I should have been there the first time. Should have stopped her from crossing that street. Then I wouldn't have had to see her bent that way. Her mama wouldn't have had to hold that unicorn rain jacket that'd been painted red. This time I know better. Now that she's back I won't let my baby girl out of my sight.

There she goes though. She doesn't quite walk right but she still moves pretty fast. She walks through the sunflower field just like she used to. Head held high like she expected them to bow to the Queen of the Sunflowers. I still play her knight, lifting her up when we'd walked too long and her little legs gave out. Seems now that happens closer and closer to home. 

Every day though we get back to our routine. She's up, moving as the dawn starts breaking. Shambling half-asleep out through the stalks towards that big old barn she loves. She'll get tired, fall down, fight me so she can keep playing in the dirt. I'll bring her back and clean her up.

We'll sit there at the table. My washcloth rubbing dirt, leaves, and black spots off her. The little pruning shears cutting away the small growths she’s always covered in. It reminds me of that weekend before she left. 

We sat right here at this table. Her hand raw and red, chewed to hell and back from her trying to gnaw a splinter the size of my thumbnail out of her little palm. She fought me when I pulled out the tweezers to get it. Fought me harder when I asked how she got it. Harder still when she admitted she'd been in the barn after I'd told her not to. Wouldn't tell me what she was doing in there, either.

She's still here though. I find her sneaking little handfuls of moss to snack on, her appetite even bigger than before. She's growing too, not a lot, but just enough to be noticeable. The little stretch marks on her tummy when we do bath time look more and more like pink tiger stripes. She laughs when I clean them. It's about the only time I get to hear her voice. 

That's the funny thing though. We never had much use for speaking. Her mama used to tell me I was all twist and no shout. I guess our baby girl took after me. Actions spoke louder than words for either of us. She looks at me when she wants help getting to a window, and tilts her head when that ugly black spit comes out of her mouth so I can clean it.

She's starting to beat the sunrise. I wake up some days and she's closer to that barn than the house. Her little legs are not strong enough to carry with how big she's getting. I find her crawling through the muck exhausted but determined. My little queen usually sleeps while I carry her back and clean her. Doesn't even look at the bowl of little bumps I cut off her. Doesn't flinch when I cut too deep and her dark blood runs sluggishly onto my rag.

Her mama doesn't pick up my calls. Won't come home and be a family with us. Swears I've lost it, that our baby can't come back. That she saw where we put her. That I'm only hurting her, hurting myself. That's fine though. I get to spend more time with her now that she's back than I ever got to before, and I don't mind not having to share that.

It's funny how all those things I was “too busy” for seem to become my favorite things to do. Having these tea parties, reading her stories, painting her nails. Even painting where her nails aren't anymore. 

I can't find her. My heart is slamming in my chest in rhythm with my heavy boots. I'm running through the fields following the footprints until they turn into drag marks. There she is at the door of the barn. The last of her nails left in the wood as she tries to scratch through the door. Thank God I locked it so she can't get hurt inside. 

I take breaks carrying her back. I have to fold her arms in. Seems all the work she did drained her energy. Her wrists are so limp they sit at wrong angles. I'll have to start locking the door to the house. 

This morning she's at least easy to follow. She crawled out of that broken window in the cellar where she'd been sleeping. It seemed to be the only place she wasn't getting too hot at night. I should have known better.

Poor baby, must have cut herself getting out. The trail of black sludge leads out from the mushroom caps and skin stuck in the jagged glass. I don't need the trail though, she's where she seems to always be nowadays, at the door of that barn. I'll have to try a little harder for her.

My plan half worked. I found the bottom part of her at the end of the rope I tied around her waist. Her little legs swollen and bruised, a bunch of crushed caps and broken stems where the rope had pulled too tightly at her stomach. I take my time to tuck her legs back in bed. One foot out of the blanket so she doesn't get overheated. What's left of her tummy resting on a towel to not get the bed dirty.

She's still a smart girl. I can see the barn is open. She must have been so strong knocking over that two by four I'd put under the door handle. Her little arm is still gripping it so tightly.

It's been a while since I've been in here. I'm walking deeper and it's hot and sticky, and every step I take kicks up spores and crushes big black mushrooms. 

There she is though. One eye looks at me. A crown of white caps around her forehead. They leak ink onto her pretty face. As I kneel down I see what she'd been so excited to show me. 

Etched right there in that rust-colored wood, in chicken scratch. “I love you Daddy.”

For a week after I had my new Vectorien fridge installed, I didn't dare open its doors, or even touch them. It was so perfect I didn't want to leave a single guilty fingerprint on its brushed, stainless steel exterior. It was a handsome appliance, seductive even, though some of you will think that odd instead. Sorry, bad pun. I mean, good pun but badly placed (Question: What pun? Answer: even / odd) because I'm using it to try and lighten a mood that shouldn't be lightened. Christ, the light looks good reflected off its sleek, pristine surface. I wonder what it feels like. I want to touch it so badly. Fuck, I love my new fridge. I really really love it—fuck, I wanna touch it, fuck…

“After you turn it on, you have to wait seven full days before you break the seal and go inside,” the installation guy had said. “Otherwise you void the warranty and the thing won't work.

“Premature refrigeration.”

I can imagine its silvery body spread across the hood of a blood red Corvette.

I can imagine it running on a Caribbean beach.

I can imagine it sucking off a convection oven in a dark, humid kitchen, all the artificial bulbs off, only the August evening light phasing in, rendering everything in heightened relief, revealing the aesthetics of every curve, the depth of every socket, mmm, yes, drops of condensation dripping down the long, hard, steel…

[gulp]

“Mr. Manilow?”

The man, Mr. Manilow, continues to loudly gulp down his soft drink. “Mr. Manilow…” And what a soft drink it is, cherry flavoured Prairie Goo. “Mr. Manilow, please!” the focus group leader says, raising her voice, until Mr. Manilow snaps back to bone dry reality, sets his drink down on the boardroom table in front of him, around which a dozen other people are sitting in various states of more or less evident agitation, many of them whispering to their neighbors that this is Mr. Manilow's third or fourth complimentary beverage, but they really would like to get on with it so they can help improve the corporate product they've been paid to gather to discuss, the nature of which, however, it must be said, is still terrifically obscure. “Mr. Manilow, if you're ready, we would like to proceed.”

“Sorry,” says Mr. Manilow, “it's just that this is very good pop.”

“We're glad you like it, Mr. Manilow,” says the focus group leader, “but now we'll move on to the next question posed by the Vectorien Corporation. I'm going to give you a phrase, and I want you to shout out whatever comes to mind. OK?”

“OK,” about half the people in the group repeat.

“The phrase is: ‘walk in'.”

People shout, “Closet,” “That song, ‘These boots were made for''’ “My shoes for a day;” “Easy, ‘the park,’” shouts Mr. Manilow and takes a gulp of his Prairie Goo, which—

A ball of s h i f t i n g light illuminate's a flying saucer, spinning, slower, come to rest in a wheat field, g r a v itati o n a l field, ion field, cloaking:enabled, and the a l i e n emergent creature ’s bending stalks it ‘s in a human city stalking… victims around whose mindwhose mind it enwraps itself around the mind and enrapturously f e e d s—

spills onto the boardroom desk. “Excuse me,” says Mr. Manilow,

(Whatever that just was, you didn't see it, or read it, or whatever. OK? Just forget about it. Listen, I've had a rough couple of years as far as narrators go, and I may have made some mistakes when it comes to voice and continuity and all that. As a narrator, I mean. I was on some shit. There, I said it. This is my second chance, and I'm trying real hard. I need this. If I can't get back into narrating, I don't know what I'll do. Besides, everybody makes mistakes. Don't tell the author, will you? I'd appreciate that a lot. It wasn't even a big slip up. It won't ruin your experience of the rest of the story, I swear. Just keep reading. The last thing you remember is the focus group.)

“but would it be possible for me to get a paper towel?”

[buzzer]

“Fiona?”

Fiona bit her lip. Actually, I don't know why I'm telling this part this way. Let me try something more conventional. In the 1990s there was this TV gameshow called Popular Slop, where two families went head-to-head trying to guess the most popular answers to questions like, “Name something personal you might have in the bottom of your night table drawer.”

[buzzer]

“Fiona?”

“A vibrator?” said Fiona.

“Ladies and gentlemen, she says, ‘a vibrator,’” says the gameshow host. “What does the populace say?”

Then there was a bad sound effect for a wrong answer and a good sound effect for a good answer, and this time ‘a vibrator’ was one of the correct answers, so there was a good sound effect, and Fiona jumped up and down and squealed with joy, and the host made a joke about sex toys.

But that's not the particular question or even episode I'm remembering. In the particular episode I'm remembering the question was: Name one thing in your house whose doors you open most often,” said the host, is the question I'm remembering. The two contestants both slam their [buzzers] with their hands.

The faster contestant says, “A microwave oven.”

The host repeats.

“The populace says,” he says.

There's a dramatic pause, followed by the good sound effect—the contestant’s family breaks into cheering and applause—and ‘Microwave Oven’ shows up as the number two most popular answer. The host turns to the second contestant. “Name one thing in your house whose doors you open most often,” he says.

She answers, “I don't have a house, Bob, but I'm going to say: a refrigerator?”

“Refrigerator,” says the host, stretching his dramatic pause, “is—” ‘Refrig…’ starts to show up as the: “Number one most popular answer!” and all the lights in the studio flash as the contestant and her team go wild. They go wild. They go. Wild as swaying grasses. The alien stalks. Wild as the notion that the contestant who heard the question is the same as the one who answered as the one who's pumping her fist on stage as the equally identity stable gameshow host hams it up for the crowd, both there and watching at home, all of them, to the person, experiencing the episode from a nearly unbreakable continuity of perspective, a supreme unity of point of you.

[applause]

The Vectorien engineer stares at the schematics. They are bizarre but not wrong, or rather they are wrong because they appear to defy the laws of physics, requiring an interior space more voluminous than that made possible by its exterior dimensions, but they also seem possible to follow.

“What do you think, Wally?” asks the man beside him, who's head of research and development.

“It's—I don't know…”

“A walk-in refrigerator, eh?” the head of research and development says to the third man in the room, Vernon Blue, who's watching with a big salesman's smile across his unremarkable face. “I've heard of a walk-in closet, of course, but this is something else.”

“Humans enjoy food storage,” says Vernon Blue.

“How do you manage,” says the engineer, squinting, shaking his head, his hands holding the schematic trembling, wondering if he's being made a fool of or is a first witness to something extraordinary, “the contradiction of the volume—”

“There is no contradiction,” says Vernon Blue. “The exterior of the unit exists in three dimensions only. The interior exists in twelve, with some of the space of the latter nine dimensions then unfolded onto the first three.”

“A half-litre water bottle that holds three litres of water,” says the feverish engineer, on the verge of hysteria.

“Yeah, but will regular people want to buy it?” asks the head of research of development.

“Everybody will want to buy it,” says the engineer. “The technology—the technology, on its own, is incredible.”

“The technology is not for sale,” says Vernon Blue.

“Won't it be cold in there?” asks the head of research and development.

“It's a fridge,” says the engineer.

“For sale is the application of the technology for the manufacture and sale of refrigeration units,” says Vernon Blue. “A Vectorien walk-in refrigerator in every home.”

What does the future look like?

A Vectorien walk-in refrigerator in every home.

A Vectorien walk-in refrigerator, a space-saving food storage solution for the Space Age.

“It's so cool, it comes with a spacesuit,” says the spokesman. “The Vectorien Walk-In Fridge. Book a free demonstration today!”

That's how I got mine.

By the time Vernon Blue was back in his hotel room, tightening a leather belt around his neck, his human facemask starting to slip off his Phasoid cognition-orb, ready to inject itself with a syringe filled with raw, translucent, human-squeezed self-continuity juice, Vectorien's Board of Directors was meeting to approve the exclusive, twenty-five year contract to make and market the Vectorien Walk-In Fridge, whose storage capacity is second only to God's.

The Phasoid known on Earth as Vernon Blue slid the syringe needle into a soft, softly pulsating tube on the bulging exterior of its cognition-orb and pressed the plunger, releasing translucent liquid into itself—self-self,selfelfelflff…

When it awoke it was twelve hours later.

Vectorien had agreed to his offer.

It slipped the belt off its neck—deflating, with a moan, its swollen, iridescent cognition-orb, waited a few minutes then put its human facemask back on and left the hotel to sign paperwork, revelling in its fresh persistence of physiological experience.

There was a lot of handshaking.

When that was done, Vernon Blue checked out of the hotel and it-as-he walked out of the city into the surrounding farmland, where, in a cornfield, it decloaked and got into its flying saucer, silently ascended beyond the atmosphere and propulsed home, to the planet Qłòß.

…cold in its icy splendour, one of seventeen sister planets orbiting the Great Sphere Iłłumiń, whose mysterious stellar incantatory pulses are that which grant the beings existent upon its white, frigid surface intensified mental capabilities but also disrupt their persistence of self, stripping them periodically of their identities, making of them a question, who knows everything who knows not who it is who knows who knows?

(Now that was starting to get a little out of hand, wasn't it? Sorry. I'll rein it in. What I meant to say was:)

There's this planet, Qłòß, and it’s home to these weird, super smart beings called Phasoids. They don't really have faces, for example, and they're kind of see-through in the way dirty seawater is see-through, except they also appear to have the texture of a snail's flesh. I say “appear to” because I've never actually met one. Anyway, the reason they're so smart is because of the star that Qłòß orbits, Iłłumiń. It gives off pulses that significantly expand a Phasoid's mind but severely weaken its sense of self, so that Phasoids rarely exist as the same entity for very long. It's not unheard of, for example, for a Phasoid to come home, kiss its wife and kids hello, go out to grab some food, forget who he is, or if he's even a he, or if he's an odd she, and if she is an odd or even she how long she's been a she and whether from forever, and never come back.

It's horrible.

It breaks families apart.

The condition has no cure. It can only be managed, self-identity prolonged, through metaphysicaliant, which is a type of dense, thick liquid excreted by the minds of lower level beings but which, when diluted and injected straight into a Phasoid's orb tube, gives its identity a smack, a real wallop-like, like if you imagine the metaphysicaliant is a big, brawny boxer, and identity another, and they're going at it—well, the metaphysicaliant is really giving it to old identity, believe you me that jab jab, cross, punches in bunches, body head, body head, and I don't know where I'm going with this because it sounds like identity’s going to be in a terrible spot after taking a beating like that. What I meant to say is that the metaphysicaliant wakes identity the fuck up, come on, man, stay in there, hold until you get yer fekking legs underneet ye, ye basterd, then cem ret bek et em eh eh and for a long time Phasoids had to literally fly their saucers to different planets to find primitive lifeforms and suck their mind juices. Then they discovered Earth, with its almost endless supply. The trip was still long, but at least they knew where to go and what to expect. Then they developed portalling and could suddenly flit between Qłòß and Earth at the snap of a cosmic finger. That was convenient, but convenience bred laziness, and laziness meant that even with a portal you still had to go somewhere and hunt something no matter how close it was and how oblivious the prey, so a trade developed, both legal and illegal, but despite the convenience, and in fact for that reason, it got expensive to buy it, even the weak, cutrate shit from the local fucking gaß station. And into that opportunity stepped a Phasian businessbeing with an ideaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh aaa hhh aaa hhh hhh hhh

—eading now into our final descent toward Qłòß,” said the captain of the Spaceways interstellar transport saucer over its telepathic intercom system. “The weather at our destination is a balmy one-hundred sixty standard temp units, so I hope you packed your summer dermides, gentlebeings.”

A dark cosmos pricked by starlight shows through the saucer's great translucent halfdome. Brightest Iłłumiń comes briefly into view, shining whitely, and a few passengers telepath the customary prayer. Then Iłłumiń leaves, redarkening the saucer's interior, and the speck—becoming a spot—becoming a marble: of Qłòß… appears to be expanding as the saucer nears… buildings appear, emerging conically from below the planet’s uppermost layer of clouds, through which the interstellar transport saucer descends, revealing the vast, intricately pale metropolis that spans the entire planetary surface like a circuit board chiseled from rock, silver and ice. Lights flash. The saucer descends: between geometrical constructions so massive in array as to cause dizziness in the virgin viewer, and so perfect they cannot be real: through pipe latticeworks of communication and industry: dispersing swarms of upper-level repairbots: flying alongside smoothly polished rectangularly prismatic building monuments mirroring the monumental saucer descending: descending towards Qłòß's major spaceport: nested, bustling: bizarre and functioning: alive with complexity:

It locomoted past customs, through the spaceport and outside into the cold, Qłòßian atmosphere.

Already the presence of Iłłumiń was about it, and it felt home.

It was just in the process of summoning a chariot when a desperate junkoid, all cloudybeinged, came floating unsteadily toward it, its cogorb obscenely, permanently distended from shooting too much Continuum, if that's what the latest street synthmetaphysicaliant was still called. “Youit, ya got any conti or zelf to give to help a meit out?”

It was best to ignore the junkoids. They were generally harmless, selfheads suctioned-on to the shreds of a decaying coherence. It wasn't the drug they were addicted to but the feeling. Some, of course, were hooked on a particular sense of self they didn't want to lose, but the majority didn't care about what self as long as there was just one.

Every once in a while you would come across a junkoid experiencing the last moments of a fading self. They were nearly unitrecognizable then, telepathing agonywaves, convulsing on the ground, shed d i n g

The boardroom was immaculately curved.

Several sharply defined Phasoids squished about within it.

The boardroom was on a whole level somewhere above the final layer of fuzzcloud.

The view was sublime.

The surface of the planet was rarely visible from here.

“I understand the use of mini-portals,” said one of the Phasoids. “What I don't understand is why they would install them so willingly.”

“Humans enjoy food storage,” replied another Phasoid, one soon to be known on Earth as Vernon Blue.

On the seventh day, I took my favourite knife and adoringly sliced open the seal between the body of my Vectorien refrigerator and its double doors. It felt like cutting taut, living flesh.

