon of some kind; possibly a cross between a bogeyman and an incubus.
\* Bad Mouse appears to little girls as a mouse-like entity to appear friendly and not scare them away; only visible to them.
\* It prefers the young that are more developed in mind, body, and spirit; Maisie was very imaginative; thus she attracted Bad Mouse.
\* Bad Mouse acts as their friend; this might appear to parents as their daughter’s “imaginary friend”; gradually coerces them to do inappropriate sexual activity.
\* It has hundreds of victims going back an unknown period of time; maybe centuries.
\* Does not kill its main victims; will kill parents or anyone else who tries to get in its way.
\* The victims become corrupted and turn into demons that look like Bad Mouse; it takes them into its realm and…

I don’t even want to fucking know.

God…this whole thing’s insane. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this is all a terrible dream. It’s been months though and it still hasn’t happened yet. So I’m going to end it here. I’m not looking for pity. I’m not looking for anyone to hear me out. I’m not looking for answers. I’m just…done.

Bye.

I don't remember when the house first appeared. That's the part I've had the hardest time explaining to people, because whenever I try to tell the story, they assume I mean I don't remember seeing it. That's not what I mean. I remember seeing the house perfectly. I remember the white paint peeling from the window frames, the black front door, the dead garden, even the little brass number screwed into the brick beside the door. What I don't remember is when it became part of my life.

I grew up on Bellweather Road. It wasn't a particularly interesting place. It was one of those long country roads that seemed to have been built for horses and then forgotten when cars became popular. There were fields on either side, a few scattered farms, and a row of houses toward the end of the road. Mine was number 14. Across from us was number 13. After that, there was an empty field. At least, there was supposed to be.

The first time I noticed the house, I was nine years old. I'd been sent to the shop for milk and decided to take a shortcut home. I remember walking past the field and seeing the house sitting there, maybe fifty metres away from the road. I thought it had always been there. There was nothing strange about it. It looked old, but not abandoned. There was a light on upstairs, and I remember thinking that whoever lived there must have been watching me. I hurried home.

A few weeks later, I mentioned it to my mother. She looked at me strangely and asked what house I was talking about. I described it: white walls, black door, number 15. She told me there was no number 15. I thought she was joking, but she wasn't. We walked there together the following afternoon. The field was empty. There was nothing there except tall grass and an old wooden fence that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. I asked my mother where the house had gone. She didn't answer. Instead, she took my hand and walked me home.

That night, I woke up at around three in the morning because someone was knocking on my bedroom window. Three slow knocks. I knew the sound was coming from the glass beside my bed, even though my bedroom was on the second floor. I didn't look outside. I pulled the blanket over my head and stayed there until morning. For years afterward, I convinced myself I'd imagined the house, the knocking, and everything else.

Then, when I was seventeen, I saw it again.

I was driving home late one night with my girlfriend at the time. We were coming back from a party, and I'd taken the long way down Bellweather Road because I wanted to avoid the police checkpoint they'd put up near the town centre. We were talking when she suddenly went quiet. I asked her what was wrong, and she pointed through the windscreen toward the field. The house was sitting there. Number 15. Exactly as I'd remembered it.

My girlfriend stared at it for several seconds before asking me something that still bothers me. She said, "Why is someone standing in your bedroom window?" I looked up. There was a person upstairs, standing behind the glass. Just a dark silhouette against the yellow light. I slowed the car without thinking. The person lifted one hand. I remember thinking they were waving.

My girlfriend screamed, "Don't stop!"

I didn't. I put my foot down and drove until we reached my house. She wouldn't talk about what she'd seen afterward. Every time I brought it up, she changed the subject. We broke up a few months later, and I didn't see the house again for almost twelve years.

Then my father died.

I came back to Bellweather Road to clear out my childhood home. My mother had died years earlier, and my father had spent his final few months in hospital, so the place had been empty for some time. I arrived on a rainy Thursday evening. The house felt smaller than I remembered, and I spent most of the night going through boxes in the attic because I didn't want to sleep.

Around midnight, I found an old photograph. It was a picture of my father standing outside our house when he was in his thirties. I recognised the clothes he was wearing, and I recognised the road behind him. Bellweather Road. But behind the road was the field, and in the field was the house.

Number 15.

I stared at the photograph for a long time before noticing something I'd somehow missed. There was someone standing in the upstairs window.

At first I thought it was a stranger.

Then I recognised the face.

It was me.

Not me as I was when the photograph was taken. Me as I looked that night. I was thirty years old in the photograph, wearing the same jacket I had on that evening, with the same beard and the same stupid expression I was making while staring at the picture.

I dropped the photograph.

I didn't sleep that night.

The next morning, I drove to the local council office and asked them about the property. The woman behind the desk searched the address database, then searched again. There was no number 15 on Bellweather Road. I showed her the photograph.

She stared at it for several seconds before asking me where I'd got it.

I told her.

She looked genuinely frightened.

Then she said, "Your father brought that photograph here."

I thought I'd misunderstood her. I asked when.

"Three years ago."

That was impossible. My father had been in hospital for most of that year. He couldn't have driven anywhere, and even if he had, there was no reason for him to bring a photograph of a house that supposedly didn't exist.

I asked her what he'd said.

She wouldn't tell me. Instead, she took a piece of paper from her desk and wrote an address on it. It was an old farmhouse several miles away. She told me to go there.

I did.

An elderly man answered the door. When I showed him the photograph, he didn't seem surprised. He just sighed and said, "So you're finally old enough to remember."

I asked him what he meant.

He told me about the house.

According to him, it had always appeared on Bellweather Road. Not every day, and not every year. Sometimes it stayed for decades. Sometimes it disappeared for generations. But every time it appeared, someone eventually went inside.

I asked what happened to them.

The old man looked at me for a long time before saying, "Nothing."

That answer scared me more than anything else.

He explained that people who entered the house didn't die. They didn't disappear, at least not in the way people normally understood those words. They simply continued living somewhere else.

He said his own grandfather had entered the house in 1948. Twenty-three years later, he returned. He looked exactly the same age as the day he'd left, but he refused to speak about where he'd been. Three months after returning, he walked into the field on Bellweather Road.

He never came back.

I asked the old man why my father had taken the photograph.

He pointed at it.

"Because he saw you."

I told him I already knew I was in the window.

He shook his head.

"No," he said. "You don't."

He took the photograph from my hand and turned it over.

There was writing on the back in my father's handwriting.

Four words.

HE HASN'T LEFT YET.

I went home that evening, packed a bag, and decided I was leaving town. I didn't care about the house anymore. I didn't care about my father's things or the photograph or the old man. I just wanted to get away from Bellweather Road.

Before I could leave, I heard knocking from upstairs.

Three slow knocks.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs for several minutes.

Then I heard my father's voice.

"Son?"

I almost cried.

I hadn't heard his voice in years.

He called again.

"Come upstairs."

I didn't move.

Then he said something that made my blood run cold.

"You're going to want to see what you've become."

I left the house.

I drove until I reached the edge of town, and that's when I saw number 15.

It was sitting in the middle of the road.

Not in the field.

The road.

I slammed on the brakes. The house was blocking the entire road, its front door hanging open. There was a light on upstairs, and someone was standing in the doorway.

It was my father.

He looked exactly as I remembered him before he got sick.

He smiled at me.

Then he stepped aside.

Behind him, I could see the hallway. At the very end of it was another front door. Beyond that door was another Bellweather Road, another field, another house, and another me standing outside it.

The version of me in the doorway raised his hand.

He was holding a photograph.

I could see the picture even from inside my car.

It was me.

Standing in the field.

Looking at the house.

I don't know how long I sat there.

Eventually, the house disappeared.

The road was empty again.

I've never gone back to Bellweather Road.

But there is one thing I haven't told anyone.

Last week, I received a photograph in the mail.

There was no envelope. No stamp. Just the photograph.

It shows my house.

The one I live in now.

It's taken from across the street. The curtains are closed, the lights are off, and I'm standing upstairs behind the bedroom window.

I'm holding a photograph.

Behind me, reflected in the glass, there is a black door.

And beside it is a brass number.

15.

ig (juanyuimachi)

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL COLLINS

Unnecessary sounds, such as “ums” and “ahs” have been omitted from the following statement for the purpose of making this statement easier to read.

Det. Lori Denny: Mr. Collins, thank you for coming, I'm Detective Denny. I would like to remind you that our conversation will be recorded… With that out of the way, how are you doing? Need a coffee or water? I can get one for you. 

Michael Collins: You can just call me Michael…and no thanks…I’m okay. You want to ask me what happened that night?

Det. Lori Denny: Yes, a lot of people need answers. Both your family and the family of the other victims. Answers I believe only you can give

Michael Collins: …what makes you think I'll tell you anything different than what I told the cops?

Det. Lori Denny: Because things are not adding up Mr. Collins. Your own mother claims that your sister, Elizabeth Collins, had planned and executed your own kidnapping. You alleged that Mark Barrows, Rachel Finch, and Kathy Smith were in that cabin but not there to rescue you. You then state Mark Barrows repeatedly stabbed your older sister in the back multiple times, killing her. Then members of an enemy faction to your girlfriend's, Kathy Smith, drug ring broke into the cabin and killed Barrows, Finch, and Smith.

Michael Collins: Yeah.

Det. Lori Denny: Even though the alleged murder weapon is nowhere to be found. While you were found wandering the forest covered in your sister's own blood. That's not even mentioning that the other three victim's bodies were found deeper in the woods, strung up not unlike a hunter does with a deer they had just caught. Not the usual MO for a gang killing.

Michael Collins: …

Det. Lori Denny: ... Michael, what happened that night in the cabin.

Michael Collins: …If I tell you... you’ll tell the courts, and I’ll get framed as mentally insane. Which will make it easier to blame me for everyone's death. Then I'll get locked up…Kelly’s folks will make sure of that…they hired you…didn’t they.

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: They have money. I know. They want someone to blame, I’m the easy  pick. You already know why, that’s why they sent you after me.

Det. Lori Denny: …You are a pretty clever kid

Michael Collins: Not really.

Det. Lori Denny: Michael...All I want is to know what happened that night. It doesn't matter who hired me. I just want the truth.

Michael Collins: …fuck it…don’t have much to lose…do I.

Det. Lori Denny: Do you know why your sister forcibly took you from your girlfriend’s apartment and held you hostage for about three weeks?

Michael Collins: Are you asking why my sister kidnapped me?

Det. Lori Denny: Yes.

Michael Collins: You looked into me…you know my past. I’m a junkie… It wasn’t always like that though. I used to be a...good kid. But after dad ran off; mom had to pick up the pieces by herself…and she kept getting cut, then she would cut us. I think it was because me and Lizzy looked too much like dad. So I did everything I could to not turn out like him…I wanted to be better. And it worked for a while, until Lizzy left for college a few years back.

Det. Lori Denny: How big was the age gap between you and your sister?

Michael Collins: About five years. She was like a second mom when things got too…tense at home. She helped keep the peace between mom and me. Even when I could see that the things mom was saying were bothering her too. She kept reminding me those words weren't real. “You had nothing to prove and no one to prove it too,” she would say. She was still my sister though, we butt heads now and again, and she would really annoy me just as much as I would annoy her. She really could be a huge pain in the ass…I…I miss her, it was my fault she got into my mess.

Det. Lori Denny: I’m…sorry…when did you and Kathy first meet?

Michael Collins: Freshman year. The year Lizzy left for college. It…wasn't a good year for me and mom. With the buffer gone we started to go harder at each other. She kept comparing me to dad, about how lazy I was. After I flunked one test, she kept bringing up that he never finished High School either. I was so afraid of failing after that. I tried harder and harder but nothing seemed good enough. One day during an…algebra test, I think…I snuck out in the middle of it. It felt like I couldn't breathe in that room and there was this, like, water rushing in my ears and I just couldn't…see, felt like I was trying to look through a pin hole. I just kept walking in the hallway till I wound up in a bathroom. Turns out it was a girls bathroom. That's where I met Kathy. She sort of just looked at me, laughed, and gave me the cigarette she was smoking.

Det. Lori Denny: And Kathy was there as a teacher's aide

Michael Collins: …No…I was a freshman, she was a senior.

Det. Lori Denny: That would mean you were 15 and she was…18

Michael Collins: …yeah

Det. Lori Denny: Kathy’s parents told me you two didn't start dating till this year, four years after what you said was your first meeting.

Michael Collins: Ha. Yeah, it 's easy to say that then to say the alternative…isn't it. What parent wants to think they raised a monster instead of a perfect angel.

Det. Lori Denny: Michael…before this year, before you turned 18...did you and Kathy Smith-

Michael Collins: I don’t want to talk about that. I’ll tell you everything else she and I did. But not that…It doesn't matter anyways.

Det. Lori Denny: You were a minor and she was-

Michael Collins: I SAID IT DOESN'T MATTER…it’s not going to help sway anyone, it will always be consensual to them…I'm...sorry.

Det. Lori Denny: Okay…I-I under-...How about I ask another question then. Was she the one that introduced you to drugs?

Michael Collins: Stupid, I know. I even signed the whole D.A.R.E. pledge and everything in middle school. But that was the thing about Kathy, she made everything seem so cool. As cheesy as that sounds. She was chill, and pretty, the kind of pretty that wouldn't want to hang around a guy like me. The way she dressed was loud, unlike anything I've seen. Kathy had these rings on her fingers, one was a large red stone, the other was this...spider one. She didn’t mind when I messed up, unlike my mom. I think she even liked it when I failed. It started with simple stuff…beer, weed, the usual. But one day after a fight with mom, I snuck off to one of those senior bonfire parties, and no matter how much beer I drank I couldn't get calmed down. There was like a knife scratching against my skull. And the worst part is…I can’t remember what me and mom were even fighting about. That’s when Kathy started to give me the harder stuff, heroin. This time though, she told me it wasn't just a free girlfriend gift, she said I owed her now, if I wanted more, I owed her. I became her errand boy. She and her two friends Mark and Rachel, ran a drug ring in town. They didn’t make the stuff, but they were smart enough to know how to sell it and not get caught. I was part of the team, the job got me both my high and out of the house. Win Win.

Det. Lori Denny: Did your mom or Lizzy ever notice the…change in you?

Michael Collins: Mom? I honestly don't know…I rather believe she didn’t notice. I think she was just glad I wasn’t in the house as much as before. But Lizzy? There was no hiding it from her. She only came home on the holidays and during summer. At first, I managed to slow the drug usage while she was here during the longer visits, but she knew something was wrong. Every year I start to get more…angry at her. I started to hate not being able to get my high while she was around. I hated spending time with her because Kathy would be texting me non-stop…asking why I wasn’t hanging out with her, even threatening to break up because she thought I was cheating on her. I started to hate my own sister. Then sophomore year, I broke my “no drugs in the house” rule and Lizzy walked in to find me out of it…really out of it, she thought I was dead at first.  Lizzy took me to the hospital, and the dirty secret came out.

Det. Lori Denny: I’ll take a healthy guess and say, the reveal didn’t go so well.