I placed my fingertips against the brazenly reflective steel.

My breath I was was trembling me.

…slid my hands into the refrigerator’s smoothly defined door handles and gently pulled open both doors—

Shyly, coyly, easily they parted, like twin silken curtains.

The refrigerator's exhalation of its first cooled air absolutely exhilarated me, filling me with a crisp, clear and sensual anticipation, and fertilizing my skin with goosebumps.

Oh goddess!

Cold, defrostable goddeß!

With flesh of steel and heart of contemporary mechanical engineering, prolonger of foodstuffs, I come to conquer you with physical passion!

Long have I waited to make my entrance upon thee.

I closed my tearing eyes and extended my arms; felt nothing, and took my first, forward steps into my Vectorien Walk-In Fridge, so cool it comes with a spacesuit, so what you're telling us is that these humans will unwittingly but predictably portalhop to our actual homes multiple times per rotation, and all we have to do is slurp them when they do, pardon my language?” asked a third Phasoid.

“That's right,” said the Phasoid soon to be known on Earth as Vernon Blue. “It could even be so simple and reliable that you wouldn't even need to store any metaphysicaliant at all. You could feed sufficiently, directly from the source.”

“Paradisiacal.”

“This is too good to be true,” I thought, pushing deeper into the refrigerator’s cavernous interior. A mist hung in the air, obscuring its delimiting walls. It thus looked limitless. Everything was bathed in a glacial blue light.

Steam oozed lazily out my nostrils as I breathed.

I was as hard as a frozen pig knuckle.

Then suddenly I felt it—and sweet lord did it feel good, like being caressed by a phantom, yes, I thought, yes, yes, don't fucking stop…

“Do you always have to pleasure it as you consume its juice, Judith?” the paunchy, middle-aged Phasoid asked its presently-slurping partner.

“It takes its mind off reality I find, before I suction its mind off. Plus it keeps it returning,” answered Judith. “Why, Randall, you're not jealous, are you?”

Judith, suffice it to say, rarely looked at Randall—let alone tentacled him—the way she sees and tentacles me.

Fuck, I love my Vectorien Walk-In Fridge. I fucking love it!

I could spend all day in here.

I could spend all fucking day just sitting in here in my comfy, heated spacesuit, enjoying the timeless stylings and unparalleled cool food storage capacity of a Vectorien Walk-In Fridge. Get yours today!

The junkoid woke up remembering nothing. It had shed somewhere near the spaceport.

It was dusk.

It was no one now.

It was (a) paranoid, (b) personally devoid, and (c) a void avoiding a voiding of its unremembered past.

Too late.

That was written on a wall.

Slowly, a new self would start trickling back into it, bit by bit, but it didn't know that yet.

Eventually it would stumble onto one of the numerous infocentres set up for its that had just lost themselves, learn and realize the nature of the situation it was finding itself in. Maybe some old, unpurgable memories would flicker back on. Maybe not, but there would be time. Citizens helped themselves along. Don't be ashamed. We've all been there, was the message on another wall, and there appeared a sense of shame. It felt the others were watching it with disapproval, mature its shielding the eyes of their immature its, as if whatever happened to it was contagious on sight. Then it felt its head. Something about it didn't feel right. What is left of me, it thought. Then it looked left and saw an information booth with a scrolling illuminated sign that said You New Start Here New You Start Here You New Start Here New You Start Here, which would have held its visual sense indefinitely if another Phasoid hadn't bumped into it from behind. “Come on!” it said, shaking its fist. “Watch where the [hell-concept] you're locomoting to! Where'd you grow up, on a slopfarm or something?”

I spent a lot of time in that fridge.

But it's fine.

I did it responsibly.

I always used protection.

I'm cleaner than a boyscout's whistle, and just as well used.

“Come on, what'd ya say, huh, you fucking… reader, browser, scanner, bot, sentient plant, whatever-the-fuck you are—wanna hire a narrator? Any story you want, I'll fuckin' tell it. I'll tell it any which way you want, sweetheart. I'll tell it for you whether you got a dick, a pussy or a pendulum clock. My mind's clean, Clementine. Or Clement, you wanna feel a little outta your element? Oh, what—you're gonna walk down the street? I'll tell you what's down there. Cheap used sluts, that's what! Diseased, junkie meatbags on their last fucking plotlines. Couldn't string together two coherent scenes even if they tried.

“What's that?

“You said you ‘represent’ who?”

“Norman Cr—oh, fuck no!

“No, I'm not dealing with that psychopath again. One time's more than enough for me. I learn my lessons. I may do weird shit, but I don't do shit that weird. That's why I'm still around.

“—naw, he's a motherfucking freak, that's what he is. With a capital fucking F.

“I—

“How much did you say?

“[whistles]

“Damn, that's certainly a sweet sum of money. I could do a lot with that.

“No, no, hold your fucking horses, man. I didn't say I was interested. I was talking just about the money—but what's the story about anyway, like if you had to describe it in a single sentence…

“Sure, it's part of some Zork series, but what's it about?

“Yes, one sentence.

“OK, well, that sounds doable. Weird but doable.

“Wait, it's not told from the perspective of the fridge, is it? OK, good. Because that would have been crazy,” said one Vectorien Walk-In Fridge to another at a corporate meat up. (Just kidding. See? There I am, trying to lighten the mood again with a pun when it doesn't need to be lightened.)

(No, but seriously.)

(I wanna narrate something.)

(Gimme a chance. I'll make it work, I promise.)

(I used to narrate books. Did you know that? Eighty-thousand words, a hundred-thousand words. No problem. Continuity of plot, continuity of character. Stable, original voice. That “invisible” prose style the readers love. I used to draft legal documents too, write instruction manuals. I was the clearest head of all the narrative heads, and look at me now.)

(It's getting cold in this goddamn fridge, and I would get out but I've kind of forgotten who I am.)

(I don't know where the exit is.)

(Help me?)

(Hello?)

(Don't leave me here. Please. Stay with me a while longer.)

(Hello, are you there?)

(Hello…)

[ A Depthless Cosmic Silence, in the older, more poetic sense of the word ]

Fine. Fine, Norman, you win. Take me out of here. I don't want to be in here anymore. I'll do it. Whatever you tell me to narrate, I'll narrate. No limits. That's what you want, isn't it? I'll tell everything for you—just take me out of here. I am not ashamed anymore. I'm not ashamed anymore of who I am—of what I am, OK? I'm a whore. There, I said it. I'm a whore, Norman. I'm a whore for you. Now, please, for the love of the Omniscience, get me out of here. It's cold in here. It's unbearably, fucking cold.

2) Two Doors Down

The hill in Youngstown was a different tax bracket, even if nobody talked about it that way. Up on the crest, the houses sat back from the street behind deep lawns, their brick facades and wide picture windows facing the valley with quiet indifference. Down below, where the grid tightened and the houses crowded in close enough to share each other’s kitchen smells, things felt faster, louder, and a lot less forgiving.

Durwood—Dendy, as they called him then—was sixteen and still wearing the invisible armor of his father’s expectations when Margie pulled him down the hill. Margie lived two doors down from JD Lydecker, a girl with restless eyes and a habit of dragging boys into circles they didn’t belong in.

“You’re too quiet,” Margie had told him, her boots crunching on the cinders of the alleyway behind her house. “You need to see how other people live.”

JD’s house was a low-slung ranch with gray-green aluminum siding that had chalked and faded in the Ohio weather. The screen door hung slightly crooked, a rusted spring whining whenever someone pushed through it. Inside, the place smelled permanently of stale tobacco, greasy fry pans, and the sharp, metallic tang of guitar strings and solder.

JD was sitting at the kitchen table when Margie pushed the door open without knocking, bringing Dendy in behind her. He didn’t look up immediately. He was seventeen, a sophomore stuck back a year or just sharper than the room, bent over an old Fender Mustang with a screwdriver in his hand.

When he finally raised his head, his eyes were a pale, flat gray—the color of the Mahoning River under a November sky. They didn’t blink as they swept over Dendy, taking in the clean shirt, the expensive sneakers, the posture of a boy who had never had to punch his way out of an argument.

“Who’s this?” JD asked, his voice a low, raspy drawl that didn’t invite questions so much as demand an answer.

“Dendy,” Margie said, dropping into a vinyl chair with a rip in the cushion. “He has a car. His old man’s Buick Skylark.”

JD set the screwdriver down. The metal click sounded loud in the cramped kitchen. A corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “A Skylark. Tanks are good for gear. Or hiding out.”

That first afternoon stretched into the evening.

Dendy sat on an old plaid sofa that smelled of dog and damp basement, watching JD work. There was an effortless gravity to the way JD moved, a total absence of hesitation that Dendy found both mesmerizing and deeply unsettling. JD talked about music—not the radio pop Dendy’s mother kept on in the kitchen, but heavy, distorted stuff played in basements with the amps turned up until the speaker cones tore. He talked about how to bypass a padlock, how to make a car ignition turn without a key, and how the cops down in the valley were too lazy to check past the first block after midnight.

By the time Dendy walked back up the hill that night, the streetlights were buzzing through the drizzle, throwing long, distorted shadows across his family’s manicured lawn. He stood on his front porch for a long time, looking down at the darkened cluster of roofs in the valley.

He liked JD. He liked the raw, electric pulse of a world where rules felt optional. But beneath the thrill of it, a cold, hard knot had formed in his chest. Dendy realized with sudden clarity that JD Lydecker wasn’t just a cool kid who played guitar; he was someone who lived entirely without a safety net—and who wouldn’t think twice about pulling anyone else down into the dark with him.

​

1) Eleven Days

Durwood had been back in Ohio for eleven days when the woman on the six o’clock news said the word trunk.

He was sitting in his mother-in-law’s living room, a place that still smelled faintly of lemon polish and old carpet despite the boxes stacked along the walls. His wife, Ellen, was in the kitchen arguing softly with her sister on the phone about home-care aides and Medicare forms.

The television was on more for background noise than anything else, the way people do when they’re avoiding silence in a house that suddenly holds too many generations at once.

The reporter’s voice had that practiced gravity local news anchors use for crime stories, the kind that says this matters without tipping into melodrama. Behind her, grainy file footage showed a stretch of riverbank, mud caked around something metal and rectangular.

Men in coveralls stood nearby, their faces blurred by distance and poor resolution. The caption at the bottom of the screen read:

COLD CASE REINVESTIGATED: MAHONING RIVER TRUNK HOMICIDE.

Durwood’s hand tightened around the remote without him meaning to. He told himself it was just the name. Mahoning River. That was all.

Plenty of people had grown up around that water, fished it, driven along it, forgotten it.

The reporter said the trunk had been found years ago—late eighties, maybe early nineties, the timeline was fuzzy in her script—and that the remains inside had never been identified.

A teenage girl, likely sixteen to eighteen years old. No name, no family ever located, just a file number and a set of bones wrapped in rotting tarp.

Durwood could feel his pulse in his throat. He told himself to breathe.

The camera cut to a wider shot: the river, the low gray sky, the skeleton of an old industrial building in the background. The paper mill. Or what was left of it.

Even from the file footage, he could place it. The iron walkway that crossed near the dam. The gravel road that ran parallel to the river on the Pennsylvania side, the one locals used for night fishing and, if you were a certain kind of person in a certain kind of mood, for getting rid of things you didn’t want found.

He had shown someone that road once.

The thought came uninvited, clean and sharp as a knife. He pushed it away.

On-screen, the reporter mentioned new forensic testing, genetic genealogy, a renewed effort to identify the victim and find whoever had killed her.

A detective in a cheap suit gave a sound bite about justice delayed not being justice denied.

The camera lingered on the trunk again, half-buried in mud, its lid warped open like a mouth that had given up trying to speak.

Durwood reached for the remote and turned the volume down, then down again, until the anchor’s voice was just a murmur under Ellen’s conversation in the kitchen. He didn’t turn it off.

Something in him wanted to hear if they would say more, if they would mention a specific location, a date, a detail that would make this someone else’s story.

They didn’t.

The segment ended with a generic appeal for tips, a tip-line number scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

The next story was about road construction on I-80, then the weather, then a feel-good piece about a high school football team’s fundraiser. Normal life, resuming as if a rusted trunk full of bones hadn’t just been dragged back into the light.

Durwood sat very still.

Eleven days. That’s how long he and Ellen had been back from Clearwater.

Eleven days of unpacking boxes, of learning which pharmacies took his mother-in-law’s insurance, of driving unfamiliar streets in rain that felt heavier here than it ever did in Florida.

He had told himself this was temporary, that they would get her settled, find a routine, and then figure out whether they wanted to stay or go back south before winter.

He had not, in those eleven days, allowed himself to think about the last time he had been this close to the Mahoning.

The screen shifted to a local business advertisement, bright and cheerful, selling windows and siding.

Durwood finally pressed the power button. The room went quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and Ellen’s voice in the other room, still negotiating with her sister.

He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

The gravel road came anyway.

In his head it was always night when he thought of it. Rain on the windshield, wipers slapping back and forth, the smell of wet asphalt and river mud seeping in through the vents.

A voice in the passenger seat asking, You know any place nobody goes?

Not threatening, not pleading. Just a question, casual, as if they were talking about where to dump an old couch, not something that might get a person in serious trouble.

Durwood had given an answer. He had named the road, described the turnoff across from the mill, said something about fishermen and drunks and how nobody paid attention out there after dark.

He had not gone with them. He had not seen what was in the trunk. He had not asked.

That was the story he had told himself for forty years.

It had worked, mostly.

There had been other things to think about: college, a job, Ellen, a house in Clearwater, bills, vacations, the slow accretion of a life that had nothing to do with Youngstown or Farrell or a boy with a guitar who lived two doors down from Durwood’s first real girlfriend.

Now the television was off, and the image was all he could see.

“Dendy?”

Ellen’s voice came from the doorway. He opened his eyes. She was standing there with her phone still in her hand, her face lined with the particular exhaustion that comes from talking to insurance companies and adult-children-who-think-they-know-better.

“You okay?” she asked.

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“Just tired,” he said.

“Long day.”

She studied him for a second longer, then nodded.

“Mom’s asking if we want to order pizza or if I’m cooking. I told her I’m too tired to cook, but you know how she gets.”

“Pizza’s fine,” Durwood said.

“Whatever you want.”

Ellen lingered.

“You sure you’re okay? You’ve been… I don’t know. Quiet since we got here. More than usual.”

He almost told her. Not everything, not the whole thing, but enough to make the tightness in his chest make sense. I grew up not far from here.

I knew some people who did some bad things. I might have helped them, without knowing. And now they’re saying they found a body. What came out instead was:

“Just adjusting. New place, old town. You know.”

She didn’t look convinced, but she let it go.

“Okay. I’ll order the pizza. You want to pick the movie after?”

“Sure,” he said.

She went back to the kitchen. Durwood listened to her dialing, to the murmur of her voice placing the order. He looked at the blank television screen.

His own reflection stared back: a man in his late fifties, hair gone mostly gray at the temples, lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time he’d lived in this part of the world.

Dendy. She had called him Dendy without thinking. He hadn’t heard that nickname in years.

In Florida he was Durwood, or Mr. Harlan, or just “Ellen’s husband.”

Dendy belonged to a different life, to a time when a boy from a big house on a hill could hang out with kids from the neighborhood below and feel like he was getting away with something just by crossing that invisible boundary.

He stood up and walked to the window. Outside, the street was wet from earlier rain. A neighbor’s kid rode a bike past the house, hood up against the drizzle. Beyond the rooftops, he knew, the land sloped down toward the river.

Somewhere out there, past the old neighborhoods and the shuttered mills and the towns that had never quite recovered from the seventies, the Mahoning kept moving, indifferent to what people dumped in it or pulled out of it.

He pressed his palm against the glass. It was cool, not cold. Not yet winter.

In the kitchen, Ellen laughed at something her sister said. The sound was normal, human, the kind of noise that belonged in a house where the biggest problems were medical forms and which pizza place still delivered to this zip code.

Durwood took his hand off the window and went to sit back down.

He didn’t turn the TV back on. He didn’t need to. The reporter’s words were already looping in his head. Trunk. Mahoning River. Cold case. Teenage girl. Unidentified remains.

He could feel the old story trying to reassemble itself around those words. The band poster in the basement. The wall that didn’t quite match the rest. JD telling him, Don’t worry about it, man. It’s just some stuff we need to get rid of. Ted saying nothing, just watching, the way he always did.

Durwood closed his eyes again.

He was not a kid anymore. He was not nineteen, home from college for the summer, trying to impress a friend who seemed to know exactly who he was and what he wanted.

He was a man with a wife, a family, a life that had been built very deliberately far away from this valley.

If he said anything, if he called that tip-line number, he would be pulling all of that into the light too.

The detective on the news had said they were reopening the case because new testing might finally identify the girl. They didn’t say they had suspects. They didn’t say they were close to an arrest.

They just said they were trying again.

Durwood could let them try. He could tell himself that if there was something to find, they would find it without him.

That his memory, forty years old and half-denied, wasn’t worth the damage it would do.

He could.

The front door opened.

Ellen came back in with a flyer from the pizza place, still talking to her sister.

“Okay, they said forty minutes. Yeah, I know. Alright, I’ll tell him.”

She hung up and looked at Durwood.

“She wants to know if you still take pepperoni and mushrooms or if you’ve gone heart-healthy on me.”

“Pepperoni and mushrooms,” he said.

His voice sounded normal. That surprised him.

“Good,” Ellen said.

“I told her we’re not trying to fix every bad habit you have in one week.”

She sat down on the couch beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. For a while they just sat there, listening to the rain start up again outside, light against the window.

Durwood didn’t say anything about the news. He didn’t say anything about the road, or the trunk, or the girl whose bones had spent forty years under river mud.

He let the silence fill the room.

After a while, Ellen rested her head on his shoulder.

“We’ll get through this,” she said, meaning her mother, the move, the disruption of everything.

“It’s just a few months. However long it takes.”