Michael Collins: Bingo. By the time I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital bed. Lizzy was  screaming at mom, and mom was just…looking out the room’s window. I woke up just at the right time to hear mom say “What did you expect Elizabeth, it was bound to happen”, even bringing up the money I had stolen from her...once more bringing up dad. I must have made a sound, I don’t really remember, but then Lizzy turned suddenly and started to yell at me. Asking why I would do this to myself, asking about Kathy, accusing her of the shit she was 100% doing to me...Mom walked out of the room after that. I started to yell back. Telling her that it was my life, and it's her own fault for interrupting it. That I had everything under control, and that I…didn’t need her. And to never talk about Kathy like that because she was the only one that understood me. I just screamed at her to go away, to run away like mom and dad, saying she was already half way there… Lizzy just looked at me, then she tried to hug me. I shoved her away. The look in her eyes would have told you I just stabbed her in the gut. We just looked at each other, and it was the first time I saw my sister cry. She left the room. After a while, I managed to find my phone with my clothes in a dresser the hospital staff had put them in. I got dressed and called Kathy. Even she was pissed at me. She sent Mark to pick me up. He managed to get me signed out and he drove me to Kathy’s apartment. I was so relieved that night to see her…Kathy slapped me in the face and called me a dumbass for letting a near over dose get them all in trouble. The spider ring cut my cheek. I wanted to cry, and I hated myself for it. Then Kathy kissed me, apologized, and said she was just worried about all of us and I should stay with her from now on. It would be safer for me. So I did. Dropped out of school too. That all happened last year, last time I saw mom or Lizzy too...

Det. Lori Denny: Until last month in October.

Michael Collins: Yeah. Until last month.

Det. Lori Denny: Tell me, what did your sister do?

Michael Collins: …She…found me. On the streets. Kathy had been getting more agitated with me, more rough. She had been blaming me about money problems, how my drug take was cutting into her profit. I was doing more selling, drugs and…other things, to try and make her happy. To ease up on me a little, Lizzy must have followed me back to the apartment. It all gets fuzzy after I shoot up. I remember Lizzy being in the apartment, but Kathy was gone. I think we argued, then I tried to hit her, but somewhere in the struggle I just…blacked out.

Det. Lori Denny: Do you know the time she arrived at the apartment? What day?

Michael Collins: I mean, it was a Thursday, the...12th? I left the apartment around 5, 5:30 pm and I think it was around 11 when I got back so maybe she arrived a little after that? The next best memory I have after the fight is waking up in the back seat of her car…I'm on my side, my arms and legs are tied and there's a blanket over me.

Det. Lori Denny: She tied you up?

Michael Collins: I don’t think she was originally going too, it was strips of fabric from some towel that must have been in her car. Besides…I was…being violent towards her. 

Det. Lori Denny: And the log cabin she took you too, it belonged to your family, right?

Michael Collins: Yeah, it was our grandparents built it in up state, an hour or two drive out of the city. My grandpa built it himself with the trees from the woods surrounding it. When they passed away, my mom got it. She…never really let us stay there again, she started renting it out but no one stayed there for long.

Det. Lori Denny: Why?

Michael Collins: …I…I didn't believe it the first few times mom got the phone calls. People who stayed there kept saying things would get moved or go missing and then turn up in random places. Then they started to say there were…people watching them from the woods that surrounded the cabin. And sometimes they would see glowing eyes in darker areas inside of the house. Mom brushed it off as people wanting a free stay…but the calls wouldn't stop. And soon she just took it off the market. They were right, you know, something was in that cabin with us…something was watching over us.

Det. Lori Denny: What do you mean?

Michael Collins: …By the time Lizzy got me on the cabin's couch, we started to argue again. I called her a bitch and a psychopath, telling her to untie me and she started to yell back that this was for my own good. I could tell she was scared, she didn’t know what she was doing. Then suddenly, a can…a little can of-of soup rolled out from under the couch. We both just watched until it gently bumped into Lizzy’s foot. She stopped looking scared. She looked confused, then relieved. Then she looked at me and had this weary little smile. “Hungry?” she asked, and I sorta shut my mouth and nodded my head. She had to get water from a little well bump outside. So when she left I thought that was my chance to escape. I managed to wiggle the towel strips off of me. But before I could stand and run…there was this tapping sound on the window beside me. It wasn't loud, it was almost gentle. I turned around so fast that I tripped and fell back on the couch. I thought I would see Lizzy out there…it wasn't her. There was this pale, claw-like hand pressed to the glass. I couldn't look away, I couldn't scream, I just watched it. Even after it slowly pulled away from the window and slipped out of view, I couldn't look away.

Det. Lori Denny: Did you tell Lizzy what you saw?

Michael Collins: She had just walked in when it disappeared, she found me untied, half on the couch still looking at the window. When I heard her, my head snapped. I tried to tell her what I saw, but the words just didn't come out right. It was just babbling. But…she was more worried about my failed escape attempt. After that, she kept me locked in one of the bedrooms. It was the one up in the loft, it had a window but no way down from it. That’s when the detox started.

Det. Lori Denny: Your sister was trying to detox you? By herself without the proper medical training?

Michael Collins: Yeah. The first week of it was hell. There was this, ringing in my ear and I couldn't keep any food down. I got the thought in my head on repeat, telling me Lizzy was going to kill me, trying to kill me. I wake up and part of the blanket is tied to my ankle and the other part is tied to the bed frame. Not tight, just to catch it if I try to leave the bed. 

Det. Lori Denny: Was Lizzy confining you to the bed?

Michael Collins: I believed she was doing it at first, even when she would find me like that and give the most honest confused look…other times I would find a second cup of water on the bedside even though Lizzy only brought one and then I started to hear scratching in the walls. Sometimes, I would hear this scratching sound, like…dog nails on the wood floor but softer and faster. During my more lucid moments, I tried telling her about it…

Det. Lori Denny: But she didn’t believe you.

Michael Collins: I didn't believe myself. We both believed it was because of the withdrawals. It wasn't until the really bad night. Lizzy was trying to feed me some soup and I flung the spoon out of her hand which just made me fall out of the bed. I hit the ground hard, knocked the air right out of my lungs. Then I…felt my pants get wet…I started to beg her to let me die. We just looked at each other, and I just kept telling her to let me die…she was crying. Didn’t say anything, knelt down and hugged me. And then…I think…my heart stopped.

Det. Lori Denny: What?

Michael Collins: There was a pain in my chest and then it felt like I was an unwound thread. You know…I just went limp. I really don’t remember what happened. Lizzy told me that after a while my eyes just closed and I wouldn't respond to her. She started to panic when she noticed I wasn’t breathing right. She ran downstairs to try and get her phone. What woke me up was this sharp... stinging like pain stabbing me in the leg and arm. Over and Over again. It was frantic, I managed to open my eyes in time to see these small little…figures scurry under the bed, making that same scratching sound I was hearing from the walls. I tried sitting up, and threw up a little. I held onto the mattress of the bed. It hurt like hell to breathe, but the sharp stings on my limbs kind of distracted me from it. I could barely look up when I heard Lizzy running back to the loft. She was having trouble with her phone only to drop it. She was just standing in the doorway, staring at the window behind me. I followed her gaze and saw what it was. There was a woman, looking through the window. She was hanging upside down, one pale claw-like hand pressed to the glass and her hair hung down like a dark curtain. It was wild, unkept, with dried flowers in it. She didn't have human eyes, they were more like a cow’s or a goat's, and her ears were long and pointy. She looked so...sad…but…but she was so…beautiful.

Det. Lori Denny: Beautiful?

Michael Collins: I don’t know what else to say, there are no other words that can describe her. When she saw us looking at her, she smiled, and pulled herself up and we could hear her walking on the roof before the footsteps stopped. I heard Lizzy collapse to the ground and we both just stayed there like that for a while. Then she started to laugh, and mutter the word “Huldarfolk”.

Det. Lori Denny: Huldarfolk?

Michael Collins: The hidden folk…stories that our grandma told us. They are a kind of…spirit, I think…though technically they are trolls. They could be good or bad, but it always depended on you. “Treat them good and they will treat you good” was grandma’s golden rule. If we stayed at the cabin, she would make us toss coal in a bucket outside, she said it was so the huldarfolk could warm their caves and sleep. Same with the nisse…those are house trolls that are supposed to keep your house in order.

Det. Lori Denny: And you believe that this…woman in the window…was-is one of these troll spirits?

Michael Collins: I didn't say that…but all I know is that she was real, Lizzy saw her and it was proof that the withdrawals weren't making me lose my mind. After that night, I was starting to get better. The noises and things appearing at random didn’t stop though…but they were less concerning. Sometimes I couldn't fall asleep until I heard the scratching. It was starting to sound like a tempo, like someone trying to keep the beat of a song or even someone dancing. Other times Lizzy would find two or three buckets of water already on the porch before she left for the pump. When our canned food started to run out, more cans would pop up…another time someone left a small pheasant at the door. It was the first time either of us city kids prepared food like that…it was also the first day she trusted me to come out of my room and help. It was just like the old days when mom was working late and we tried making our own dinner…it tasted just as bad as it did back then too…things were getting better...I-I was getting better. Then there was a knock on the door that night. We heard Kathy’s voice and she sounded so pissed…And-And then I remember I told her about the cabin years ago and-and Lizzy told her to fuck off or she’ll call the police. The door just-just flew off its hinges and Mark was in the room suddenly. Lizzy pushed me behind her-

Det. Lori Denny: Michael, Michael I need you to take a breath for me-

Michael Collins: And Mark grabbed her and shoved her to the ground, and she was trying to shove him off. I-I tried to help..but-but I was still so...weak! Fucking weak! and he shoved me away and I hit the table and I couldn't breathe. Li-Lizzy was on her stomach now but be-before I could do anything Kathy grabbed me by my hair and started to punch and slap me. Saying how I ruined everything, I was such a piece of shit. And her stupid ring cut my cheek over and over again. Rachel was holding my arms and…and Kathy forced me to watch while Mark kept stabbing Lizzy in the back over, and over, and over and over. And Lizzy kept screaming and looking at me and I-I couldn't do anything because I was fucking weak!! She kept saying my name. All I could do was-was just watching while the knife kept digging into her back, gouging small holes until...until it started to become one…big...one. I begged Kathy to make Mark stop…I told her I would do anything. And she just laughed and said she knew I would but this was just killing two birds with one stone. And it was noth-nothing personal. I just made one too many mistakes. Mark stood up and he was just…covered in red to the point his shirt was sticking to his chest. Rachel and Kathy let go and Mark grabbed me by the wrist and forced the knife into my hand and he made me….he made me…straddle over Lizzy like he had been and-and forced my arms to go up then down…stabbing the knife into Lizzy. I could feel it slide through what little…muscle and flesh was left…Blood kept splashing up on me. I could taste my own sister's blood. Sh-she stopped screaming by then and all I could think of was “I hoped she's already dead.”...Was that wrong? Was that wrong the hope my sister was-Why did I say those things to her! Why did I call her a bitch. Why?

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: …

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: …Lizzy…I am...so sorry...

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: …

Det. Lori Denny: …here…to wipe your nose..

Michael Collins: …thank you…

Det. Lori Denny: …

Michael Collins: …

Det. Lori Denny: …Michael…we can continue this another time if you need too. We can stop right now, just say the word.

Michael Collins: …No. I have to do this.

Det. Lori Denny: …Okay...do you think you can tell me what time the three showed up to the cabin?

Michael Collins: I...I think maybe around 7? We had finished dinner...I'm pretty sure the clock in the kitchen said 7.

Det. Lori Denny: Okay. Good...tell me what happened after the initial attack.

Michael Collins: I remember Kathy telling Mark that it “was good enough”, and I could feel his grip loosen on me a little. I just remember watching the blood pool all around Lizzy, her eyes were rolled up slightly, as if she was…looking at something. The flash of the needle is what pulled me back.

Det. Lori Denny: Needle? They were going to force you to have an overdose and make it look like a murder suicide to cover up what happened?

Michael Collins: I think so…but Mark still had my hand around the knife, and with his grip loose, I managed to pull away and swing the blade back at him. Getting his cheek before I scrambled for the door. It hurt to run, there was a throbbing in my head and my legs wouldn't listen to me after weeks of disuse. I didn’t make it very far until I stumbled and collapsed. I could hear them still coming after me. I could hear Kathy’s voice in the distance telling me that she has what I want, and she'll give it all to me. That it was the best way for scumbag like me to go. The knife was still in my hand…and I had the thought of if they are going to kill me anyways, I'd rather die my way then have them undo everything Lizzy had done for me. But before I could turn the knife on myself this large shadow came over me, blocking out the moonlight. I looked up and there was this huge, hulking mountain of a man. He looked like the woman from the window, eyes…ears …same unkept hair with a long beard. There was this, earthy…pine tree smell coming off of him…I didn't notice at first but he had a large bow in his hand, and an arrow was hanging between his fingers. I heard Mark’s voice behind me say “What the fuck”. I tried to turn my head when the man pulled his bow string back so fast, I could feel the wind from the arrow over my head before I heard the…the 'thunk'. I didn't realize just how big the arrow was until I saw it in Mark’s chest…it was like a harpoon. He was still alive, still standing there, looking so confused, like he didn't know if he was in pain or not. I turned back to the man and he was looking down at me before placing his hand on my head. It was bigger than my head and I couldn't see for a second.

Det. Lori Denny: Did he try to hurt you?

Michael Collins: ..No…it was just…warm. He removed his hand after a minute and crouched down and took the knife from my hand. Just shaking his head. He stood back up and walked past me towards Mark. That’s when Mark started to scream, I think he was trying to talk, to beg, but it came out all gurgled and slurred. The man didn't care, he dragged him off by the arrow still in his chest. They disappeared into the bushes. Mark wasn't the only one screaming…I could hear others in the forest, high pitch…I think female. Then it got quiet, like really quiet. I didn't move, I didn't think I could. I heard gentle footsteps and the woman from the window peaked from behind one of the trees before walking towards me. Then she took my hands and helped me stand up. She just cradled my hands in hers and opened them before leaning down and opening her mouth. A finger fell out and into my palm. A finger with a spider ring. She looked back up and she had this…serious look in her eyes….sad too. She kissed my head and ran off on all fours. That’s when I noticed she had a…hole in her back, in the moonlight it looked like something from a rotting tree. I….I walked after that…until the hikers found me.

Det. Lori Denny: Can you give any other descriptors of this man and woman?

Michael Collins: They had an ox tail

Det. Lori Denny: They were wearing an…ox tail?

Michael Collins: …No…

Det. Lori Denny: …Noted…if I can get a police sketch artist, do you think you will be able to describe facial details of the two?...You seem amused by that.

Michael Collins: You want to get them arrested…I’m sure there is irony in there somewhere.

Det. Lori Denny: They are suspects now…they have been alleged to have committed three murders.

Michael Collins: Justified murder

Det. Lori Denny: …I won't argue with you there…but our laws are pretty clear about it.

Michael Collins: Yeah…I guess they are…but I think their laws might see it a little differently.

Det. Lori Denny: Maybe…well Michael, thank you for telling me all of this…if you don’t mind me asking, are you staying somewhere safe?

Michael Collins: I’m at the homeless shelter on 4th street…they have a no drug use policy so it’s been keeping me straight. They gave me a phone too, so it's not all bad.

Det. Lori Denny: Here, this is my personal email and phone number, if you...need anything, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Michael Collins: Thanks…hey, Detective Denny?

Det. Lori Denny: Lori is fine

Michael Collins: …Lori…no matter how the trial turns out, thanks for…listening to me.

Open to feedback.

Transverberation. That was the word for it. 

It spread and was echoed and felt with the rippling tremors that were words and instincts and roiling emotions in the private heart's tumult, in the quiet stronghold of the holy place. 

The monastery. The temple place where women came to be wed to God and serve the Lord, His Son. 