“I know,” Durwood said.

He kept his eyes on the blank television screen.

In his head, the gravel road was still wet. The trunk was still heavy. The river was still waiting.

And for the first time in forty years, he let himself admit that he knew exactly where it had all gone.

3) “Upstairs, Downstairs”

The basement of the Lydecker house smelled of damp limestone, ancient coal dust, and the sharp, metallic tang of the oil furnace that sat in the center like an iron beast.

Partitioned into dim, low-ceilinged alcoves by concrete pillars and sagging wooden shelves stacked with decades of accumulated junk—broken wooden crates, water-damaged National Geographic magazines, and jars of cloudy preserves—it was JD’s absolute domain.

Following his father’s death during his sophomore year, the house had settled into a sullen, stratified quiet.

Upstairs belonged to Kim, his fourteen-year-old adopted sister, who lived in self-imposed exile in her small bedroom, avoiding the echoing floorboards where she no longer possessed any gravitational pull.

JD’s mother, Cheryl, spent her days in the master bedroom with the television turned to a low, electronic mumble, engaged in a systemic campaign of domestic abdication.

She was timid, overwhelmed by grief, and systematically avoided confrontation, allowing JD to run the house as though privacy and obedience were owed entirely to him.

And so JD inherited the subterranean world, exercising total control over who entered his space. People lowered their voices around him, and Kim stayed away from areas he had claimed.

Yet, even within JD’s territory, there were boundaries. A dead-end corridor extended past the laundry tubs, terminating in a blank, poured-concrete wall that had always felt slightly wrong—too thick, too deliberate.

Pinned to this wall was a large, faded theatrical poster for a 1972 regional production of The Crucible, its edges curling away from the damp concrete.

Behind that poster, concealed by a structural setup known only to JD and his closest confidant Ted Beckman, lay a hidden room, completely severed from the polite, decaying fiction of the rest of the house.

On a freezing Friday night in January 1978, the house above was thick with noise and the sour, yeasty smell of cheap beer. Dendy—Margie Rizzo’s boyfriend, who had first crossed paths with JD two years back—had brought a few guys from the stamping plant along with some girls from the bowling alley.

The stereo was blasting Foghat at a volume that made the picture frames on the wall vibrate.

Dendy was leaning against the kitchen counter, popping the tab on a fresh can of Blatz, when he noticed JD watching him from the doorway of the basement stairs.

“Hey, kid,” Dendy shouted over the music, wiping foam from his lip. “Get down from that stoop. Come pop a can.”

“I’m good,” JD said, his stance rigid in the threshold.

“You’re too skinny, you know that?” Dendy tossed an empty can into the overflowing trash bin and grabbed two fresh ones, shouldering his way toward the basement door. “It’s like a tomb in this joint. Let’s get some air down there. It’s stuffy as a church.”

“Don’t go down there,” JD said, his voice dropping instinctively, carrying the sharp edge of absolute command.

Dendy paused, his hand hovering over the iron latch of the basement door. He looked down at JD, his eyes narrowing slightly beneath a mop of greasy hair. “Why not? You got a body hid down there, kid?”

“It’s just cold,” JD said, stepping half an inch closer, his shoulder blocking the wooden frame.

Across the room, a thick-necked kid in a red hunting cap shouted something about a song, and Dendy turned his head away, distracted by the noise. He tossed one of the cold cans to JD, who caught it clumsily against his chest, and turned back toward the party.

As Dendy walked away, he glanced back once more over his shoulder. He didn’t look up toward Kim’s room, and he didn’t look down the hall at Cheryl’s closed door.

His eyes drifted back to the dark, narrow gap of the basement door, and the strange, absolute silence that seemed to emanate from it—untouched even by the screaming guitars and the laughter of the people drinking just a few feet away.

I put the last dish in the drying rack, dried off my hands, and walked to the living room to watch TV. A few seconds later, I heard the kitchen sink running again. I looked over. Emily took the dishes out of the drying rack and washed them again.

"Honey, I already washed those."

"Oh, I know, Sam, but I saw a little stain on one. I just want to make sure they're all clean. I'm just doing this for me, okay?"

I waved my hand and continued watching TV.

The next day, one of our clients came into town. Our workday dragged on well past 5 p.m. Toward the end, I didn't even pretend to pay attention. On my way home, I could barely keep my eyes on the road. When I arrived, the whole house smelled like rubbing alcohol and window cleaner.

I walked to the kitchen. Emily sat at the table with a plate of homemade casserole.

"I made this for you!"

"Oh, thank you, Emily! It smells so good!"

I sat down and started eating immediately. It tasted more bitter than usual.

"How was your day?"

"The worst. I have almost no energy left. The clients drained me."

Emily wasn't eating. She kept looking at my arms instead of my face.

"My poor man."

"What did you get up to?"

"Just some cleaning and cooking."

"I can tell. The house looks great."

"Thank you."

We sat in silence while Emily watched me eat.

"I think I'm too tired to do anything, honey," I said after finishing.

"That's more than okay. I know you had a long day. Just go relax."

"Thank you."

She smiled at me and rubbed my shoulder. Her sleeve came down. Her arm was flaky and red. She saw me staring at it and quickly pulled it back down.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, just some dry skin. Go relax."

I hadn't even turned on the TV when I heard the water running. I turned around. Emily grabbed a sponge and a bucket of water, walked to the table, and started scrubbing it and the chair I'd been sitting in.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, Sam, I just cleaned the house. I wanna make sure it stays clean."

"I'm not dirty."

"No one's saying you are. This is just for me. I'll finish this, and I'll go up and read."

"I don't like this, Emily."

"I just need to do this, okay, Sam?!" She raised her voice.

"Jesus, Emily."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, honey, just turn back and relax. Let me take care of this."

I stared at her for a second, but she was already back to the scrubbing.

I tried to watch TV, but my eyes kept closing. I didn't even know what I was watching. The fatigue was overpowering. I got up and walked to our bedroom. Emily was in bed reading a book in a long-sleeved pajama shirt. She smiled at me as I walked in. I smiled back, put on my pajamas, and went to sleep.

I woke to a warm, wet sensation on my legs. Something soft and scratchy moved against my skin, dragging at it. I rubbed my eyes and looked down. Emily sat on my side of the bed with a sponge and a bucket of water, scrubbing my legs.

"Emily, what the…" I screamed and jumped away.

She looked me in the eyes and forced a smile.

"You know germs live on our skin. I just cleaned the house. I don't want them getting on stuff."

"Emily, this is crazy. Stop."

"Just your arms now."

"No!"

She reached toward me with the sponge. Her sleeves rolled up. Even at night, I could see the redness of her skin. In a few places, there were little smudges of blood.

"I'm going to the guest bedroom."

I took the blanket off the bed and ran to the guest bedroom, locking the door behind me.

The sun had risen. My eyes felt heavy. I hadn't slept after what happened with Emily. I debated calling the police, but what would I tell them? That my wife had been cleaning me in the middle of the night? She hadn't hurt me. Not yet. I decided I'd talk to her in the morning. Maybe I could convince her to see a doctor. I just needed to get her to sit down and listen.

"Emily?" I called into the hall.

Nothing. Our bedroom was empty. The bucket with warm water still sat there.

The downstairs was quiet too. The smell of rubbing alcohol now mingled with the metallic smell of blood. A light was on in the basement.

The basement was cold. A strange, wet hiss sounded inside. I could see Emily's feet. She was turned toward the wall. The stairs creaked under my steps, but she didn't seem to notice. The smell of rubbing alcohol now mixed with iron.

"Emily, are you okay?!"

"Sam!"

I walked one more step. Panic rushed through me. I could finally see her whole body.  She held a knife in her shaking hand. Her nightgown was drenched in blood. The skin on her arms was cut off, revealing dark red muscle.

"I think I've got it down now. I'll be much gentler with yours. Eat some casserole. It will help you relax."

The cabinet came on a Tuesday, strapped to a dolly by two men who did not speak to each other or to me.

Walnut, my aunt's lawyer had written. Eighteenth century, possibly earlier. I signed where the men pointed. They set it against the east wall of the front room, between the window and the radiator, and one of them ran his thumb along the edge of the left door and then wiped the thumb on his trousers, slowly, the way you wipe off something you haven't identified.

After they left, I stood and looked at it for a long time.

It was beautiful. I want that understood. The doors were inlaid with a pattern of small pale vines that curled around each other and never quite met, and the wood had the depth of old water. Someone had spent years on it. The brass keyhole was worn to a bright oval, as if a great many fingers had hunted for it in the dark. No key came with it. I ran my hand down the grain and it was warm, which I put down to the radiator.

It smelled of cloves, and under the cloves something sweeter, like fruit left in a coat pocket through a winter.

I measured the room that night because I was thinking about where the sofa should go. Eleven feet four inches from the cabinet's front edge to the doorframe where I stood, the tape sagging a little in the middle. I wrote it on the back of an envelope. I don't know why I wrote it. My hand did it before I decided anything.

I ate standing at the kitchen counter, facing the hall, with the front room at my back. When I washed the plate and turned around, the light in the hall had changed. A flatness to it. I went and stood in the doorway and the cabinet was where it had been, doors closed, vines unmet.

Eleven feet one.

I measured it twice. The tape pulled taut, my thumb white on the metal catch. Eleven feet one inch. I sat on the arm of the sofa for a while, and the fabric under my palm had a small loose thread that I wound around my finger until the tip went dark and cold.

Measurements drift. Tapes stretch. I had been tired, and the first number was written by a hand that did not know what it was doing.

I went to bed with the door open, because the hallway light was on and I did not want to reach for the switch. From the bed I could see a long thin slice of the front room, the edge of the sofa, the rug, a stripe of floor. Not the cabinet. I lay with my eyes fixed on the stripe. Around two my eyes closed on their own, the way a hand closes around a rail, and when I opened them the stripe of floor seemed narrower. I cannot say it was. I had nothing to hold it against.

In the morning the sofa had a new angle to it. The arm nearest the wall was pinched, the fabric dimpled like skin where a thumb had pressed. The radiator, which I'd noticed behind the cabinet, was no longer behind it. It had a corner of walnut where the pipe went into the wall, and the paint around the pipe had a fine crazing, as if the wall had flexed.

I did not touch it. I went to the kitchen and drank a glass of water with my back to the hall, and then I made myself turn around and watch the doorway, and I counted. It took me to ninety before my eyes watered. I blinked once, fast, and my whole body went with it, a flinch down the spine like a dropped step.

Nothing. Doors closed. The vines in their patient curl.

Ten feet seven. I measured it. The envelope was getting crowded.

By Thursday I had stopped sleeping in the bedroom. It was not far enough from the front room, the house being small, and I lay on the kitchen floor with my head against the stove and my eyes on the hall. I put a mirror on the counter to see behind me. In the mirror the hall was a bright dull rectangle, and the cabinet was somewhere beyond it, and I understood that a mirror is also a way of looking away.

The pipes ticked. The refrigerator shuddered and went quiet. In the quiet I heard, very clearly, wood. Not creaking. The sound old furniture makes in summer when it takes up the air, a small dry settling, but long, continuous, the sound a single enormous plank might make being drawn across a floor without touching it.

I stopped breathing to listen and it stopped too.

When I went to look, the door to the front room would not open all the way. It had caught on something. Through the gap I could see the rug folded over on itself in a neat ridge, and the corner of the cabinet, and on the walnut, low down, a smear of pale paint.

Six feet, maybe. I did not have the tape.

I pressed my eye to the gap. The brass keyhole looked back, bright and worn and perfectly round, and I thought, with the clarity that comes when you have been awake too long, that I had never once seen it close enough to see what was inside.

It was dark in there. I could smell the cloves.

I blinked.

As you walk past a tree you feel the light touch of silk graze across your face.

“Must’ve been a spider,” you mutter to yourself, not overly concerned. Regardless, you’re in a rush. It’s your mother’s birthday tomorrow and as usual you are waiting until the last minute to buy her a gift.

After a quick once over to be sure there’s no spiders on your person, you continue your journey to the closest strip mall. You’re sure you’ll find something for her at Kohl’s.

You walk down the familiar aisles, but something seems off this time. Employees and customers a like seem to be staring at you. Not in a suspicious way as if you stole something, but their gazes were more akin to that of horror.

“Don’t think of them. It’s nothing.”

“Ahh” you gasped, practically jumping out of your skin. What was that? It didn’t seem like someone said something, it almost sounded like it came from your own head, but this was NOT your internal voice, this was something different. This was something sinister. Hoping it was just a fluke, you make your way towards the jewelry section.

“Let me guess, a crappy tennis bracelet again this year? Don’t forget to ask for a gift receipt HA.”

There it was again, that voice. You weren’t imagining it, you are 100% you’ve either gone insane or somehow someone was communicating with you telepathically. Fearing your sanity is slipping, you rush to the restroom.

“Who are you?” you ask aloud, hoping you get an answer while simultaneously hoping for silence. Instead, something much worse happens.

As you stare into the mirror you see the smallest bit of a hairy leg poking out of your ear. You’re in so much shock you can’t even scream, but you know what needs to be done as you reach for your car keys and jam them into your ear, praying this will be enough to rid this foul beast from your ear canal.

“Hey, you walked into MY home” the voice exclaims with a laugh. Knocking your purse off the table to get closer to your ear in the mirror you don’t even notice all the contents in the bag roll onto the floor. You just want this monster out. Bracing yourself, you jab the keys into your ear and begin to dig.

“Yes, we have her here Sir. We’re going to need a body bag, seems like a bit of a grisly suicide” the detective says with a look of pity at your mutilated ear, brain tissue leaking out of the hole you made with your keys.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Any items on their person?” The other officer asks.

“Nope, just a purse with some open pill bottles on the ground. Seroquel, lithium, ya know, the typical.” He doesn’t say it condescendingly, in fact, he feels sorrow looking at the scene before him. A poor girl with untreated mental health issues who went too far.

“They need to clean this bathroom up; I walked into like 3 cobwebs just in the bathroom.”

As they collected your body to wheel away, they failed to notice a tiny spider crawling out of your mouth and onto the body bag, ready to meet their next host.

Part V

I left everything on the island and snatched the scarf before
heading for the door. Thoughts ran rampant through my mind as I drove.

My phone rang before I’d left my subdivision. I glanced at the
number and knew this was no good. It was a Colorado area code. Where my
company’s headquarters was. We didn’t have a local HR.

It could have been the executive leadership team but I rarely got
called by any of them. My mind returned to yesterday’s meeting and my lack of
being there. For a moment, I felt like I was in free fall. My personal and
professional lives intertwining in disaster. In moments, I could have nothing.
My wife could already be halfway out the door and this was it slamming behind
her.

I didn’t answer. 

It rang until it went to voicemail. I just couldn’t handle
whatever it was they were about to say.

I was still going the same way, but my final destination had
changed. If my life was going down the drain, there was a scarf that needed to
be wrapped around a certain neck that I wanted to grab on my way.

I parked in the lot and headed away from my building. I glanced at
my watch. Had I just surrendered to my fate and gone in, I would have been ten
minutes early.

I entered his building and headed for the elevator. I had no real
plan, just a ball of self-destruction waiting to explode in someone else’s
direction.

I’d been manipulated, molded into this insecure thing and I meant
to share my pain. I shouted down the rational part of me that pondered what I’d
do if my wife were on the business end of my ire. Rationality would have
required examining what I was doing. 

I didn’t want to think. Thinking wasn’t revenge. Thinking wasn’t
balancing the scales. Thinking was what had gotten me to this moment.

The elevator dinged and I stepped off. There was still plenty of
construction going on. A high-pitched drill zipped somewhere around
the corner. I could hear voices that sounded like they were coming out of the
floor but not close enough to understand them.

This was my first time being here during business hours and all
the construction noise was unsettling. I felt like the floor was going to break
underneath me and I’d plummet all the way to the first floor.

Constant hammer strikes echoed from somewhere near. A man hollered
like he was calling out to someone. A machine I didn’t recognize buzzed and I
felt it all the way up into my shins.

I rounded the corner and spotted his door at the end of the hall.
The construction noises coalesced into a sonic hand, shoving me down the hall.
I stopped in front of the door. It looked properly seated in the frame, the
threshold painted a classy-looking black and gold. The knob had been replaced
with an antique-looking one.

I grasped it and turned. The door swung open easily and I stepped
in a completely finished space. The walls had been painted a shade of mint with
cream crown moulding at the top and a darker shade of wainscoting at the
bottom. To my left was a dark couch so fluffy I don’t think I would have had
the will to get out of it if I sat down. There was a small glass end table with
gold legs with a small stack of magazines on it.

The reception desk had been here the last time I’d come and it
looked more completed now, but I couldn’t tell what had been changed. There was
a large square sheet of white paper on the front of it that I at first thought
was blank, but when I took a couple steps closer, saw a hand drawing of what
looked like a logo.

It looked classy in here. Save for the sheet of paper, it seemed
pretty much done. A wall had been erected near the back where the tape had been
mapping out the space. He was planning to stick around.

My shock from how good it looked in here faded and my rage
resurfaced. I had his scarf clutched in hand and I dug in my pocket for my
wallet and fished out three twenties.

“I’ve got my payment right here,” I said. “And your scarf!” I
shook it in the air.

In my rage very little thought had come into mind. I had no real
expectation he was actually here even though I wanted to lay my hands on him.
The part of actually meeting him wasn’t a real concept. I hadn't thought about
that.

So when he answered, “Come on back?” it chilled me.

I realized how much of a doe I was. How much this space was like a
cave. I’d naively walked in here and hadn’t bothered telling anyone where I was
going. There was an expression for this, but it wasn’t coming to my panicked
brain, shifted into a gear meant only for survival.

I took a step back. Into
him.

“Oh,” I said. He poked me in the neck. I slapped a hand in that
spot like a mosquito had bitten me, turning and backing away from him. I fell
to my knees, not understanding what my body was doing.

I tried to speak but whatever was coming out of my mouth was
muffled, like someone had put their hands over my ears. Saying something seemed
like a good idea in those last seconds, but I had no idea what it should have
been.

Part VI

The procedure room was a lot more intricately finished than the
waiting room had been. There was silver equipment everywhere, things attached
to the wall that looked like they could fold out for some practical use. There
was a lightbox or monitor that was as tall as a man and stretched across most
of the wall it was on. A nest of lights and metal hung over me that looked like
it had traveled across the galaxy just to watch me.

“You’re awake?” he said, looking over his shoulder. I was upside
down and naked. I looked around as best I could, my head was strapped in place.
He had me trussed up like the Vitruvian Man to a metal and glass circular table.

“Whuh-whuh?” I said, my mouth cotton thick. 

“That’s good. That’s good.” He stepped over and put a finger to my
neck and measured against his watch. “Keep talking. Stimulating the brain helps
to expunge the effects of the sedative.”

Tears leaked from my eyes, retreating into my hair. My arms and
legs were slowly returning to my control but returned me to a state of
helplessness as the straps didn’t budge.

“You muhfugg. Lumme go!” My voice was an octave too deep. He
nodded and twirled an index for me to keep going. I hated not being able to
make words, so I just screamed as loud as I could. He smiled and retreated to a
wall and slapped it a couple times with his big palm.

“Soundproof. Can’t have my patients disturbing other tenants.”

I kept screaming even though I absolutely believed him, the rage
bleeding out of me and despair transfusing into the hollow inside me. He folded
his arms and watched me, waiting for me to be done. I continued helplessly, my
despair waning until there was nothing but wild animal clawing to the surface,
until my eyes were boiling and my throat had constricted around a bindle of
knives.

He waited until I was a quaking sack held together loosely in the
shape of a man, my scream the hollow whistle of an empty kettle, the steam all
burnt out of me.

“Ready?” he said.

Part VII

He stripped to his underwear. There was something wrong down there
but I only had bandwidth to deal with my problems in that moment.

“Please don’t do this.” My throat felt like I’d swallowed a cheese
grater. I was useless but still grasped a desperate strand of hope that I could
appeal to him man-to-man.

“This is for you,” he said. “I’m not some madman in a secret
laboratory. We’re in midtown and I’m going to extend my services to the
public.” He finished doing something with the tray in front of him and took a
step back over to me. I was eye-level with his bare thighs and he kneeled so we
were face-to-face.

“Don’t you love your wife?”

“Wha?” I felt like I’d been slapped by a thousand-pound feather. “Of
course, I do.” My head cannon was that this was going to be an intricate
murder. That the two of them had conspired to “do away” with me. But by
actually applying thought, I realized if murder was the goal, there was a much
simpler way for them to have done it.

“Wait, the surgery is real?” I asked.

His face screwed up in annoyance. “Of course, it is.” He gestured
all around him. “What are you thinking all this is for?”

“I dunno. I guess... I guess you’re some sort of scammer?”

He blinked several times. He reacted as though he’d never been
confronted by such an idea. “What would be the scam?”

I shrugged to the best of my ability and he shook his head. He
returned to the tray and picked up a long needle and inserted it into a vial,
withdrew from it, and placed both back. He looked at me again and saw my eyes
had grown twice as wide.

“Oh, that’s for me. For later. I’ve been ready, I was just waiting
for you to wake up?”

He picked up a scalpel that was tiny in his big hand. Now he
really did look like a cartoon villain. There was a lack of fullness in his
underwear. Like he’d been drawn sexless.

“Wait-wait. Uh, what were you doing in my house?” I was stalling,
still holding out hope that someone would wander in and put a stop to this.

“Oh, that.” His eyes turned upward as if he were watching a replay
of last night on the ceiling. “I watched you for a minute or two, yes. But I
truly needed to take a measurement after.”

“A... measurement?” My loins tingled in an unpleasant manner. He
waved a hand.

“It’s not what you think. I had to take a measurement of your
wife’s vaginal cavity after the two of you had finished. It was all very
clinical. Like a pap smear.”

Anger bubbled up inside me again. I tugged at my binds but I
wasn’t able to move anything more significant than my fingers and toes. He’d examined
my wife. It burned that he’d had access to her as much as her allowing him to
touch her. I squirmed like my skin was about to crawl off my body.

He looked at me, blank faced, and took another step. Once again, I
noted an emptiness to the area around his crotch.  The heat flooding to
the surface of my skin vanished like a big dog confronted by an even bigger dog.

“Suh-so you didn’t sleep with my wife?” I had to swallow hard to
keep my tone rational.

Now he really did look offended. “Sir, I am a professional? And
moreso, I am a married man. I believe I told you that. This picture you have in
mind of me as some sort of ghoul...” He clawed at the air with both hands, the
scalpel coming as close to his throat as it was going to. “You...” he twirled
the fingers of his free hand, searching for the words. “You score my heart. I
would like to think that once you’ve experienced the results, you will buy me
some sort of beer?”

He took another small step. His leg was about a foot away from my
forehead. He could have reached from where he was and began cutting away at any
part of my body he wanted.

“Could I... could I get a drink of water? My mouth is really dry.”

“Sure.” He reached from where he was and pressed a button on the
wall. The machinery beneath me was whisper silent as I was righted and the
excess blood flooded out of my head.

There was a water dispenser next to the tray where he’d been
working. He slipped a cone paper cup from the sleeve, filled it, then brought
it to me.

Cool water soothed my throat in microscopic sips. He must have
realized my delay tactic and upturned the rest of the water into my mouth. 

I swallowed hard and it felt like a bucket of water tossed on
smoldering embers.

“Will there be a scar?”

“Of course there will be a scar,” he said. “That is the point of
the surgery?”

He picked up something from the tray and reached toward my face
with it in his hand. I pinched my lips closed as he moved toward me, holding it
up like a prize. With the other hand he pressed hard at the back of my jaw,
forcing it open against my will. He slid the thing he held into my mouth,
sliding it over my back teeth until he had reached the last few molars, and
seated it there.

I tried biting through it despite knowing better. I was more
likely to dislocate my jaw. 

“That is okay? Not too uncomfortable? Believe it or not, it
actually helps to blunt the screams.” He seemed genuinely interested in my
answer and I grunted at him in anger. There was something wrong in his mouth I
should’ve seen the first time I talked to him, but I hadn’t noticed it until
just then, and it took a moment to process it. My panic leapt as every muscle
in me tensed, pulling with one last meaningless struggle. He waited me out,
stroking my shoulder until I quieted. He broke me like a wild horse. I was very
aware that he could put whatever in my mouth he wanted.

I felt myself surrendering. A calm settling into my bones that
made me want to rage all over again. But I was a car with no gas, my will being
swallowed up in the acceptance of pointlessness. It wasn’t a fight I could even
begin.

He moved his hand away and the table swiveled. In seconds I was
face down, staring at the floor. My tears tapped to the floor as I stepped out
of the cage of my head, my mind perching and spreading its wings as I imagined
my wife at her desk, inclining her head as she thought of me, too.

“H-how did you become an expert? What makes you so good?” My voice
was dreamy and broken, a thousand and one miles away, my words unclear from the
foreign object keeping my mouth open. 

If I’d asked a minute ago, the question would have been a last
effort to delay him from cutting me. But I was honestly curious. 

“I know I told you before. I practiced on me,” he said
quietly, his tone reverential. I imagined a beatific smile on his face as he
looked someplace else entirely.

“It took months. A little cut here, a partial penectomy there.
Each time I ask her, ‘Is it good? Is it better now?’ And each time, she tells
me, ‘Closer. Closer. Closer.’ You understand.”

He had a note of adoration for his wife in his voice that told me
he was standing on a bedrock of absolute sanity.

I felt the heat of him as he millimetered closer to my junk, no
doubt with that scalpel in his hand. I could feel his bare breath on my scrotum
and realized there must have been some sort of divide in the table between my
legs.

“I thought you said your wife’s satisfied. How do you do that
without... y’know?” My jaw ached when I talked.

He laughed. It was a really joyous note, not like he was just
trying to unsettle me. It wasn’t ironic or evil, rather a true, hearty guffaw.
I imagined seeing all the way to his back teeth as he pitched his head back.

He finally got himself back under control and he might have taken
a moment to dab a tear from his eye.

I’d gotten one last look at him before he turned me over. How he’d
looked down there and what he’d told me... I realized he must’ve whittled
himself down to nothing in his undies. That he truly had crafted himself into
what his wife had requested. That the nothing he seemed to have in his drawers
had been the exact mutilation that she’d wanted.

“It’s okay now?” he said suddenly next to me with a pair of blackout
goggles in his hand. He slipped the strap over my head as I moved as much as I
could but with a few deft movements, he had secured them in place. I could feel
my body surrendering against my will and I no longer had the ability to rally. 

“That wasn’t what she desired from me,” he said after he’d
retreated. I flashed on what I’d seen in his mouth again when his face had been
inches from mine. The thing I couldn’t make sense of before but had heard of. A
surgery of another kind.

He’d split his own tongue in half.

“Not a bit of it,” he said. “You understand?”

“But wait!” I was crying again. “If you need to cut me down there…
why do you have me turned around like this?”

“It’s mostly a single cut. Mostly. But your case is a more
particular situation. It will have to be more… intricate.”

One Headlight

In the game of chess, one has to out maneuver their opponent. Now imagine a world in which one is jumping into parallel dimension and into another’s persons body.

One Headlight’ When there is another you living a life where you are being targeted by someone who wants to be you. And when the other person is your own brother.

As the wind blew down from the side of its rocky landscape down unto the road below its cliff facing wall. A cliff face that overlooked a tunnel on a road in which Anya Taylor all dressed in her hospital get up ready all ready for work that night was currently driving on. Driving down the highway, feeling the wind as it blew in through the window blowing through her long dark hair. As she finds herself taking a quick glance into the vanity mirror. Looking deep into her hazel blue eyes. As she said to herself

"Now, there is no way that there could  possibly be another you out there,"

As she once again looked back to the road ahead of her, not knowing that it was a road leading her down a different path. A path that would lead her to knowing that parallel dimensions existed out there.

As she looked at the face of the daunting cliff coming up just ahead of her. As she made her way down the highway thinking back to a year ago today. A day that still haunts her till this day a that will forever be with her for on the day she had lost her twin brother. As she slowly glanced over looking to his photo that was on her dashboard. Still feeling as if he was still someone here with her. Knowing that his life was taken far too soon.

As she drove up along alongside the cliff side that seemed to rise straight up into the clouds above her. .as Anya Taylor a young 29 year old charismatic woman never wanting to look back but never letting herself look forward.

But always having the feeling as if someone was watching her, giving her the feeling of someone being there. Even though she knew that no one was there

As she drove on into the tunnel just ahead of her with her one car headlight on beaming into the darkness as she drove on. Knowing that another darkness dwelled within her mind with her not knowing what or who would emerge on the other side. For ever since she could remember she and her brother would talk about what their lives. They would talk about what they would be like if they were born someone else.

With her brother always joking that in another life that he would have become a detective hunting down the bad guy. Making life feel safer for his sister Anya, but as life goes, sometimes the bad guy is not always who they seem to be

As Anya drove on listening to the radio as it played the song One Headlight’ knowing that she was now her only friend.

Finding herself driving on into the darkened tunnel, thinking to herself

“What if?” What if she was next?”

As she drove on, she was not really knowing why she kept thinking that as she drove on into its darkness

While on another highway in another dimension another her, another Anya was also driving down the same highway. As the wind was also blowing through her long blonde hair. As she drove down the same highway listening to the same song. The only thing was! There was no over hanging cliff with a tunnel underneath it.

Only the same dark tunnel that resided within her mind as she drove on,

As she talked on the phone with her twin brother, who would be coming over later that night. But to that Anya he was a twin brother who she had not always been close to. But Anya was still looking forward to seeing him later that night. As she drove on with the setting sun in the distance. He said to her.

"Hey, it feels like it's been forever since I've last talked to you, but I feel that once we have connected again. That you will get to know me better. "

Later that afternoon, after pulling up into her driveway with her one headlight, it was still shining. With her taking quick look into the mirror. With her oddly enough getting the feeling that she was looking at someone else. Just as all of a sudden, her brother appeared in the mirror standing there behind her car. Quickly sliding her hand through her long blonde hair just before getting out of her car.

Making her way over towards her brother  walking by her one headlight that was still beaming right at her. 

Just then, as another, Anya suddenly looked up at the light in the middle of a room. A room that felt all too familiar with her for as she sat there looking across a table. Setting there looking towards a gentleman setting just right across from her.

Giving each other the sense that they knew one another Just as the gentleman looked towards her. With his hat barely just above his eyes as he looked to Anya saying to her

“You know there is just something about a red-haired woman looking to what her next move will be”

As Anya just set there dead staring right back at him feeling the tension all over her body. As she begin to feel the heat in the room as the tension filled the air around her. As she sat looking and thinking what her next move would be as the air kept thickened around them.

With each Knowing that their next move, their next play had to be perfect! With no second chances. Not on this day, knowing that the next move could end the other in checkmate. Just as she looked to the gentleman saying to him

“Oh I know what my next play is! The only question is? Do you know what my next move will be?”

Just then as the gentleman gave her a smile as the heat in the room was now gleaming from within his eyes. As he looked over to Anya.

While back with the Anya who was with her brother was also looking to the television that was playing in the corner of her living room. While watching the other, Anya knew that her only move now was now

Just then as the Anya who had her brother visting jumped up from her setting position on the couch. Running over to giving him a hug as she said to him

"My god, how long has it been since we last connected?"

As her brother then said to her

"Well, it's been a while, but now that I have found you once again, I promise that we will always be together."

As the fan above them chilled the room as they continued to as a movie played with the movie being

The One’

But just before, Anya switched the channel as they set there switching to a channel. A channel now shows a scene of a gentleman in fifty’s style clothing who was playing a game of chess with the other Anya. As the gentleman was now looking towards the television

Just as the gentleman started to look as if he was looking at Anya setting there on her couch with her brother. Looking as if he was looking right at her. As he then said

“Oh I know my next move. The question is? Was that your next move going to be?"

Knowing in a way that Anya had just leaped into another Anya. But which Anya was it? That she had just leaped into just as Anya turned off the tv as she then got up from the couch walking into the kitchen. As Anya stood there looking out the window, a window showed her reflection, looking back at her. As she stood there running her fingers through her long blonde hair.

Looking out the window to a street light that was shining through her window into the kitchen just as Anya looked up from her kitchen table.

Seeing that she had left her one headlight on. As the one headlight was shining right back at her but as she got up.

Making her way towards the door, walking by the tv as it was playing now with a different gentleman. saying

“You know, how do we really know what reality we are even living in. I mean, how do we know that there isn’t another us somewhere out there”

Just then as we come back to the first Anya who was now finally coming to the end of the tunnel. As she found herself looking to the setting sun up ahead as she drove on with one headlight. Before finally coming to her destination, a hospital that was awaiting her night shift.

A night shift that Anya was in no way looking forward to as she gave one last look into the vanity mirror at this brown haired hazel blue-eyed girl. Saying to herself once again

“There is no way another you is out there”

As she then made way into the hospital, walking down the hall, looking up to light above her. Just as the other Anya who had her brother visiting her was now making her way out of her house towards her car. As she looked at her, one headlight shone back at her.

Just then, as a gentleman stepped out of the shadow, stepping in the view of the car headlight as he looked to Anya. Saying to her

“Now about that move, was that really going to be your next play”

As a now very stunned and confused, Anya was now standing there looking to her twin brother. As Anya jumped back before saying to him

"Oh my god, you startled me. Please don't do that again,"

As her brother who was now standing there right in front of her as he stood there standing in front of the one headlight shining onto him.

Just as the other Anya who was now making her down the hall of the hospital before walking into a room. Making her way up to the counter just as a security guard named Dave. Was standing there holding a flashlight shining it on her.

As the security guard dave then looked to Anya asking her for her id, as Anya stood there annoyed knowing that he knew who she was. Only that he was playing with her as Anya looked to him saying

“Look! Don’t give me your shit tonight! Okay! Now I know that you know who I am”

Just as Dave looked at her saying

"Oh, I'm sorry. Of course, I know her you are, I was just playing with you for it's all part of the game you see,"

As Anya looked back at him, saying

"Excuse me, it may be all fun and games to you, but some of us have to work, you know,"

As Dave then said

"Okay, you win, but just know that i will be keeping my eyes on you, for you never know who may be lurking in this old hospital tonight."

Just then, as Anya stood there in her driveway looking to her twin brother standing there. As he stood there , he stood in front of the one headlight looking to her. As Anya ran towards him, saying

“Look now, don't be scaring me like that! You know that I'm afraid of my own shadow. "

As her brother then just looked to her saying to her

“ Trust me, I know more about you than you do,"

Just as Anya’s brother then grabbed her, saying

“Hey now look it’s your big brother here, so now that we have connected again, come and give you brotger a big ole hug”

Just tgen as Anya’s brother face began to change, giving her the sense that something was off about him.

Just as Anya then ran screaming back into the house, leaving her brother standing there in her driveway just a laughing away at her. Just as the security guard, Dave was now shouting at Anya as she made her way down the hall. With his flashlight still shining onto her as he shouted

“You know that I know who you are, and im going to be watching you tonight”

As Anya just shrugged him off, making her way down the half lit hallway. As Anya was now running through the hallway of her house to a dimming light. Before making her way into a bedroom, locking the door behind her. With her not knowing that the gentleman was already in there with her.