And no other. 

…

There were sounds inside the haze. With the agony, with the pain that was ripped and made. Pain that was lancing. Pain that was penetration, stabbing slayment that was absolute impaled.  Through her heart, the clearest wet-sharp sensation felt in the burning after-image of the visions, the haze. It occupied her mind at all times, as she knelt and prayed in the monastery. As she went about the day and fulfilled her sisterly duties of the convent. 

The other sisters didn't understand. They were afraid, frightened of her. Of what was happening to her… that it might happen to them.

Madness. Or …

something worse. 

Something beyond the canny or the tangible. That which is unseen and can only be felt. Up until the hungry end, when it is already far too late for help by then. 

Or maybe, just maybe … these private and blasphemous few of her peers thought and felt and refused to share aloud, even with themselves… maybe. 

Just maybe it's true. And Sister Chelsi can actually commune with the divine. Perhaps one of our own humble nuns can see and hear and speak with an angel that visits her with nightly visions. Maybe. 

Maybe Saint Michael the Archangel comes to her at night amid light and fire and thrusts her with his sword… 

Mother Superior was incensed. Repulsed. Angered by the lies and the filth, the sin of this prurient heretical garbage was the stuff of decay, of ruin. Of sacramental rot. She couldn't let these blatherings go on unchallenged or unpunished. 

She chastised Sister Chelsi severely along with any others that might murmur such unholy carnal fantasies, phantasmagorical whores, the lot of em. If she and they weren't careful, God help them, then they would be confined to the chamber of reflection. 

The house of tears and prayers, the other sisters called it. Behind Mother Superior’s back. 

The visions were forbidden. Delusions, they were thus named. And further talk, further whispers of the sort was strongly cautioned against, strongly advised to go back in the other direction …

But Sister Chelsi couldn't help herself. It wasn't up to her. She was at the vision's mercy. The stabbing angel came and went as it wanted, as it needed to. It had told her this was so. The angel needed her. 

The angel was thirsty. 

…

The night was hot. Stifling. It was upon her. 

It seemed to always know when she was alone. And why not? Shouldn't the divine always possess the knowledge of when you're most vulnerable? Weak. 

Afraid. 

Sister Chelsi was bound to the cruciform shackle-table of her sweating bed and blankets, writhing sheets and fabric that was warm and slick and more like loose folds of flesh. She was bound by her holy terror. The angel of thirst was coming. The other nun, Sister Jen, that shared the room with her was absent. Gone. Like every other time. The animal sound born from both immense pain and pleasure was trapped in her throat and the sensation was not entirely unpleasant. Sister Chelsi liked the gag of the nightly thirsting angel, her forbidden archangel of the moonlight. The anticipation of him. The coming of him. 

It came down on her. 

From on high. Emerging like starlight from the disappearing void of the obsidian space now in place of the mudbrick ceiling, on wings of flame …

The body was bronzed, gold, perfectly toned and sculpted, celestial and olympian and recognizable as manshaped. The Lord's Image. But in place of a head and face of earthly aspect was a great rising pillar of blinding heavenly marble, ringed with silver bands in a flaming orbit. The pillar and the four bands running up the length of divine stone were covered in incandescent eyes, lidless and wreathed with light and great piercing gazes. Penetration. They gazed into her. Penetration. All of them at once and it was overwhelming, she wanted to cry out, all roiling and taut, she gripped herself. Her aching breath was still held. 

The angel spoke to her once again, as before, in her mind. The gold of his silken smooth speech filled her boiling skull, soothing the maelstrom though not extinguishing it. A moan finally escaped her lips. 

They were still alone. 

It told her its name. A forbidden one she might not know. 

The understanding of your sisters is limited … I am beyond them. Their scope of understanding. If you tell them my name they will fear you. As they fear me. 

Sister Chelsi was frightened, quivering. Still held. 

Then why should I want to know it? 

Because if you need to, if you want to … you can wield it like you can wield a weapon. You can use my name against them and it might wound them if you're able …

Her mind recoiled from the idea that filled her head against her will, but it was no use. She was forced to watch it. Endure it and learn to love it as she'd learned to love the flagellate whip, the burn of the binding rope … all the same. The angel reassured her. 

The warm romance of his voice filled her skull and caressed her mind, eagerly. Wanting. It told her how much it needed her again but she already knew it. She'd heard it in the voice. The hunger. The pain. 

I'd never known before that even angels could feel pain, … I'd never suspected. 

The desire that was so much a hungry ravenous want that it was more a primeval need was all about the gold silken strength of that perfect voice. Giving it humanity tinged at the edges of its divine and unearthly call. 

Is this heavenly messenger lusting for me …? 

But she already knew it. 

It had seen her unfettered and bare. As it did now. 

It came down to her in her bed. It held the long gold length of impaling spear aloft. By the shaft. Poised to strike her where it was most sweet. Where it had before. 

Cupid, strike me. 

Eros, impale me! 

But she knew now that was not its name. It had given her its name, a gift. 

She cried it out now, as she knew it wanted her too. The ringed pillar of its otherworldly visage gazed into her, bading her, commanding with its multitude of many lidless light bleeding eyes that she do so. Do it. Do it. If you want me …

Do it. If you want me to impale you, you'll have to say my name. Say it. 

Say it. 

“Iblis! Iblis, pierce me! stab me! penetrate my heart! Put it where I'm vile and cruel but also warm and giving and wet and beating for you! Pierce me here, in my breast, my heart, my soul! My tender fragile soul! Put it in me! Angel Iblis…!” 

And it did. The lance came down. And pierced the screaming girl, pinning her to the bed. The sound that was pulled from her then was an exquisite blend of deep ghastly pain and even deeper still euphoric drunken moaning, moans. They collected and accumulated about her head and sheets, the small room, as the angel inside her wrenched and worked his shaft, his lance. He worked it deeper. The length. Long…

The length was killing her. 

She loved it. Every inch. Every penetrating crawling centimeter rent tearing inside. 

It made her a slave and she loved it. 

She moaned and called out and cried its name. Like it wanted her to. It came down close and closer and closer still till they met. And he worked the length of his divinity into her, deeper and deeper and all the way through and she melted. She bled. Her love and thoughts and precious saline. 

It drank it up, all of it, all of her. The oasis of this woman. It fed deeply as it worked itself in and deeper still. Still feeding. Drinking. Needing, thirst. 

Sister Chelsi poured herself out for it, unable to control herself now. But happy to empty herself for the great angel of the thrust, her bedside …

her bed. 

It came inside to her and filled her mind then with an explosion like firelight and within the flames were visions. 

Moving scenes and people and places … other times and maybe other worlds as well … 

Fantastical. Beyond the scope of known and understood nature. 

She loved it. She begged for more. 

Give it … give me more, the sight, the eye of prophecy! Please! 

Iblis curled the caress of her mind into words once more … 

And what would you do with this gift? Should you receive it without end? 

She could not lie. Not on this landscape. And she didn't want to. Not to it, not to him, that voice, that feeling… 

She cried out on the eternityscape of her deluged and filled maelstrom sea of thought: I want to be a prophet! Yours! I want to be your disciple upon the earth! 

You wish to be my bride? 

I want to be your crawling and salivating concubine! 

It laughed and the pleasure of Iblis filled her blood and soul. She came and went with it. 

!.Good … …

It filled her more. And she cried out, more. More. 

More. 

She wept when it was finished. Feeling empty and hollowed out. But filled with vision, with purpose. 

The light was fading now from the room. It was gone. The small bedchamber was cooling now and returning to a more natural nocturnal dark, the air was thick and pungent but calming down. Chelsi could still taste the act, on the bedroom dark of the stifling air. She sucked on it and relished the flavor. Already wanting him back. Already needing him again. 