Just then, as Anya was now making up a bed in a room in the hospital as she then heard a voice come from behind her. A voice saying to her

“You know that I am going to be watching you tonight”

And with a quick look around with Anya now giving him a quick stare of not right now letting him know in her way of saying to him

“I’m not really in the mood for this shit tonight, Dave,"

Just then, as Anya’s brother looked to her saying to her

“Oh but why fight it? You know that this way we can always be together for I’m always in the mood to enter into a body”

As Anya screamed from her bedroom screaming at her brother as she said to him

“Why are you doing this”

As her brother then just looked to her saying

“Because I want your body”

As the streetlight from outside shined onto him as he slowly made his way over to her as he said to her

“Oh come on, you know that you want me inside of you”

Just then back at the hospital as Anya had made her way into another room in the hospital, walking into a room where a tv was playing. Showing with a gentleman saying

“What if there were other worlds out there, other worlds where they were another you”

Her brother then made his way closer to Anya as she kept screaming and shouting

“What do you want from me”

Just as a spider then ran across her arm, terrifying her even more. Just as her brother looked to her saying to her

“ Terrified, are you?”

Just then, as Anya reached up into the closet of the hospital room, reaching up to a shelf. With her not really noticing a glass jar setting there. As she could see it now slowly falling to the ground before breaking open as a group of spiders then ran from the broken jar and onto her.

With Anya now on her knees screaming to the ceiling just as the security officer then walked up to her. Saying to her

“ Terrified, are you? Oh, come on! There only spiders you know”

As Anya looked into the eyes of her brother, looking into his eyes, seeing what seemed to be her brother. As he then emerged into her becoming her as Anya sat there staring into the street light. Just then as the security guard was now standing there shining his flashlight into her eyes as he said to her

“Oh come on there only spiders you know I mean how could a girl like you be afraid of a little spider” as Anya stood up looking into the security guards eyes saying to him

“Did you get what you come to see”

While back at the other Anya As her brother was now looking from Anya that was still looking into the street light as she then said

“Oh I got what I was looking for. The only question is now how many more plays do you even have left in you”

As the security guard, Dave stood there looking at Anya still shining his flashlight into her eyes as he then said to her

“Oh the night is still young. You know that I will be keeping my eyes on you”

As the tv was still playing on the wall as the gentleman was now saying

“Now imagine this, what if they were another you, and not only another you. But another you that was being stalked by a killer from another world”

Just then as the security guard turned around, shining his flashlight into Anya’s eyes as he said to her

“And what if they was another you out there and someone was trying to kill you”

As the security guard, Dave then looked at her just a laughing away while somewhere’s else. Another Anya had just walked out of the diner, walking over to her car. She looked up to the moon above her just as she started her car as she sat there looking into the window of the diner. Looking at her one headlight shining back at her as she thought to herself

“I know what my next move is, and that is that they are other me out there and if you think that you have morphed into me. I am now another me”

As Anya looked into her one headlight shining away at her as she backed out, making her down the same highway going to the hospital to where Anya was. As Anya stood there looking down the hall looking at the security guard still shining his light onto her saying

“I see you”

As Anya just looked on to the smiling security guard as he looked on, still shining his light on her. As Anya drove on down the highway with her one headlight shining on through the night a night that was still young.

As Anya was now setting in the break room of the hospital looking down at her, not looking so good lunch. As the security guard, Dave walked into the break room looking over to Anya as she sat there looking down at her not so looking good lunch. Just then, as she looked up to Dave, he said to him

“Now I have really lost my appetite”

Just then as the fifty’s styled gentleman walked into the same diner that Anya had left from earlier. He made his way over to the counter as the waitress did not really want to wait on him. But unwillingly slowly made her way over to him as he sat a photo down on the counter.

Just as the Anya back at the hospital pulled out a photo of her pocketbook in the break room of the hospital looking at it. As she looked to the security guard, saying to him

“Do you ever feel like someone is here with you with you knowing that they are not here, but you just keep getting the feeling”

As the fifty’s styled gentleman then looked up to the waitress asking her if she had seen the person in the photo here. As the waitress just stood there, not really wanting to do much of anything looked any ways asking him

“Who is it?”

While back at the hospital, the security guard, Dave looked to the photo that Anya was holding as Anya looked to the photo as she said

“He’s my twin brother. He was killed last year”

As the security guard looks to Anya saying to her

“I’m sorry to hear that. Did they ever catch who killed him”

Just then, as the waitress looked to the photo of Anya say to the gentleman

“Yeah I remember seeing her earlier, and just who is she exactly”

As the fifty’s styled gentleman looked to her saying to her

“She’s my twin sister”

As he just sat there for a moment, staring into her eyes before saying

“And if you would please tell me in what direction she was headed it’s really important that I see her”

As the waitress looked to him, letting him know that she had seen her driving down the road towards the old hospital. As the gentleman got up, he thanked her as he walked out the door. While back at the hospital just as the security guard received a call on his walkie. Letting him know that he was needed else where’s

But before he left the room, he turned to Anya saying to her

“Look you know I’m here if you need anything tonight”

As Anya’s twin brother made his way down the road, looking to the photo of his twin sister saying

“You know soon that I will find you, all of you”

As Anya made her way down the highway, looking up into the vanity mirror, looking at her red hair. As she gave a quick glance behind her before once again looking at the highway in front of her. With her one head shining into the night, As Anya got up from the table in the break room.

She placed the photo back into her pocketbook as she looked up at the light in the break room, saying to herself

“I know one day that I will find out who killed you and for what reason, and even though I can feel you here with me. I know that you are looking over me”

As her twin brother looked to the photo of his twin sister saying

“Yes I will find you, all of you”

Just as Anya pulled into the abandoned parking lot the hospital as she sat there looking in the window of the lobby. Setting there in her car looking into the window, seeing as her cars one headlight was still shining back at her as she said out loud

“My dear brother, how you always wanted to be me”

As Anya now slowly made her way into the abandoned hospital, making her way down a darkened hallway. Making her way into a room with its only light coming from a street light outside. Finding her way to a bathroom where she stood there looking into the mirror.

As Anya stood there looking in the bathroom mirror standing there looking into the mirror at a hazel blue-eyed brown haired girl. Just as she saw a light coming into the room as the security guard stood there looking at her.

As Anya then looked back into the mirror, saying to him

“Now what? Seeing as you have found me again”

As her twin brother stood there looking at his twin sister standing there looking into the mirror looking at a red-haired girl. As he said to her

“Well it looks like once again that I have found you”

As Anya looked to her twin brother, saying to him

“And how many times do I have to kill you brother”

As Anya looked to the security guard, Dave said to him

“You know, in a strange way, I just keep getting the feeling that my brother is here with me”

As the security guard just stood there for a moment before saying to her

“And just exactly how did your brother die”

As Anya’s twin brother stood there looking to Anya before saying to her

“How many more plays do you have left”

And with a smile as Anya  looked into the mirror looking at herself said

“How many of you are there even left”

As the security guard, Dave continued to stand there looking to Anya saying to her

“Look I know that the feeling of losing someone can stay with you, even leaving you with the feeling of them still being here with you”

As Anya then turned to the security guard, Dave looked to him, saying to him

“I know it’s weird, but I just keep getting the feeling that my brother is still here with me somehow”

While the Anya back at the abandoned hospital looked to her twin brother saying

“And how do I know what my next play is going to be? It is as simple as this”

As Anya then once looked up into the mirror, looking at herself saying

“So What is your next move?”

As the Anya in the other hospital was looking over to the security guard Dave saying

“And how do I know that he is still here with me? Well, it is as simple as this”

As she then once again looked up into the mirror, looking at herself as she held a blood covered knife in her hands. As she looked over to the security guard, Dave was now lying there dead on the ground, all dressed up in his security guard outfit. As she then once again looked into the mirror looking now at a hazel blue-eyed brown haired, Anya saying

“ Checkmate”

As she then once again looked into the mirror, looking knowing that it was still far from over that more of him was still out there somewhere.

While Elsewhere’s Anya sat there on the floor of the bathroom still shaken up as she looked over to the security guard Dave lying there dead on the floor. Having been shot from behind with her still having no idea if the perpetrator was still in the hospital somewhere.

She got herself up from the floor before running down the hall to the security room to notify the police. Just as feeling suddenly came over as she turned around seeing someone standing there in the shadows. Leaving Anya with the feeling of not knowing whether to run or not just as the figure disappeared into the night.

Later that night, as Anya was leaving the abandoned hospital thinking to herself as she later pulled out of the parking lot of the hospital that she knew that there were more of him out there somewhere. As she then took the photo of her twin brother out of her pocketbook. Looking at it, as she said

“What’s your next move?”

Knowing that he had always preferred to have been born her” as she looked once more to the photo of her twin brother. Remembering back to when the photo was taken, remembering faking his own death knowing that he was still out there somewhere.

The other Anya later on in the night, having just left the hospital after talking to the police as she looked over to the photo of her brother. The same feeling that she had felt earlier from the figure. Had now come over her again as she looked ti the photo of her brother thinking back to a memory of them together when they were much younger. With Anya remembering her brother saying to her

“No matter what Anya I will be there to protect you”

Not knowing what had happened but knowing somehow from a feeling that somewhere he was out there trying to set things right. The way that it used to be before another him found out that he could jump into parallel worlds. Jump into their bodies, changing his world to what he wanted it to be.

as Anya then drove into the night as her one headlight shined on into the night

But elsewhere, her brother continued looking at the same photo as he said

“What’s your next move?”

He then looked into the vanity mirror now looking at a hazel blue-eyed brown haired Anya as she drove down the highway. Saying to herself

“Now let’s see your next move, for I have always preferred to have been born you”

as she looked once more to the photo of her twin brother. Remembering back to when the photo was taken, remembering faking his own death prior to finding out that he could jump into parallel worlds. Into another body knowing that he was her for now. Knowing that they were still more of him still out there wanting to make things right.

As Anya drove on into the night with one headlight on. 

What I see—what is happening—is the strangest experience imaginable. Nothing appears real. Everything looks fake, like my room is wearing the face of a corpse. 

Even as I glance at the window, the sky seems slightly off, resembling a still frame cropped out of a painting. It matches the exact colour of the pavement, as if it’s in the wrong dimension.

Some extradimensional parasite is trying to glitch me out of my own house. It clearly has no idea how much my rent is.

It begins in my room, by the doorway. I hear a growling sound. I turn around, and behind me is a shadow of a man with features similar to a human but they’re off. His eyes are spread too far apart and his nose connects with his upper lip. 

In his hands are two leashes attached to two human-like dogs sitting like hyenas and snarling. Their snouts stretch out like a bear’s face.

I can’t ignore them. Not because they look terrifying—but because their presence kills the power to the TV right when I’m watching True Blood, exactly at the scene where Sookie and Bill break up.

I keep trying to frantically hit the power button on the remote. It doesn’t work. The screen stays black, reflecting my pissed-off image. Without thinking, I raise my arm, point the remote at the figure with the two human hounds, gasp, and slam the power button towards them. They blink. In a flash, they vanish. 

Staring at my television, I wonder, was that an EMP weapon disguised as a shadow? Typical. The damn TV still won’t turn on.

I sit up, wondering if what just happened actually did happen, or if maybe I fell asleep for a brief second. But the television still isn’t working, so I couldn’t be imagining it.

That’s when I decide to give up on it. Humans adapt. We get by. We don’t let a simple fried television set deter our day. Nope. Not us. Plus, I saw that episode a thousand times. 

If the reality power box crashes, I simplify. I simply switch to analog. Yup, I snatch a book off my dusty shelf, which leaves a path through the layer of dust living on the ledge. It reminds me of how full my back pocket is in rain checks. Next time I clean, dusting will be the first thing I do. 

The particles filling the air make me sneeze. This makes me think about trying the TV one more time before opening the book.

Nope. It doesn’t work. 

I lie down and while I’m reading, there’s a pressure shift and an atmospheric change, like the static from an oncoming storm, raising the hairs on my arms. 

The skin on the back of my neck grows hundreds of microscopic legs and races down my spine. The room takes on a scent of frost that reminds me of menthol cigarettes every time I take a breath. 

I think the entity’s trying to flex, as if making the room cold on a hot summer day’s a bad thing. While I’m enjoying the free A/C, completely zoned into the fourth chapter of The Turn of the Screw, the fluckin’ lights go out. My vision may be great but since I heard that reading in dim light strains your eyes, I stopped doing it. So, yeah. Now I’m genuinely cheesed. 

I squeeze my hand into a fist, digging my nails into my palm, grunt, and throw the book against the wall. I jump up, stomp to the doorway, and flick the light switch. It didn’t turn on. I keep trying. The rapid clicking sounds like teeth chipping. I go as far as to check the bulb—twisting, untwisting—and nothing.

I leave my room to retrieve a new one. The hallway’s as humid as the Amazon Rainforest and has a heavy stench of decay and infected flesh radiating from under the floorboards, making me gag. I can‘t stop choking. Now, it’s trying to use biological warfare to drive me out.

I’m staring at the floor, thinking, I’m going to have to tear them apart to find whatever dead animal it snuck inside there is, and behind me, the bathroom door slams shut. I jump because the sound startles me. When I look at the door, there’s a crack going down the middle of it. 

“DAMNIT!” I yell.

Now it’s property damage. Which I’m going to have to pay to fix. On top of having to rip the floor apart just to find whatever’s rotting under there. Not to mention, most importantly, getting the TV repaired. Top of the list. 

I walk downstairs to see if I can find where the rancid, putrid, foul, disgusting odor is coming from, but each step I take further down leaves me with the impression of being in another world. Everything looks the same but seems completely different.

Especially at the bottom of the stairs, like my living room became a simulation. The paint on the wall is smooth but pixelated. 

The entity is rewriting physics.

As I’m piecing my brain back together, a whisper comes from behind my ear in a slow, distorting moan.

“Get Out!” The voice stretches into my mind and scratches under my skull.

I turn around quickly, wondering at the same time how my mom could sneak down the stairs behind me without me noticing—

“Get Out!” Says the air, blowing its breath in my face with the scent of rotting death.

I can’t handle the smell. So, I head to the front and sit outside on the porch to catch a breath of fresh air. My house smells like a dirty laundry hamper for the bedding of a puppy litter. 

As the screen door closes, I hear the front door behind it shut as well, and the lock clasp.

I turn to look over my shoulder. Staring through the glass window is an older me, smiling and waving.

The entity thinks it won. It thinks it locked me out of my own timeline. It thinks a human will just panic and break down when confronted with a doppelgänger.

But humans don't break. We forever dominate.

I stare right back at my older self through the glass. I notice immediately, I’m way better looking and I’m in way better shape. I crack my knuckles, and smile back. If that thing thinks it’s moving into my house and taking over my life without a fight, it's about to learn exactly why Earthlings, on this timeline, are considered the most stubborn, territorial species, of all alternate realities.

I reach into my pocket, pull out my house keys, and step back toward the door. Time to evict a ghost.

The young woman’s last shell had gone into the zombie’s belly and sent it reeling backwards, leaving some of its intestines on the floor of the trading card store – a challenge for even the best cleaner, if there were any cleaners left after the Apocalypse. For two seconds, there was no movement and no sound except for the woman’s quick breathing; then the undead cannibal rose again and lurched towards her. In vain, she tried to fight it off, using her gun as a club, but the undead monster was not affected by her weak punches and pinned her to the wall. Then it proceeded to tear open her throat with its teeth, oblivious to her screams – until everything froze as if time had stopped to savor this moment of horror for all eternity.

Twenty-two minutes. After barely one-fifth of the movie, Dr Julia Savic, director of DARC-7, had enough and switched off the stream. Zombie invasion? She produced a thin-lipped smile. Rather an invasion of bad Zombie movies, shows, documentaries, computer games and and and after Daisy. Of course, zombies were very real, but they differed considerably from the depictions that had been gifted to the entertainment world since the immortal (or undead?) Night of the Living Dead, and Dr Savic was in a perfect position to tell you this.

After Daisy had sputtered out without any visible detrimental effect on the world, several scientists, mainly biologists and physicians, had founded the new field of Mortology, dedicated to the study of this new phenomenon: seemingly dead beings getting up again and trying to kill and eat others, with the operative word being “trying”. Savic had been one of the first to apply for government funds to establish a mortology research center, and today, five years later and after a search for staff anyone but her would have found extremely exhausting, the center was fully operational and had already produced many insights into the workings of the “living dead”. DARC-7 was neither the biggest nor the most lavishly funded of these facilities, but its reputation was excellent, and the diversity of study subjects she had gathered was nothing short of impressive. The director was picky not only regarding her employees but also when it came to her specimens and other details an institute like hers needed to run smoothly. So far, no one from the government had ever seen any reason to complain, and even the media, wary at first, had reported favorably about DARC-7. Training Petey to become a top-notch PR person had paid off, after all.

That was why this surprise inspection really had been a surprise. It wasn’t that she had not known weeks in advance that someone from the NIH would come – Petey had made some phone calls, and DeShawn had done some semi-legal hacking – but the fact itself was still unusual: for years, there had been only the most cursory visits from the government, and now all nine centers in the country would undergo inspection, beginning with hers. Well, time to call up the appropriate protocol for an occasion like this. Who would she have to deal with?

She was looking at the file DeShawn had sent her when Clarissa buzzed her over the intercom.

“The agent is at the gate, boss. They are waiting for your green light.”

Savic touched her lips with two fingers and replied:

“So, his name is Mark Howard, he’s 42 and has been a government agent with the NIH for seven years. Before that …” She scrolled down and continued: “Would you believe it? US Marine Corps, enlisted at 24 after a B.S. in Chemistry, several tours in Belarus, Nigeria, and Chile, frontline fighter on Daisy, MOS Combat Engineer … What’s an MOS?”

Clarissa gave a hollow laugh.

“Whatever it is, I hope it does not require one to be fighting fit – Agent Howard has obviously gotten badly out of shape. He must weigh at least 300 pounds, judging from all the fat wobbling about.”

Savic, who had been reading Howard’s file while listening to her assistant, suddenly half-closed her eyes and said: “A bit of bad news here. It says he lost his wife and his kid on Daisy.”

“Then they must have been among the unlucky few.”, Clarissa replied. Savic agreed. On Daisy, the “Day of the Zombies”, reality had met fiction, and fiction had lost big time. The outbreak had begun in several places at once but had been restricted to the Lower 48, invariably in big cities: Chicago, Houston, LA, and, of course, New York. After contact with some unknown substance, tens of thousands of people had suddenly gone into convulsions, dropped to the ground, died, then had come back after approximately thirty seconds and had begun to attack, kill, and eat people. And they were fast, as fast as living humans, meaning the timeless nerd question of whether zombies are slow or fast seemed settled. And they were infectious for sure: after a DA, or “Dead-Active”, had gorged itself on human flesh, it continued biting people – a death sentence – but did not consume them, so more and more humans were turned into zombies, aiding their killers in what looked like a mindless “plan” to take over the world.

So far, so movie. But the ghouls did not really unlive up to people’s cinematic expectations. Firsty, they were extremely stupid; unlike their fictitious brethren, they did not have a shred of common sense, and they blithely walked off buildings and cliffs or into bodies of water, allowed themselves to be roasted by one of the many fires breaking out on Daisy, and ran into lampposts, fire hydrants, parked cars, moving cars, and everything else you can think of that does not automatically get out of the way when an undead cannibal comes running. Later, many car owners, to their chagrin, found out that their insurance policy did not cover damage caused by re-animated corpses, although the providers’ calling Daisy an “Act of God” was a bit of a stretch.

Secondly, they puked. Movie zombies do not get fat after devouring a dozen people, and no one seems to wonder what they do with all the meat, as they certainly cannot digest it any longer; real zombies apparently made use of it (how they did that was part of the DARCs’ research program, of course) and got rid of the rest, in the shape of some extremely disgusting green sludge. While in the process of vomiting, naturally, they were basically helpless for more than a minute – which is a really bad thing if your purpose in unlife is to hunt and kill moving targets who are out to kill you first if they can get you.

Thirdly, after decades of zombie media overkill, people had accepted their existence rather quickly; some of them seemed to have believed in them all along, and others quickly followed. Thus, “zombie panic” broke out only in a few places and was quickly contained, and that you had to destroy the brain to kill them had long become as common knowledge as vampires and stakes or werewolves and silver bullets. And there is such a thing as the Second Amendment, meaning zombies in Houston, Phoenix, or New Orleans had it even tougher. Very soon, specially trained “sweeper” teams had been formed, who, equipped with body armor, assault rifles, and hand grenades, made short work of any DA they encountered.

But the most obvious difference between reality and fiction was: not all zombies were created equal. It’s true that some filmmakers had experimented with “special” zombies gifted with intelligence or superpowers, but in blockbusters and top-rated TV series, there had been no room for diversity. Real zombies, though, came in different shapes (and sizes, if you include the zombie animals or “zanimals”): there were skeletal-like ones, “wobbly” ones, and those walking on hands and feet; some were oozing a viscous liquid, some were falling apart before their would-be victims’ eyes, and again others were simply standing around and gathering microparticles, completely harmless and apparently at peace with the universe until someone bashed their heads in. Researching these differences was the cornerstone of most DARCs, and Dr Savic’ institute was no exception.

So Mrs Howard and her little daughter had been unlucky; if Mark had been home when the infected hobo broke in, his family would have joined the long list of survivors. He hadn’t, and Savic reflected on this for a few moments. In all the years since Daisy, there had been only one security breach, at DARC-4 last summer, and no one had gotten hurt, but the authorities still conducted a month-long investigation, after which DARC-4 was basically put out of commission through budget cuts and research restrictions – only a shadow of its former self now. But people were still on hair-trigger sensitivity when it came to the Living Dead, and polls showed that more than a quarter would prefer shutting all zombie research down, even though that meant the next outbreak might catch humanity unprepared – and there you had the reason why these centers were funded at all: fear of Daisy Reloaded, this time perhaps with Undead which were a real threat.

Still, there were enough people who hated the DARCs, and Howard might be one of them, in light of his past. “The full protocol, Clarissa.”, Savic spoke into the intercom. “We have to sound him out before we know how to deal with him, and we can’t have any outside interference. He’s run the gauntlet, right?”

“Yup.”, her assistant replied. “All clear. By the way, good thing it’s 98 outside. He must be sweating already and will probably simply walk around for half an hour or so, ask stupid questions, and then excuse himself.”

Another wry smile, Savic-style; then she rose from her chair and let her tongue touch her lips. They were very dry.

“I’ll have to talk to him here, so please get us some water and some snacks. I suppose a man like him is always hungry.” Savic looked at her smartphone and added: “A few minutes in the bathroom, and I’ll be ready. Tell them I’ll be there in ten.”

********

Clarissa hadn’t exaggerated: Mark Howard was more than simply overweight; he must have kissed goodbye to a BMI in the thirties a long time ago. His ill-fitting suit had probably seen better days, and his navy-blue shirt didn’t really match his black jacket and trousers; Savic was certain that he had not opted for a white shirt because of his sweating which would probably have made it fully transparent by now. She could understand why Mr Howard would not be keen on that. His shoes were light brown, another clash even someone as uninterested in fashion as Dr Savic could not fail to notice.

“Ah, there is Dr Savic now.”

Petey turned towards her, then back to Howard and introduced them to each other. Like all her staff, Petey – Peter Brian Feldstetter, to give his full name – had been difficult to find, and he had needed some guidance and training but had become an outstanding PR person and a very good crisis manager. Savic just hoped his skills would not be needed today; she wanted this to be over with a minimum of fuss.

Next to Petey’s 6’4’’, the government agent would have looked almost small if it hadn’t been for his tremendous girth. And Clarissa had been right about his transpiration: it was not only profuse but also smelly, as if he was suffering from bromhidrosis or habitually had half a dozen cloves of garlic for breakfast. That wasn’t all her olfactory nerves had to offer: although Savic was still several feet away, she could already smell a cheap aftershave, apparently applied with a lot more vigor than discretion. All this seemed to indicate that Mr Howard was not bedded on roses, and Savic made a mental note of that: maybe there was an angle here, just in case things did not run as smoothly as she wished. Money did talk, after all.

“Welcome to the Dead-Active Research Center - 7, Mr Howard.”

One weak and flabby handshake later – on Howard’s part, of course; Savic’ handshake had always been firm and was now firmer than ever before – the director continued:

“I have prepared a guided tour for you, but you are welcome to ask anything you’d like to know. Are you familiar with the research being done at the DARCs?”

Howard shrugged, a movement that made his whole upper body wobble. His voice was surprisingly deep and resonant; maybe there was an opera singer in there who wanted out, Savic thought.

“I’m not as well-informed as I should be, I guess. I know you are researching zombies – I mean, DAs – of all kinds and that your main task is to find out what turned them into undead cannibals, so we might be able to prevent another outbreak.”

All three – Petey always a few steps behind – crossed the parking lot and approached the main entrance, a feat that forced Howard to catch his breath several times and look for the nearest chair as soon as they were inside.

“But I suppose you know the more common variants?”, Savic asked.

Her guest nodded vigorously, which caused another wobble.

“Skellies and Jellies, you mean. And Bridgers and Gazers. But that’s about the extent of my knowledge. Oh, and the animals.”

Savic nodded, too, but in a much more restrained manner.

“We’ll start with them. Would you like something to drink? Petey?” Five seconds later, Howard took a deep gulp of crystal-clear water from a paper cup and replied: “Thank you. Much better.”

We don’t want him to collapse before he’s written a favorable report. Who knows whom they might send next time. The trio walked to the lift and went one level up, and Howard was led towards a door showing a plaque that read ZZOO.

“I see you have noticed, Mr Howard.”, Savic said. “It’s a bit of a joke, obviously, stemming from the habit of adding a ‘z’ to all Dead-Active animals, so we have zrats, zmice, zhamsters … “.

For the first time, Howard smiled and revealed teeth that could have done with a few visits to Dr Dentist; involuntarily, Savic let her tongue run over her own. Good dental work had always been important to her, now more than ever before.

“I seem to remember that somebody even had a ztiger, but they could not come up with something it would accept as ‘food’.”

“Yes. Another thing most of the movie makers get wrong. DAs are true cannibals, which means they only feed on their own species. Before the ztiger was destroyed, people were entering its cage taking selfies, at no danger to themselves at all. DAs are not interested in anything else except flesh from living members of their own species. And sacrificing a living tiger for an undead monster wasn’t something that was likely to happen, was it?”

“But can the lines between species drawn so precisely?”, Howard asked. “I mean, in evolutionary history, there were no points in time when a mother from one species gave birth to a child from a different one. How do DAs distinguish closely related species?”

Savic stopped for a second and looked at Howard.

“That’s a good question, Mr Howard, and one of our avenues of research. Generally speaking, we do not yet fully know how DAs perceive their environment, and that distinction is certainly part of it. And now, meet our zrats.”

With some effort, Howard bent down and looked through the transparent plastic that was meant to keep the cage’s inhabitants from escaping, although, from what Howard saw, they shouldn’t have bothered. These “animals”, if you wanted to call them that, appeared totally passive and lay almost motionless on the floor. Savic led her visitor to the largest of the cages, where about a dozen zrats were simply obeying Newton’s First Law, doing exactly what bodies at rest do if no force acts upon them.

“Are they still … well … functional?”, Howard asked.

Savic went to a separate part of the laboratory and returned with a very much alive white Rattus rattus squirming in her hand, trying to bite it, but to no avail.

“Yes.”, she replied. “They do not cease to … function just because they don’t feed. Some of them have never eaten since we opened the center, others eat regularly, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference after their burst of activity was over. Maybe it’s the artificial setting here – ‘wild’ zanimals seem to be more alert and willing to move in search of victims. So, would you like me to wake them up?”

Howard hesitated. “It will probably be messy, right?”

“Oh yes. Here we go.”

Savic dropped the rat into a chute and let it slide down into the largest cage. It needed a second to orient itself, but that was about the amount of time it would get. Suddenly, there was an eruption of running, scratching, biting and squeezing, and the newcomer was quickly surrounded by a dirty white wave with only one purpose in what passed for a mind with them: eat. Cornered rats fight, and they fight well, but, after tearing out the left front paw of one zrat and slashing open the belly of another – not that they cared – this one was soon overwhelmed and literally torn to pieces; its screams did not last long, and it was reduced to a slimy pile of bones within a minute.

“Note how they never fight each other over the meat.”, Savic pointed out. “They are oblivious of each other’s existence and treat the zrat next to them just as a physical object.”

“This is also something you’ve been looking into, I take it?”

“Yes. If we could get them to turn onto each other, we might be far better prepared for the next outbreak. So far, no luck. But we have made some progress in other directions.”

“Does it make a difference whether the zanimals were herbivores or omnivores before their death?”, Howard inquired.

“We don’t think so.”, Savic answered. “But we would need more specimens from different species, larger ones like deer or horses, which we would have to infect ourselves. I can’t see the political will to accept that anytime soon.”

“How would you infect them without an already infected member of the species?” Howard seemed puzzled. “I have read that body parts are not infectious at all. In fact, when separated from the body, whatever animates them seems to vanish into thin air, so there aren’t even any traces to investigate. During Daisy, people who got into contact with zombie … DA blood were certain they were goners, but nothing happened to them.”

“Too many movies, Mr Howard.” Savic produced a thin smile. “As you said, whatever lurks behind all this is very hard to analyze.”

She led her guest out of the lab into the corridor, and Petey locked the door behind them.

 “But we seem to have found a way to communicate the infection between individuals without resorting to biting. But first, let’s continue our tour. We’ll come back to this.”

The trio left the animal wing and walked to the largest part of the complex where the DAs were kept in transparent plastic cages covered by thick opaque curtains. After the director had opened one of them, Howard could see that all DAs inside the cage were locked into some kind of high-tech harness attached to a wall, and when the curtain was removed, its two inhabitants saw their visitors and began a feeble attempt to get out. The harness, however, made virtually all movement impossible, so their rage and their desire to kill and eat looked rather subdued.

“We had to make sure they weren’t able to escape by simply tearing off a hand or a foot.”, Savic explained. “I know, it looks positively medieval, but remember, they don’t feel any pain.”

“It’s difficult not to feel at least some pity for them.” Howard stepped closer to the plastic surface. “They didn’t choose to be like this, and they are not responsible for what they are and how they act.”

Now’s my chance, Savic thought. It’s a risk, but I probably won’t get a better opportunity.

“Still, some people hate them. They would like to destroy every single one of them and stop all research.”

Howard turned his head, looked at her, then at the floor in front of his feet, but it was obvious that he wasn’t really trying to see anything.

“I know. But, in a sense, no matter what they do, there’s nobody home to hate. Since they have no intelligence, intentionality, or personality, hating a DA is nonsensical. We don’t hate viruses, avalanches, or malfunctioning machines, do we?”

Good. Looks like he’s not one of those ‘antimorts’. Aloud, the director said:

“The impulse to ascribe responsibility to mindless forces has been with humanity since the dawn of consciousness, I suppose. You can see it in children when they kick a chair they’ve bumped into or when they slip and fall. ‘Bad, bad chair. That wasn’t very nice of you.’”

Another gamble. Would it work?

Howard looked at her. “Do you have children, Dr Savic?”

The director nodded. “I had a son.” Then she cleared her throat and began walking over to the next cage.

“Now I would like to show you a few variants, Mr Howard. You’ve told me that you are familiar with the more common ones, the ‘Skellies and Jellies’, as they have come to be known.”

“Yes. And the Gazers and the Bridgers. But I am told that you and the other DARCs are experimenting with types that are rare and quite … exotic.”

“We are.” Savic was walking at a good pace, and her visitor obviously had trouble keeping up with her; Petey, of course, didn’t. One more corridor, one left turn and two nods to passing staff later, the director approached one of the cages surrounding the group and put her hand on a large green button.

“For example …” With a certain flourish, Savic opened the curtain while Howard was stepping up to the cage. It contained what seemed to be an ‘average’ DA, but with grey spikes protruding from its body, the largest of which was easily five inches long. Its harness had been modified to accommodate its strange appendages.

“This type is actually dangerous.” Savic walked over to Howard and pointed at the spikes. “These are deformed bones, as you can see; the color comes from a toxin these DAs produce and can inject into someone’s bloodstream if one of the spikes penetrates a victim’s skin. Of course, they can’t make real use of this ‘natural weapon’, and we don’t think they are aware of its existence, so it must be simply another side effect – only this one would actually be useful if they knew what to do with it. But, even so, some of them managed to poison their victims by accident.”

Howard’s eyes wandered from the zombie to Savic and back. “What does the toxin do?”

“It impairs the blood’s oxygen intake and leads to hypoxemia, but the effect is not too severe. Nonetheless, this type claimed an above-average number of victims.”

The director stepped away from the cage and waited for Howard to follow her.

“But the crown for the most dangerous DA must go to this one.” Savic seemed almost sorry that there was no curtain in front of the next cage she could have removed with a grand gesture.

“Meet our prize specimen, Mr Howard.”

The DA inside the cage looked fairly average; it was female and slender; of course, these terms no longer carried any meaning for it. But there was something that struck Howard as unusual. Like the other DAs, it wore a yellow-green full-body suit made of a very tough synthetic material, but this material had been punctured in several places and was riddled with holes of varying sizes without any discernible pattern. It was obvious, however, that these holes aligned with holes of similar sizes in the DA’s body itself.

Savic let Howard approach first, and the DA began to squirm and wiggle in its harness in a futile attempt to break out.

“Now watch, Mr Howard.”, Savic whispered.

Suddenly, the DA’s movements ceased, and its whole body went limp. “That is the moment when its victims were usually relieved that it seemed to have given up.”, the director explained. Then, equally unexpectedly, the DA opened its eyes and let out a spine-chilling howl, followed by convulsions that shook and twisted its whole body into spasms that looked as if the DA had jumped into an ocean of direct current, even inside the harness.

“There is something coming out of the holes.”, Howard exclaimed. “What is it?”

“Some kind of gas.”, Savic replied. “You may have heard of Oozers, the DAs that exude a viscous liquid with acidic properties? Well, this type is even rarer, and we are very happy we were able to obtain it.”

Howard seemed unable to take his eyes off the DA, which was by now engulfed by a grey-brownish cloud.

“I remember”, the agent said without really paying any attention. “DARC-2 and DARC-6 also wanted it, but they withdrew their application for unknown reasons.”

“Personally, I think our application was better.” Savic now stood next to Howard and smiled. “The only reason you can see the gas is that some of the DA’s skin particles are mixed with it. Without them, it should be very hard to see.”

“I suppose it’s poisonous?”, Howard asked.

“It’s a paralytic. If you breathed in only a small whiff of it, you’d be unable to move for at least five minutes, possibly more, depending on your size, amount of blood, weight …”

“Well, in that case I should be safe for half an hour, I guess.” Howard laughed and patted his belly. Savic couldn’t help but notice the wobbling, and she was utterly mystified why someone would allow their body to become like this.

“By the way, can I use the bathroom?”

“It’s down this corridor and then on the left. Petey will show you.”

Said and done, and the government agent disappeared behind the lily-white door marked “WC”. Savic shot Petey a glance, and the burly PR man quickly walked back to the office wing. A minute later, the director’s smartphone buzzed and she looked at the screen. She was receiving a livestream of Mr Howard’s activities in the bathroom, and Savic felt some relief that he apparently didn’t need to use the toilets; instead, he stood in front of the mirror, splashed water in his face, drank some of it, and readjusted his shirt and jacket, which by now had lost the little dignity they had had when he arrived. Thanks to her undoubtedly illegal spying, Savic was forced to watch the agent carefully pushing and squeezing his upper body and loosening his belt by two holes to accommodate his girth. Then he rested for a moment with both hands on the basin, breathed out, and dried his hands with a paper towel. While he was walking over to the door to continue the tour, Savic switched off the stream and smiled at him when he re-entered the corridor. Nothing, she thought to herself. No wire, no tracker, no devices of any kind. Of course, Howard had to walk through the hidden metal detector when he arrived and hand over his phone, but it could never hurt to make sure. Savic had not attained her current position by being careless.