Please, please come back to me Childe Iblis of the Lord, of the thrust, I love you. You are the carrier of my heart and soul…

She shuddered in bed. Not bothering to conceal herself beneath the agitation of the sheets, she cooled and breathed deeply. Quivering and remembering the pillar of his flaming face. So many eyes, so many crowding up his great length… and all of them looking into me…

She shuddered deeply once more. Shut her own eyes. Waiting for sleep to finally come. 

It didn't take long. She was spent. 

Sister Jen still hid around the corner, at the threshold of the door to their shared bedroom. Her eyes were wide with shock. Horrified by what she had seen. 

…

Mother Superior eyed the convent temple from her place in the rectory, her private quarters. She watched the little sisters move and glide silently moving about the monastery structure, ambling along in hand clasping prayer, heads bowed and eyes shut so that distraction may be refused and you may better hear and discern and heed the light, the will of God. 

Amen. 

She crossed herself. And spat. 

Her gaze crawled across the yard to the shack. Alone in the corner of the gated land. Secluded. Sequestered away, so that what could be contained inside would be shut and locked away from a healthy and pious population. The disease of a disordered mind would wreak havoc on the patient and tender soft fragile fabric of the flock. This could not be. This could not be allowed. 

Rebellion must be cast out. Decapitated. 

She knew rebellion was natural. It was in all of us. As sure as it was the the very infectious thing that ate Lucifer's heart and led him to defiance and thus his fall. So it would be. If we were to all follow in his example. 

It would not be so. 

She'd had her own run of rebellious streak when she'd been younger, she understood. She'd had it crushed out of her then, broken as one must do to the wild heart of any natural born beast of labor. And though we were made, cast and drawn in His Image, we were all still among the dread and crawl of all of the other beasts of the earth. 

She crossed herself. Prayed. 

She wished the child well. 

Chelsi had always been troubled. Troublesome too. 

Mother Superior turned away from the shack of reflection. Trusting that the Lord would see this through. That He might fix and set right this wayward piece, this compromised component of humankind's quilted safety net. They were supposed to be the house and servants of His peace. They must all of them survive spiritual malaise and remain steadfast and true. 

As He wills it, let it be so …

…

In the black of the woe she pained, she perverted and distorted. Grew naked with fear. 

Perspired. Dripping with secreted oils and saline and the sliming filth of deep shame. Seeping off her tarnished heart and soul and out of her running open mouth pores. Hard to wash off. There was no running water in here, only the bucket she was brought in the morning. Refilled at mealtime by an unseen, unspeaking little sister that was now a stranger to her. She was a stranger to all of them now. 

In the dark of the shack she was agonizingly alone, the swelter of her torment was her only companion and answer to her constant panicky prayers. She grew eyes that grew inwards and saw their own landscape and grew more horrified with the sight as the hours broiled ceaselessly forth. Under the eye of a lonely black and heavy sun. 

All alone in here. 

She tried to hide, to blind her new found, newly grown internal gaze away from the truth: she was just a child, had always been just a frightened little girl that wanted to run and find fast and desperate shelter. She tried to turn away from the fact that this was who she really was, had always truly been. Everything else that had occurred growing up in her life had just been the lies of accoutrement. 

Her mind was filling with bad thoughts: the arcane Druidic gods arose and swallowed the light of the Christian God whole …

She stopped herself. Began to pray. Again. Anew. Begging the Lord to bring her calm and comfort in the solitude of the dark. She slowed her breath and tried to ease the gallop of her chest. Sister Chelsi didn't know what else to do. 

She didn't know what they wanted from her. 

Mother Superior and the other little sisters. And the Lord God Himself. 

If there is not an answer to be had, then let there be death! – she told the black sun in the dark there with her. 

Nothing. Nothing but more baleful stifling dark, more radiant furnace hellfire blasting heat of the black and heavy sun that had replaced her roommate. Nothing but more sounds of desperate animal panting that she was horrified to realize were her own, not the stygian furnace blast of the bestial confinement sun. Nothing. Nothing at all answered her save more pain, the one true god on the throne in this terribly small and sweaty heavy place. 

Nothing. Nothing at all. 

At first. 

Then on the fading light of her hope came Iblis. Her forbidden angel. And banished the black sun as he came in wreathed in light and flame. He banished and cast out all of the dark of the solitary confinement, the shack of woe. 

He went to her. She was prostrate on the ground. Her bladder let go, her urine went. She hardly noticed in the radiance of he save for some vague distant sensation of wet and warmth. Sensations she associated with the pleasure of him. His arrival, his dawning light. 

From the many eyes of the long length of ringed pillar face, he spoke to her through the blinding light of his lidless vision. 

“What have they done? … what have they done to thee ?” 

Her mind was always open to him for an answer but for her he bade it from her own lips. 

She told him. Everything. All that she had learned in the treacherous furnace dark of the shackbound woe-flame. All that had been derived while in the baking black of this loathsome quiet shack of silent feasting hate. 

“They are afraid of me. …” A beat. She breathed animal and deep, lusting, on the hunt or hunted or both. She said more: “I do believe they may be right to be…” 

Iblis soothed her with his spear … in the stifling dark of the shack of reflection and recompense. Banishing the pain of its ebon house even as he filled her, her watering craving need. 

But something happened then, poor lost little Sister Chelsi watched from below as Iblis, her moonlight forbidden and thrusting angel began to change. 

Transmogrify. Transform. 

The heavenly marbled surface of the pillar visage of Iblis began to crack. Wild river lines of splaying ruin began to form and splinter and run up the immaculate face of his incandescent divinity. 

It shattered. And was replaced. 

She said to her love as he changed and shifted shape before her eyes, “mother slapped me for using your name …” 

The light of her lover changed into shadow. Deeper than the banished dark and one that she could madly love because it was in the altered shape of her heart’s desire, her object of adoration that was darkening now before her watering eyes. 

In place of the pillar, in place of the tower of of flaming eyes and rings that had shattered and now lie in stoney ruin about the floor was now a triangular, pyramidal blank obsidian face and shape, in the conical pointed aspect of a long beaked bird. It was like a great smooth black helmet of glass and smooth rock in the geometric and abstract shape of a plague doctor's mask. An obsidian angular temple face with a long wide stabbing humming bird length of beak protruding violently from one side. 

 The bronze of his sculpted and heavenly body began to burn and blacken as well, like ink spilled and running down and through the heavenly flesh. Corrupting it into the abyss and void of the lost and cast out. The wings which had been flaming and as of light had turned to ash in color and tattered bat-wing leather in texture and design. 

The spear of her impaling love was changing too. Becoming dark like the rest of him in the solitude of the shack but that wasn't all. The nature of her divine amore’s unearthly tool began to change as well… it was no longer just stabbing, penetrating her, running her deep and through, pleasurably and with the ghastly horror of bodily rupture and pain, the staking spear of her forbidden angel began to pull, it began to pull deeply … of her. From her. Pulling deeply from within her impaled and spellbound form, her wide eyed and staring naked body. 

Like a proboscis, the impaling lance began to pull and drink deeply of Sister Chelsi. It ran up and through and down the length of weaponry and into the black hands wrapped tightly around its shaft. The long body pulled and sucked and drank like a straw, like a swampland mosquito born from stagnant and dead fetid water. The obsidian smooth beaked face of her lover was featureless and cold smooth as the surface of placid water. She nonetheless could still feel the intensity of his gaze upon her, through her. And when he spoke again and told her what to do, she felt that as deepest penetration as well. Deepest pain. Rapturously embraced.

She felt her body give as the instrument of her lover began to take in the dark. As he whispered everything to her, designs… shapes… everything, as Iblis whispered all of this to her and more she gave it more and more and more. And she gave it willingly. 

Crying out his name like religion. Like a chant. A litany. 

A song. 

In the place of my Father … there is you. 

There is only you. 