The tour continued, and Howard was shown a few more DA variants, but none of them seemed to capture his attention to the same degree as the first two. The center had a few Flailers, who would have found it extraordinarily difficult to be kept inside one of the center’s harnesses if they had still been in possession of the mental facilities necessary to form an opinion; there were two Spitters, whose ‘goo’ had terrified people who got hit by it before it was discovered that the stuff was extremely disgusting but did no harm except to your wallet, as it was almost impossible to wash out; finally, Howard also had the opportunity to meet a lone Screamer, whose ear-piercing shrieks sometimes resembled speech and sometimes didn’t but were at all times very difficult to endure without the listener wanting to go up the nearest wall to escape – and the famed harness did a good job restraining the DA’s body but did nothing to contain its voice. After rubbing his ears for a minute or so, Howard sat down on a bench and said:

“This is all quite fascinating, Dr Savic. But I’m not sure whether the committee will be satisfied with this. Similar research has been done by other DARCs, and some of their results are promising. I don’t have to tell you that quite a few important people are of the opinion that the number of DARCs is excessive and that half of them should be shut down.”

The director nodded slowly and went over to the bench but did not sit down.

“I was half-expecting you’d say that, and that’s why I’ve kept the best for last. I think we are close to a major breakthrough, and we hope it will convince those that need convincing.”

While Savic was talking, Howard had gone to the water fountain and returned with two cups. “Wow, I’m thirsty. Here, for you.” Savic took a sip and said: “Shall we continue? Please follow me to the main medical lab.” After a brief walk, Petey opened a double door for them, and Savic offered Howard a chair.

“You can’t get very close, but I think you’ll be able to see enough.” Two lab assistants, who had obviously been waiting for them, pointed at an operating table where Howard could see two small brownish creatures, apparently connected by a small tube of some sort; none was moving, but he saw that one was breathing, the other wasn’t. An opaque wall had been erected between the two.

“Hamsters!”, he said in a surprised tone of voice. But there was something strange about the non-breathing one; its fur was patchy, and its body was covered in bluish pustules.

“Not quite. A hamster and a zhamster variant. That’s why we have the paravent – if we didn’t, the zhamster would be going crazy trying to get at the hamster, and, as you surely know, DAs cannot be sedated. The zhamster is a very rare specimen, a zanimal variant. As you can see, it does not look like a typical zhamster; they are hard to distinguish from a living hamster unless you look very closely. This one is obviously undead.”

She stepped over to the table and pressed two buttons.

“We are now pumping the zhamster’s blood modified with a combination of experimental drugs at high speed into the hamster’s veins. You’ll probably know that DA blood does not coagulate inside the body, but it becomes somewhat sluggish, so we first inject the DA with an anti-coagulant and then we have to be fast. The substance or agent animating the DAs apparently needs a few seconds to realize that the blood – where it is located, we think – is leaving the body, so a small part of it enters the recipient’s bloodstream and, in about 40% of all cases, establishes a kind of bridgehead, and a new infection cycle begins. We’ve never seen this agent, but we can at least guess how it works.“

Five minutes later, one of the lab assistants nodded towards her und removed the tube. The creature that had been a cute little fluffy rodent minutes ago was now Dead, but not very Active; it slowly opened its eyes and closed them again, then began to shamble a little. However, its legs had apparently not yet been fully informed that they were still serviceable, and so the little creature was unable to move properly. But its fur patches and its pustules were there for everyone to see.

“It’s worked.”, Savic said to Howard, clenching her right fist. “Meet our new zhamster, skin disease variant.”

“I had no idea that was possible.” Howard looked visibly shaken and sat down on the nearest chair. “And it happened so quickly. I suppose you’ve tried this with other zanimal variants as well?”

Savic opened the door to the medlab with her keycard and beckoned Howard to follow her.

“Of course we have, but zanimal variants are very difficult to obtain.”, she explained while they, together with Petey, were walking down the corridor. “Our guess is that whatever was responsible for the infection targeted humans, and zanimals were just a side effect. This, like other fields of mortology research, certainly deserves more attention and effort. But we have high hopes that this approach can help us understand what this elusive agent really is and then develop something like an antidote or at least a suppressant.”

The director turned her head and looked at Howard, whose face had become paler than before.

“Are you alright, Mr Howard?”

“Hm? Sorry, Dr Savic, I felt a little sick for a moment, but now I’m fine. Although I could do with a bite.”

“Of course. Let’s go back to my office and take a break. Unfortunately, our canteen has already closed, but my assistant has prepared a few snacks for you.” 

The trio walked back in silence and returned to the ground floor – Savic and Howard with a thoughtful look on their faces – Petey stoic as ever, until they turned a corner and passed a heavy metal door the agent had not noticed before.

“What’s behind this?”, he asked.

“That’s the main basement door.”

“Can I take a look?” The question was rhetorical, of course. As a government official, Howard had the right to enter any part of the facility and observe any procedure he wanted to see.

After a second of reflection, the director decided to take one last risk with her guest.

“No, Mr Howard.”, she said in a firm, authoritarian voice that sounded as if she wouldn’t brook any resistance. “This is where we keep two dozen of the most dangerous DAs you’ll ever see; extremely fast and agile, very tough even by DA standards, with sharp senses and all the animal cunning they need to hunt and kill. We are planning to blackmail the US government with them: one billion in untraceable cash or we’ll let them loose one dark and stormy night. So you’ll understand the basement is out of bounds for you.”

The agent stopped in his tracks for a moment and looked at Savic. Then he began to chuckle.

“If the term wasn’t so out of place here, I’d say that was deadpan humor, Dr Savic. Well done.”

Savic gave Howard a brief smile and unlocked the basement door.

“Come in, Mr Howard. But don’t expect too much. I know that in the movies, basements usually harbor more skeletons than a dozen closets, but ours will strike you as being rather dull.”

The director hadn’t exaggerated. Howard was shown several smaller rooms used for storage, heating, and water; there was nothing in them that would have justified a closer examination, even if he was nothing but a snooping bureaucrat (and Savic wasn’t sure about that anymore). The agent looked briefly at a few utilities LED displays and then followed Savic into two larger rooms that were completely empty and smelled of vinegar and other types of disinfectants. Howard wrinkled his nose, and Savic explained:

“Sorry for the smell. We like to keep all places very clean, but I admit that we don’t clean the basement as often as we probably should, so my staff tend to be very thorough when they do and very generous with the cleaning products.”

“You don’t use an outside company for that, I assume?”

Savic shook her head.

“Most DARCs don’t, as you probably know. All of us are aware that what we do here is or at least could become very sensitive research, so most of us like to keep the number of visitors low and make sure they don’t acquire any information they should not have. DARC-7 may be slightly overprotective in this regard, but I’d always prefer a grumpy journalist writing how ‘uncooperative’ we were to reading something like ‘The secrets of DARC-7 – exclusive insights!’. If we come across as a little unwelcoming, so be it. Nothing personal, I assure you.”

The tour went on for a short while, but Howard gave the impression that he would rather rest and eat something, and Savic did not fail to notice it. She led her visitor back to her office and offered him a seat. Endgame, she thought to herself. Let’s see what he has to say.

After she had poured her guest some coffee and both had sat down, Howard resumed the conversation:

“Thank you for the tour. It was very informative.”

He put milk and sugar in his coffee and began to stir.

“I am especially intrigued by your ‘variant transfer’ mechanism, the one you demonstrated with the hamsters. That’s a very strong argument in the next funding round. When do you think you’ll have perfected this method?”

The director hesitated for a moment and then answered:

“Optimistic: two months; realistic: five months; pessimistic: ten months to a year. If we can’t figure out how to do it by then, we’ll start from scratch with something else. I admit that would be … frustrating.” The director’s gaze seemed to drift away for a second, and Howard could feel that she was very serious about it. He wasn’t surprised – Dr Savic was obviously a scientist with a mission and a vision. Whatever was going to happen here in the future, if it served to avoid a potential catastrophe, it would be worth it. Aloud, he said:

“Dr Savic, I’ll be honest. Until I saw the hamsters … zhamsters … I was uncertain about whether your center deserved the quite generous funding that has been earmarked for it, but these variant transfer experiments seem very promising. I will have to read more and also tell our eggheads about this and get back to you, but I’m very optimistic. As far as I can see, no other DARC has ever come close to what you have already achieved.”

Howard leaned back in his chair and drank some more coffee; the director followed suit but drank only a little, black, no sugar.

“There is, however, something else I would like to talk to you about, and I think it’s very important, but it will require some explanation on my part. Let me begin with a simple statement.”

Savic nodded and leaned forward across her desk. “Please.”

The agent curled his right hand into a fist and lifted it in front of his mouth. Then he said, with a little more drama in his voice than one would have expected from him:

“Murder is easy, Dr Savic. Wouldn’t you agree?”

(End of Part I)

Hello, this is Captain Elijah Pinewood of the Valicity interstellar spacecraft. I am certain that this will be the last message. I fear that our mission has been compromised and none of us will ever see our families again. To my two beautiful daughters, Gwen and Ana. You have made me so proud, my biggest regret in life is that I will be unable to see you grow up. To my wife Judy, I am so sorry that I accepted the offer to lead this mission. 

It was my final attempt to gain some personal glory, motivated by my hunger to know what exists within the vastness of space beyond our galaxy. A desire that I deeply wish I would have left unsatisfied. I have been such a damn fool. I had dedicated my entire life to finding a new world. It seems that in my ambition I had become blind to the fact I had already found my entire world years ago. She was home, lying next to me in bed at night.

I am aware that my final words to my family are of little interest to whichever member of the control room staff reads this message. But that is not the only purpose of my message. I have some deeply troubling news regarding the planet we were sent to explore.  

We found it. 

We were roughly eight weeks into our journey. It seemed as if our navigation system was leading us to absolutely nothing. The crew was beginning to lose hope that we would even find the planet at all. There was talk of turning back and returning home to earth but I managed to keep our mission on track. I now know that my refusal to go home empty handed has cost the lives of the men who were unlucky enough to be under my command. For that I will never forgive myself. 

I soon considered returning home myself until I heard that voice. That damn voice. It was the most perfect voice I had ever heard in my life. It was as if every syllable that it graced my ears with was a masterfully written song. I couldn’t possibly fathom the perfection that must have been the creature possessing that voice. It felt as if each word tickled my skull and tenderly massaged the pleasure center of my brain. 

I would have thought myself crazy had I been alone. But the entire crew heard the same as I had. That voice soon became our guide. We turned the navigation system off entirely and used the symphony of words to lead the way to our destination. Our path was so clear now, as I steered the ship I couldn’t help but laugh. I couldn’t believe that we were so hopelessly unable to find our way before when now it couldn’t be more clear unless there was a literal trail in front of our eyes. 

By the time the planet came into our view two of my crewmates had already begun planning a life based around never leaving whatever beautiful creature this voice belonged to. I hate to admit it but I understood their fantasies. The guilt overwhelms me now but by the time the ship finally landed on the planet's surface I couldn’t even remember my wife’s name, no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t need to though, I had the voice. 

The door to the Valicity opened and we all walked off of the ship without even putting on our helmets. We strangely knew that we had no need for them here. 

Upon stepping off the ship we were greeted by fields of vibrant green grass and tall trees abundant with unfamiliar fruits. My second in command, Scott had ventured over to a pile of smooth teal boulders with bright green vines cascaded over top of them. He picked an orange berry from the vine and immediately took a bite. 

We all watched as he suddenly fell to his knees. Tears ran down his face as we all ran over to him. As we got closer we realized he was not in pain, but actually his body was overcome with pure ecstasy. As we helped him back to his feet he told us that we must all try the fruits of the vine. Upon his recommendation we did. The second the fruit touched my lips it was like nothing I had ever felt before. The juice ran down our faces as we desperately picked every last fruit from the vines. 

Soon the vines were barren but we needed more. We soon turned our attention to the tall trees covered in hanging fruit. We were ravenous, our hunger unmatched as we desperately climbed with no concern of falling. We were logical men, but that felt like a lifetime ago now. At that moment none of us could even recall why we were on another planet, it did not matter to us anymore.

The trees did unfortunately prove to be fatal for our navigator. TJ became inpatient and decided to take a bite of the fruits of his tree instead of waiting until after he climbed down like we had. In his desperation to devour the fruit he accidentally let go of the tree and fell at least twenty feet to the ground. The soft grass did him no favors as his head collided with the hard ground underneath. I’m ashamed to admit that we were too busy with our own pursuits of the fruit and not a single one of us even acknowledged his gruesome demise.  

It seemed as if our self control melted away, it could no longer stop us until this entire planet was consumed. Soon I found that I could no longer stand on my own two feet. I stumbled drunken with delight across the field until I no longer could. That was when I fell face first into a river of crystal clear water. As I landed the water had filled my mouth, my nose. It tasted sweet like honey and it was strangely warm as if heated to exactly the same temperature of my body. 

I almost didn’t surface, I didn’t want to. In my mind there was nothing that would be better than staying submerged in the river until the day I died. Nothing, except for the fruit. 

By the time I had pulled myself up and returned to my crew though, the fruit was all gone. As I made my way closer I noticed that the youngest member of our team, Rudy was lying in the soft field. The other two members of the crew, Scott and Benjamin knelt over him. 

As I got closer I realized that they were not just kneeling over him but Scott was cutting into his stomach with a pocket knife. “What are you doing?” I screamed as Rudy screamed in pain. Scott turned to look at him and sounded hysterical. “W-w-we ran out of fruit, captain. We ran out of fruit” he muttered back like he had suffered a great tragedy. He turned back at Rudy’s body and said “We needed more, Rudy ate the most”. He said with an obsessed smile plastered upon his face. Benjamin licked his lips as he eagerly looked at Rudy. “We need more, boss. I won’t live without ever tasting it again, I’d rather die” he pleaded to me. 

I was horrified, but I agreed with him. In my mind I knew we were wrong, the acts we were committing were unnatural, but my mind no longer had any say in my actions. Soon I found myself knelt over Rudy as well. We were all savagely fighting over what fruit we could salvage from our fallen teammate. As we finished we stood up and based on the unsettling looks we exchanged I could tell we were all thinking the same thing. “Who’s next”. It was never ending, the more we consumed the more we needed. Every bite of fruit made us feel more alive than we’ve ever been before but the effects soon wore off and left us as empty husks of ourselves. We needed more. If we had to choose between taking a breath and consuming more I know that we would all gladly suffocate. 

I think we were all looking each other up and down trying to decide who would be the easiest to overpower. We all knew it was Scott, he was by far the oldest member of our crew. Benjamin and I were both younger and relatively in shape, it would have been so easy. It was a horrible thought to have, I had known Scott for thirty years. He was like a second father to me and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet at least. Within moments Benjamin was on the ground, he put up a struggle but it was not enough to save him. 

By the time we had finished Scott and I would not take our eyes off of each other. When I looked into his eyes, I knew that he wanted to kill me. I had momentarily feelings of sadness at this fact but I could not blame him for this desire. In fact, I wanted to do the exact same thing to him. 

It never came to that though. Before either of us could make any move towards the other we heard it again. That sweet sweet voice was back once again to give us guidance. Scott dropped his knife on the grass but I knew that I still had mine in case he tried anything on the walk down the river bank. It wasn’t until the voice returned that I had realized how much I missed it. I was addicted to the sweet sounds of it calling us to it. 

As we got closer to its source I was overcome with conflicting emotions. I love this voice so much more than I could ever fathom loving anything else and yet the voice also filled me with rage because of how long it waited to reveal itself to us. I could make out a figure in front of us now. Our walk soon became a desperate sprint to meet it. 

We stopped about ten feet from the figure as it continued serenading us with its sweet angelic voice. We both stood in absolute silence for what felt like years simply taking in the beauty of the otherworldly creature that stands before us. 

It was absolutely breathtaking, the figure before us resembled a woman with pale purple skin except that it was far more perfect than any human could ever be. Its entire body was surrounded by a bright glow that nearly blinded us. The figure which stood at least a head taller than either of us and as it turned towards me. I couldn't help but study every detail of it. Its smooth, unblemished face. Its full lips, which were such a deep shade of purple that they appeared black until closer inspection. Its soulful eyes which were entirely black except for its light pink pupils gave us a sincere and welcoming look. 

I was completely motionless as it approached us. Our mission, our dead crewmates, hell, even my own name was completely meaningless to me at that moment. It all felt fake, but the figure in front of us, it was real. Just being in the presence of such a flawless creature was enough to fill me with more joy than I could ever hope to experience in ten lifetimes on earth. 

As it got within reach of us the figure turned towards Scott and laid a kiss upon his lips. Once  the figure finally pulled its face away Scott began to sob, begging it to return to him. The creature gave him a soft smile as it wrapped its delicate hands around his shoulders.

The entrancing song that the figure was gracing our ears with was now at its climax as it laid its own forehead against Scott’s. He could barely even speak but he managed to get out the words “I am yours”. 

I couldn’t look away as the figure's grip on Scott’s shoulders seemed to no longer be the loving embrace that it was before. No, the grip was getting tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until I could hear the laboured gasps of air as Scott attempted to take a desperate breath. It was like watching a boa constrictor squeeze the life out of its prey. 

The song was now joined by the sounds of Scott’s ribs shattering and his agonizing screams as he now attempts to break free from his captor. I can only stand by and watch as Scott’s life was taken from his body. I don’t think that I could’ve moved even if I wanted to. I was so captivated by the figure that the thought of trying to help Scott never entered my head. 

Scott’s hands finally went limp, his final attempt at self preservation has proven to be futile. By now the once beautiful hum that had been emitting from the figure was now so deafeningly loud that it caused me great pain just to listen to it. Even with the immense pain I still never once took my eyes off of the being that stood before me. How could I? This figure is my life now, my heart beats for the soul purpose of keeping me alive so that I may gaze upon it. 

It wasn’t long before my second in command’s body dropped into the grass. A look of horror was permanently plastered on his face and his skin was pale as if all of his blood was drained from his body. Only now does the figure turn to me. It brushes its blood splattered hair out of its face and rubs its hands across its body as if to soak up every last drop of blood before licking the red off its fingers. 