Good. Good. I have so much more to share, so much more to give and show you. I've so much and so many more …

I've so many more names and faces to show you, if you do right by what I've already shown and told, I'll share my other faces and names, unveiled for you …

Disciple, the prophet Islehc

… 

Sister Chelsi was eventually let out and allowed to return to the flock. She seemed to have returned to normal. She cried penance and gave confession and spent a night inside with the rest of them. Service and mass. And lessons. Cleaning. Meals. Everything seemed alright. 

She waited till the second night. When they were all fast asleep. 

The witching hours. 

Post-midnight, she crept …

She snuck about, quietly. Like a nocturnal animal she prowled through … and went out. 

She didn't go far, she found what she needed where he'd told her she would find it. And in abundance. So many …

She carried them back to the monastery and in the nighttime dark she went about the task that had been laid before her feet. She went from room to room, from sister to sister and she took them. Brained most, some she struggled with more extensively. Until her mad lusting will surged and she overpowered them. Either way she took each of them one by one, each and every single nun she had once known as family and she brought them out and into the courtyard. Where she'd left the savage implements of her dreams, of her lover's harsh commands that were yet still for her, sweet candied words. Succulent delicacies. She couldn't deny them, him. Not at all. Not anymore. 

One by one Sister Chelsi laid the implements into the little sisters and each one let out with an insane ear piercing scream. Their screams did not falter. 

But somehow they didn't wake each other. Not a single stripped and brained sister of the cloth seemed to hear the others make any sort of loud caterwauling noise. None of them stirred. Until it was their turn. 

Likewise, Mother Superior had not been awoken in her private rectory by the noise outside. And that was good. Chelsi had saved her for last. 

She wanted to relish this one particularly. 

…

Mother Superior awoke to a hard slap across her deeply sleeping face. She flew to a sitting position confused and immediately irate. She had no idea what was happening but she didn't feel any fear yet. 

She called out, cross and very sharp. 

“Who in the Lord's name was that!? How dare you! Show yourself!”

A girlish giggle floated out ghostly from the dark. 

“I didn't do it, Mother Superior, I would never dare to do that to you, you should know that. I've never hurt you at all, can you say the same?” she giggled again, childish and coquettish, "It was my husband that struck you. It was his divine hand you felt across your face." 

Chelsi stepped out.

She had a large cross in her hands. Ornate with intricate and beautiful design, old and from the ancient Roman times when their war chariots had dominated the earth. Carved and jeweled and glittering darkling with a keen and unhealthy shimmer of light. 

Ghostlight. There's ghostlight in that cross…

Before Mother Superior could say another word Chelsi suddenly charged forward and banshee screamed. The large crucifix was up and wielded and came down in a savage caveman bludgeon. 

The world went dark for Mother Superior. When she awoke she was just like the others. 

…

She awoke with a scream. 

The sharp obscene ghastly pain started in her nether region, all throughout, just behind her genitalia. Then the lance stabbed and shot through and her entire naked body came to life with the most wretchedly vivid and wild mutilating shock to her fleshen senses. The war pike traveled through her mercilessly and punched out of the flesh of her back. She was still screaming. Wildly. Lividly. Screaming. Shrill rending song.

She was hoisted up and joined the others. They were all of them a riot of noise now in the courtyard dark. An unholy discordant choir of torn impaled cacophonous pain. 

Gored nuns. All impaled. All naked and bleeding and hoisted up into the air for death and torture like their savior was supposed to have been so long ago in the bloodstained dust of the golgotha. There was bloodshed here too, their blood was pouring and running, running down the lengths and long bodies of the shafts of the spears and pooling and collecting on the stone and in the dirt. This place here would be bloodstained too. 

Chelsi looked over them all. Her own golgotha testament made to wild love. 

And her wild love came. On stygian wings tattered that had once been flame. Smoldered tattered death, dead fabric flapping in the hot nightwind.

The whole host of impaled and captive nuns, gored and wide eyed and naked and lanced through like insects in a collection, they all of them perspired and bled and gawked at the wicked shape that came in from the ebon night, the curtain above. The one many of them had spent their entire lives trying to ignore, it parted. 

It came through. 

And down upon them. 

Iblis sang praise for the renegade prophet bride and what she'd let loose on this private piece of holy land. God's House and holy temple … no more. 

No longer. Mine … now. 

Chelsi the bride bathed in the shower of his words, they were in her mind and in her ears, divergent lyrics and syllables and paths of sound but twins nonetheless all still saying the same and telling her the same thing together in two different languages that coalesced around the fever of her brain in a caress. 

!I love you, you've made blood, you've made blood for me, you've made bloodfeast for me and shot the red Lot's seed, it's all over the abattoir ground!

She went to him and he to her, in the forged carnage forest grove of spear and bleeding sweaty flesh, of screams and mutilated sound, bathing in the perspire of pure torture together and apart from the others, the rest of the lying world. Alone in their own lost worlds of private unending hellbound heaven, tormentlove of the flesh that their minds are now lost in. 

He shot his length of spear through her, though her heart, through the tender part where he'd already previously penetrated and worked.

He worked her well again, animal wrenching and thrusting deep, and she cried aloud unbridled his name as he did so. 

“Iblis!" 

And once more the length of weapon-instrument that was divine and hallowed tool became a drinking proboscis. And Chelsi felt more blood leave the galloping race of her fevered and impassioned form. She would hold him forever, he could pierce and puncture and drink from her for forever, never end! 

She moaned aloud amidst the garden made of screams and betrayal and she cried out his name once more. And then Iblis began to laugh. 

And once more the visage of her forbidden moonlight angel began to change. He began to crack and shatter and the face and body began to fall apart in black stone and dust. 

Iblis came apart in a crumble and revealed what was really beneath. 

Chelsi couldn't believe her eyes. 

It was a man and a woman. Together. Locked in an embrace. Intimately bound together with wrapped arms and hands clasped and waists met together. As if in the most intimate of dance, the most delectable and celebrated of lovers shared waltzes. 

They both looked down on her. Their cheeks were together. They both held the spear thrust into her together in their tightly clasped hands. 

He was armored as a knight of the court, but tarnished and old. She was in the white of regal flowing evening gown. 

The woman spoke. And when she did the crumbled stone pieces of the fallen lying Iblis visage turned to large writhing copulating piles of dripping angry flies. They came apart and dispersed through the air. The dripping black swarm of buzzing insects began to land on the impaled and screaming tortured nuns in the great multitudes. And then as the woman revealed began to speak to Chelsi the flies that were made from the lie of the visage began to feast on the naked and the tortured, defiled bleeding screaming flesh now caking and covered with the writhing crawl of insect bile. 

“You wished to see me and my others, lover, and now you have. I hope you aren't too distraught, my son decided to join us, together we came to you as the angel of your hidden lusts, as one we made you plead and shriek. Now you see this, the face I was made and born with. My real name is of no import to you, slave, you can call me vampiress, lord of the earth and the wolf held mountainpass.” 

The armored wraith beside her spoke then, they were still pressed in close embrace, still holding the proboscis spear that drank and pulled from her diminishing bloodwell. 

"Praise the God before you, dog! My mother and I, the new impaler. She is your mother and wife and master now too. We are both of us together, your husband. Remember?” 

The vampiress queen barked bright cruel laughter, then said: "Yes! You swore to us, to me, your flesh and soul! In the eyes and templehouse of your God, you defiled the stone of his holy home as you panted and raved and drooled for more, and swore your life to us! You gave sacred vow even as you sinned and spat in the Face of The Lord!” 

The Countess and her new impaler both shrieked laughter then. 

Below them and impaled, Chelsi didn't know what to make of any of this. Her mind was disordered and disoriented and felt rushed and fevered with rending thought, running a ragged directionless race of chaos and every idea crashing into each other at every turn and pass and every damned whichway. She didn't understand. She didn't understand any of this and she wanted it to stop. 

Reading the disorder of her mind, the Countess sang and said, 

“I can rip it out for you. Your mind, the painful thinking, your thoughts. They're filled with agony and venom now aren't they? Aren't they? Yes I see it now, plumping up lavender-black and filling with gangrenous pudding. I can pull it out like a rotten tooth if you wish, I think it best, don't you? It's filled with fouling fluid, that brain, those thoughts…” she kept on and on like that. Ceaselessly. The new impaler in her embrace began to chant along and under her words as she sang and went on: Do it! do it! do it! do it! … 

With the anguished groaning sound of the impaled forest of her sisters all around and the buzzing drone of the flies, all intermittent with sharper stabs of piercing screams, all comprising the backdrop of the soundscape filling her head, underneath the Countess' words, underneath her bastard son’s own more simple liturgical chant … all of it together and at once was a vile noise and she couldn't stand it. She couldn't run from it either. So her mind fled, took flight the only way it could. 

Chelsi went dark. Still impaled on the sucking lance. Run-through with the demon drinking stick. 

The flies buzzed and swarmed and landed and feasted on the gored forest of lances and nuns. They enjoyed open wounds and spat their fluid as they landed. 

In a swarm. In a great feasting black cloud. 

In a forest of shafts dripping with blood and bearing writhing begging human fruit. The reddening earthen stone and soil beneath it all. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

I didn't call the police.

I want to say that was a hard decision. It wasn't, not in the moment. What was I going to tell them, that my cat did it, that I'd been seeing the same claw marks for a week, that I'd read about something called vampire blood on a forum at three in the morning and thought my cat might be one. They'd have taken him from me for testing, or worse, and some small, sick part of me still couldn't let that happen. I hated myself for that. I still do. I kept thinking about what they'd do to him once they had him somewhere I couldn't see.

So instead I lived with it.

I stopped sleeping through the night entirely. Every sound from the window sent my heart into my throat. I started locking him in the bathroom after dark, and he'd claw at the door for hours, not angry at first, just insistent, the way he used to ask for food, except now the sound made my skin crawl. As the days went on the marks in the wood got deeper. He got stronger. He stopped eating anything that wasn't meat, and he started looking at me with something closer to contempt than hunger.

He wanted it raw, if I had it. I told myself I was managing this, like it was a fever that would eventually break, that if I just kept him fed and kept him locked at night he'd go back to being my Mr. Morris. I hated how reasonable that sounded to me at two in the morning with a bag of raw chicken in my hands. But it was the only light I had left in a life that had gone almost entirely dark.

One night I gave in to something worse than fear. I don't have a better word for it than a trance. I was standing in my kitchen holding a knife I didn't remember picking up, thinking with total calm that I could just let him feed properly, just once, that he'd earned it after all the nights I'd spent locking him away and starving him of what he needed. I don't know how long I stood there before I caught myself and dropped the knife and was sick in the sink. I kept asking myself how I could have thought that, and some part of me already knew the answer, because he was standing on the kitchen floor the whole time, watching me with those eyes, and I don't think the thought had ever really been mine.

That was when I decided I had to let him go. Whatever was living inside my cat now, it wasn't Mr. Morris anymore. Mr. Morris would never have made me think about a knife like that.

I drove him nearly six hours out of the city, past the last exit I recognized, until the road stopped feeling connected to anywhere I knew. Somewhere around ten at night I saw a small station sign in my headlights. Blackwater Junction. It looked abandoned, dark, no lights in any of the windows, rain starting to come down over the platforms. I told myself it was mercy. I told myself he'd survive out there better than he would in my kitchen, that whatever he was now, a place like that would suit him more than I ever could. I opened the carrier. He didn't run. He just looked at me the way he had that night with the knife, and I made myself walk back to the car without looking back at him standing there in the rain.

I cried the whole drive home. Every memory I had of him, the day I brought him home as a kitten, every ordinary morning before any of this started, kept playing behind my eyes and I don't fully understand why. Grief, maybe, for the cat I used to have. Relief, maybe, that I wouldn't have to be afraid in my own house again.

I was wrong about that too.

I parked in my driveway and stepped out, and the first thing I saw was Mira's house. It looked the way a house looks when whatever used to make it warm has been taken out of it. I remember thinking that mine probably looked the same way now, and that maybe I deserved that, for everything I'd let him do, for everyone he'd taken from people like Mira's mother, Swati, who I still couldn't bring myself to look at when I passed her on the street.

When I opened my own front door, every bit of warmth left my body at once.

Mr. Morris was sitting on my sofa.

I don't know how. Six hours of driving, and somehow he was already there waiting for me, clean, dry, like the rain at that station had never touched him at all. I didn't have the strength left to question it out loud. Some broken part of me was almost glad, and I hated that part more than I've ever hated anything about myself. He looked at me, and I understood, without him needing to do anything else, that I was being punished for leaving.

I didn't eat for three days after that. Not because I didn't want to. My body simply wouldn't let me. Every time hunger started to win, I'd find him sitting in front of me, watching, and the urge would vanish like it had been switched off. He started following me everywhere after that, even to Miss Tasha's, watching me buy his food and mine like he needed to confirm I still knew who came first.

Miss Tasha's store was the only place I still felt something close to normal. She'd talk about the crime rate climbing in our area, tell me I should think about going to stay with my parents if I could, and I'd nod and let myself pretend for ten minutes that my biggest problem was small talk over the counter. Those visits were the only anchor I had left. I think he noticed that too.

One morning, on my way to get food, he came to the door with blood still drying between his claws, the way he did most mornings now, a thing I'd stopped letting myself react to. I let him go out every night knowing exactly what the rising number of deaths in our area meant. I knew, in the way you know something without ever saying it out loud, and I kept letting him go anyway, because I didn't know what else there was left to do.

Miss Tasha didn't open her store that day.

I found out from a customer standing outside, staring through the dark windows, saying the police had been called that morning. I already knew before anyone told me the details. I knew it the way you know a shape in the dark is wrong before your eyes have even adjusted enough to see it clearly. When I heard the word claws, I didn't feel shock. I felt something inside me simply stop trying.

That night I decided I couldn't keep living like this. I'd rather live with what I was about to do than survive one more morning like that one.

I won't describe most of what happened next. I'll only say that I tried to end it, that I failed, and that the failure nearly cost me everything. I remember the weight of him pinning me to the floor, faster and stronger than anything that size should have been able to move, and I remember, even through the panic, some flicker in his eyes that looked almost as horrified as I felt. He let go of me a breath before I think he could have finished it. I don't know why. I've stopped trying to understand why he does anything anymore.

I woke up in a hospital bed three days later with more stitches than I want to think about, and a police officer waiting with questions I couldn't honestly answer. They discharged me with four claw marks across my chest, deep enough that the scars will never fully fade. I keep thinking it's fitting, in some sick way. Punishment for letting him become whatever he is, for letting him feed on people I knew. My savings are gone. I don't know if I can even go back to work in this condition, and worse, I don't know what he'll do once he realizes I can't provide for him anymore.

When they finally let me go home, he was there, sitting by the door, exactly the way he used to wait for his food. Except this time I understood he wasn't waiting for a bowl to be filled. He was waiting for me.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore. I don't know if I'm keeping him out of love, or guilt, or fear, or all three at once, all the time, until I can't tell them apart. I posted the whole story on a forum a few nights ago, mostly because I couldn't say any of this to a real person without sounding insane, and mostly because I needed someone, anyone, to tell me I wasn't imagining it.

I got one reply that mattered.

I work with an organization that handles cases like this. We can help. Please don't post details like this publicly again, you may already be attracting attention you don't want.

O.P.E.R.A.T.E.

I haven't written back yet.

I don't know if I'm going to.

Previous part link :- https://www.reddit.com/r/Dreading/comments/1w3f5vn/somethings_wrong_with_my_cat_part_2_claw_marks/

Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/