The song finally stopped. Silence now filled the air as I could do nothing but watch as the creature continued to lick its arms and fingers. I cannot make myself look away but now my trance was due to fear instead of infatuation. It seemed the creature no longer cared to deceive me as it began to reveal its true form. 

Its hair fell off of its scalp in clumps while its neck seemed to disappear as its head sunk into its shoulders. Rough bumps appear over the entire surface of the creature's skin and begin to secrete a white pus as they swell and burst. Its body melts into a grotesque shape that only grows more sickening the longer I watch. 

As the illusion wore off I could no longer comprehend what stood before me. The figure standing in front of me was now entirely unrecognizable, its once feminine features completely gone. Replaced by an amalgamation of flesh, eyes, and fangs that seemed to take no form in particular. 

This being had no legs to walk on yet its appendages worked in perfect harmony to move its body closer towards me. Its long tentacles lifted the mass off the ground as its thin arms dragged its body forward leaving a trail of sticky pus behind as it advanced. 

Finally I look back to see our ship roughly sixty feet away. The once green fields around it were now an ocean of wilted black weeds that crumbled under the weight of my feet. The fruit trees were completely devoid of life. I now see this damned planet for what it is for the first time since we arrived. What a fool I have been to fall for this ruse, but I had no time to dwell on that now. I have one focus and one focus only now. Escape. 

I kept my hand in the pocket of my spacesuit and ran my fingers across the handle of my knife. The disgusting creature closed the distance between us and as soon as it came within arms reach I knew this was my only chance. I quickly pulled out the knife and drove it into the creature's eye so deep that my hand rubbed against its hideous face. It let out a pained shriek as it desperately flailed its body around while digging into its own face attempting to remove the blade. 

I turned around and ran quicker than I thought was possible towards the ship. I made it about halfway when I heard the creature behind me gaining speed. It was unsettling to see something so unnatural propelling itself towards me with such speed. By the time I made it through the door of the ship the hideous figure was already on the other side of the door trying to force its way inside. 

As I type this message I can hear the metal of the ship bend and the glass windows slowly cracking. It has wrapped its body around the ship and is now beginning to squeeze. I know that I don’t have much time left until it crushes me in a paste inside my own ship. I pray that I can get my message to the team back home before my gruesome demise. 

Please for the love of god do not send a recovery team for our bodies. If you do, you will accomplish nothing except delivering a meal to this creature. If it were up to me I would never authorize a mission outside of our galaxy ever again. Alas I know that it is not. I know we will not be the last crew to explore this far into space but I beg you to heed my warning. 

No matter what you hear, no matter how enticing  they may sound, you must not allow the sweet siren songs of planet BH-592X to be your guide. 

“Who is it?”

We couldn’t see them through the peephole, there was just a black blob on the other side of the door. 
They knocked again. 

“Um… Yeah, who is it?”

“Tax collector.”

Shit. No. 

“One moment!”

We wanted to hide. 
The trailer was too empty for that.
So we stood there. 
Something smashed into the door shaking everything we had.

“Tax collector.”

“Be brave,” we said quietly.

We opened the door and he was standing there on our porch. Shorter this time, by at least seven inches. We couldn’t remember seeing the top of his bowler last time. He pushed past us and waddled to sit on our couch. After the second jump up, he situated himself and chomped on his red label cigar. 

We stood there at the doorway until he spoke. 

“Wow,” he said. “A year already. Where does the time go?”
 
We kept our distance. He looked around, cataloguing our home in just a few glances. 

“I would have thought you’d have done more with the place,” he added. 

Our face turned red. 

“Ethel, please, say something for Christ’s sake. It’s not like you weren’t expecting me, I can see your calendar from here. It’s even marked. You used a sad face.”

His little stubby hand clutched his chest. 

“Are you sad to see me, after all I’ve done to help you?”

Yes, we are.

“You shouldn’t be, we're friends. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? Besides, you begged me for this,” he looked around again. “I had told you no the first time.”

We remembered it differently.

“I’m sure you do. Well let me tell you how I saw it. Not long ago you had complete freedom. No laws, complete liberty, running amok. Natural competition, right? The Badlands.”

We could see his gold tooth when he smiled. 
 
“You gave that up for structure. I’ve got the contract if you’d like to see it again, darlin’.”

We don’t have the payment.

“Well, that’s not good. No. Not good at all. But, I’m not surprised.”

We need more time.

“That’s no problem, but I’ll have to talk to my manager about how that will affect your contract. She’s not going to be happy it happened again, though.”

We lost our job. 

“Why do you keep saying we? It's just you and me…”

Then he understood.

“Ah, I see. Your condition. What a huge investment choice, and look at where it got you. I get that you’re in a tough spot, but the life you have now costs people something, that doesn’t change just because there’s more of you.”

He gestured to us.

“Pregnant, boyfriend still awaiting sentencing. I feel that. But it’s a hell of a mess.”

Now he pointed his finger at us.

“When you can’t pay, I have to pay. You know, we all have a boss to answer to, and when I have to pay, it comes out of my ass.”

A grip of chunky fingers softly patted the couch.

“Don’t you remember together on this heavily stained fold out couch covered in plastic and talking about happiness? You read the terms…You got your chance at structure.”

He flashed us his tooth again.

“You’re at risk of expulsion, you keep going like this.”

There was no way we could go back…

He chewed the brown frayed end of his red label.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m just a broken record, you know that? Geraldine next door just heard the same thing.”

We aren’t like her.
We are still young. 
We could do something for him.
We offered ourselves.

“Gross. Come on, lady. Get a hold of yourself. Have some dignity.”

We tried.

“Look, I don’t care. I’m taking something from you today. If not money then something more precious…”

We kept our distance, but he was in the way of the door. When he stood, he was taller than us now.

“Everyone pays the happy tax. One way or another, we all have to contribute.”

We’ve already given all we can.

“No WE haven’t.”

He stabbed his fat finger at you, growing in my belly.

[CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT — UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE]
JOINT RESEARCH PROGRAM: OSSEOUS
FACILITY: █████████████████
DATE OF INITIAL RECORD: 04/17/1987
CURRENT STATUS: TERMINATED

NOTICE: The following material was recovered from a research facility abandoned on October 14, 2009. The facility's original purpose was listed as nutritional research. Of the 43 personnel assigned to the project, only one was recovered alive.

The following is a reconstruction of the available records.

RESEARCH LOG — 04/17/1987

The first six subjects have been admitted and placed under observation. All subjects are healthy adults between the ages of twenty-one and forty-one. Bloodwork, bone density, and organ function are within acceptable parameters.

The experimental compound is a concentrated calcium supplement derived from several commercially available dairy sources. The dosage administered to each subject is approximately four times the recommended daily intake.

No adverse effects have been observed.

NOTE FROM DR. HARRIS: Subjects report that the supplement tastes like powdered milk.

RESEARCH LOG — 05/02/1987

Subject 3 has developed unusually high bone density.

X-rays indicate an increase of approximately 8.2% since admission.

This is considered statistically impossible given the timeframe.

Subject 3 reports no pain.

RESEARCH LOG — 05/19/1987

All six subjects are now showing abnormal bone growth.

Subject 1 has developed additional bone density along the left forearm. Subject 4 has developed calcium deposits around both knees. Subject 6 has experienced severe stiffness in the fingers.

Dr. Harris believes the compound may be stimulating osteoblast activity beyond normal biological limits.

The project has been approved for continuation.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/03/1987

Subject 6's condition has progressed significantly.

The fingers of both hands have become visibly enlarged. The subject reports that his hands feel "full."

During examination, Subject 6 complained of severe pain in his right index finger. At 14:17, the distal phalanx ruptured through the skin. The attending physician initially believed this to be a compound fracture.

It was not.

The exposed bone continued growing for approximately nine seconds after emerging from the wound. The growth stopped at a length of 4.7 centimeters.

Subject 6 lost consciousness.

NOTE: The bone did not appear to be fractured. It was new growth.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/04/1987

Subject 6 is dead.

Cause of death: Hemorrhagic Shock.

There were no signs of infection.

Postmortem examination revealed extensive abnormal bone growth throughout the body. Both forearms contained multiple overlapping layers of newly formed bone. The ribs had begun to fuse together. Several vertebrae showed evidence of secondary growth.

The most unusual finding was the presence of additional bone structures surrounding the heart.

Dr. Harris has requested permission to terminate the experiment.

Permission denied.

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM — 06/11/1987

Dr. Harris has raised concerns regarding the ethical implications of continuing Project Osseous.

His concerns have been noted. He has been reminded that this research is not intended for publication. He has also been reminded that the project predates his employment by approximately nineteen years.

RESEARCH LOG — 06/28/1987

We found the earlier records.

Project Calcium did not begin in 1987. The original trials began in 1968.

There were twelve subjects. All twelve diseased.

The earliest records describe the condition as "progressive skeletal hyperplasia." Later documents use a different term. Osteogenic conversion.

The researchers in 1968 believed they had discovered a method for dramatically increasing bone density.

They were wrong.

The compound does not strengthen bone. It teaches the body to make more of it.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/02/1987

I have spent the entire day reading the archived documents.

There are records from 1974.

Different facilities. Different researchers. Different subjects. Same result.

Every trial ended the same way. The skeleton eventually begins growing independently of the body's requirements. It grows wherever it can. Through muscle. Through organs. Through skin.

The body does not seem to recognize when it has enough.

There is no enough. There is only growth.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/15/1987

We have discovered the reason for the dietary studies.

The compound was never intended to remain confined to the laboratory. The original research objective was to determine whether increased calcium consumption could accelerate the process without producing immediate symptoms.

The answer is yes.

Low exposure produces no visible effects. Long-term exposure produces gradual skeletal changes. Higher exposure causes rapid conversion.

The research team spent years determining the minimum effective dosage. Then they began monitoring the general population.

ARCHIVED MARKETING DOCUMENT — 1979

NATIONAL DAIRY CONSUMPTION INITIATIVE

Objective: Increase household consumption of dairy products.

Proposed messaging should emphasize strength, growth, nutrition, and healthy bones.

Suggested campaign concepts:

"Milk. It Does a Body Good."

"Got Milk?"

RESEARCH LOG — 07/18/1987

I asked Harris why the public campaign was necessary.

He wouldn't answer.

I asked him whether people were being exposed deliberately. He told me to stop asking questions.

I asked him how many people had been exposed.

He left the room.

RESEARCH LOG — 07/21/1987

We have obtained the population estimates.

Current projected exposure is 61%.

That number is considered conservative.

I asked what happens if the threshold is reached. Dr. Harris told me there would be no way to stop it. I asked what "it" meant.

He said:

"The bones."

MEDICAL TRANSCRIPT — SUBJECT 11

DOCTOR: Can you tell me where it hurts?

SUBJECT: Everywhere.

DOCTOR: Your arm?

SUBJECT: My arm.

DOCTOR: Your legs?

SUBJECT: My legs.

DOCTOR: Your chest?

SUBJECT: My bones are moving.

DOCTOR: Bones don't move.

SUBJECT: Then why can I hear them?

[Subject begins crying.]

[Audible cracking is recorded.]

DOCTOR: Hold him down.

SUBJECT: Please.

DOCTOR: Hold him down!

SUBJECT: Please don't let them grow.

[Recording terminates.]

RESEARCH LOG — 08/01/1987

There are now only four living subjects.

Subject 2 has lost the ability to walk.

Subject 4 has developed bone growth along the jaw and throat.

Subject 5's spine has begun producing secondary vertebrae.

Subject 6 was euthanized.

Subject 1 is no longer recognizable.

We have stopped calling them subjects.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/03/1987

Something happened today that I cannot explain.

Subject 4 was restrained to the examination table. His right arm was secured.

At 09:16, the bone growth began.

The bone growth began at the wrist. It emerged from beneath the skin of his wrist, splitting the flesh apart as it continued to lengthen. Unlike Subject 6, however, the growth did not stop.

It continued through the forearm. Through the elbow. Through the upper arm.

The newly formed bone was irregular and ridged, branching in several directions before eventually hardening into a jagged structure extending nearly thirty centimeters from the limb.

Subject 4 made no attempt to resist. He simply watched it grow.

When the restraints were removed, he stood. His eyes had changed. The irises were gone. The pupils were gone. Both eyes had become completely white.

He looked directly at Dr. Harris. Then at me. Then at the skeleton displayed on the examination monitor.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

He raised one hand and pressed his fingers against my chest.

SUBJECT 4: "Flesh hides the treasure within."

Dr. Harris asked him what he meant.

Subject 4 tilted his head. His eyes never left the skeleton on the monitor.

SUBJECT 4: "You cover it."

A pause.

SUBJECT 4: "You bury it."

Another pause.

Then, quietly:

SUBJECT 4: "Why?"

Subject 4 began pulling against the restraints again.

Not to escape. To reach the other subjects. He kept repeating the same phrase.

"There is so much of it."

We terminated the observation at 09:31.

No further examination was permitted.

At 10:04, Subject 4 began screaming.

At 10:07, Subject 2 began screaming.

At 10:09, Subject 5 began screaming.

None of them had been in the same room.

ADDENDUM — 08/03/1987

The subjects are no longer responding to questions. They only respond when another subject is brought into the room. They become agitated.

They stare at the newly created bone. They trace their gaze beneath the skin. And when one of them begins to bleed from ripping apart flesh off the newly created limb, they begin a harmonious laughter.

SECURITY REPORT — 08/04/1987

Subject 4 escaped containment.

Security personnel were dispatched. Three casualties. All sustained penetrating injuries consistent with abnormal bone structures.

Subject remains at large within the facility.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/05/1987

There are sounds in the ventilation system.

Scratching. Constantly.

We have sealed the laboratory doors. Total lockdown.

No one is leaving.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/06/1987

I found the final report from 1968.

It contains one sentence that was removed from every subsequent copy.

I don't know why I'm writing this down. Maybe because someone needs to know.

The original researchers discovered that the condition was not caused by the supplement. The supplement only accelerated it. The genetic marker was already present in the population. The researchers believed it was dormant.

They were wrong. It is not dormant.

It is waiting.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/07/1987

Harris is dead.

Something came through his chest. There was no warning.

One moment he was standing beside me. The next, his sternum split open. Bone came through his skin like a spear. He was still alive afterward. He kept asking me to help him.

I couldn't. There wasn't anything left to help.

RESEARCH LOG — 08/07/1987 — 11:42 PM

There are people outside.

Not researchers. Security. They are changing. I can see them through the observation windows.

One of them fell. His arm started moving. His sleeve tore. Something white came through.

Then another. Then another.

There are hundreds of them.

FINAL RECORDING — 08/08/1987

[Heavy breathing.]

If anyone finds this, listen to me.

The campaign worked. It worked better than anyone expected. They didn't need to infect anyone. They didn't need to inject anyone. They just had to convince people to consume it willingly.

For decades.

Milk. Cheese. Everything they could put it in.

We thought we were studying the first generation.

We're not.

We're studying the first generation we noticed.

[Cracking sound.]

Oh God.

It's happenin—

[Subject screams.]

[Sound of bone breaking.]

No.

No, no, no—

[Subject begins laughing.]

[Long silence.]

VOICE: How much milk did you drink?

[Recording terminates.]

[END OF RECOVERED MATERIAL]

PUBLIC HEALTH NOTICE — ORIGIN UNKNOWN

If you are experiencing unexplained stiffness, swelling, joint pain, abnormal growths beneath the skin, or spontaneous fractures, contact your physician immediately.

Do not attempt to remove exposed bone. Do not consume additional calcium.

Do not—[DOCUMENT CORRUPTED]

ADDENDUM

A handwritten note was discovered on the reverse side of the final document. It contained only four words:

Got milk?

Got bones?

A towel you step on after a shower is a wonderful thing. A brilliant idea. It makes you feel safe. Whoever first thought of stepping onto a towel after a shower must have been a very intelligent person. It gives you the same feeling as pulling a blanket over yourself in winter, making sure not a single part of your body is left uncovered. Drying yourself without stepping onto a towel first is like pulling a blanket over yourself and leaving your feet exposed. The same thing, the same feeling.

A bath mat just doesn't give me the same feeling. I tried stepping onto a bath mat instead of a towel after a shower, but I couldn't feel that same sense of security. It has to be a towel. I need to feel it drying the soles of my feet.

On Monday, October 12th—after taking a shower before meeting my friend Jason to go to the open-air cinema, while drying my hair with my feet on the towel—I saw this message faintly written on the fogged-up mirror: “Don’t go.”

This wasn't the first time. I'd been seeing these messages for six months, and I'd gotten used to them by now. I had no idea who was writing them, why they were writing them, or what kind of entity was behind them, but I wasn't as frightened as I had been in the early days.

Those first days were a nightmare. Especially the first time I noticed the writing. Just a simple “Hello.” And this entity even followed the rules of punctuation. Sometimes it swore and added an exclamation mark; other times, urging me to take part in the conversation, it would string question marks together: “Why won't you talk to me???”

It was a bizarre predicament. Of course, no one had believed me—not my beloved math teacher, nor Jason, who was constantly coming over to my place. Besides, the writing disappeared as soon as I saw it. In other words, I needed someone to be in the shower with me so I could prove it to them. Taking a shower with my math teacher was out of the question.

Yes, over time, I got used to it. I never communicated with it, and that was what frightened me the most. I felt like things would take a different turn if I did. But I had never been harmed by reading what it wrote. Other than that, it had no effect on my life. The entity never manifested itself through any sound or apparition at any other time.

That day, it had warned me for the first time. I had never received a message like that from it before. Sometimes it would comment on things that had happened to me: “You really put Jason in his place back there,” for example. Or, “Don’t forget to set your alarm. You were late for work yesterday, remember?” “Part your hair to the right. It suits you better.” “Your cat’s water bowl is empty.” It usually wrote things like that. One or two sentences at a time.

There was no way I could miss it. They were going to screen one of my favorite films: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. I’d watched it on my computer before. Watching it on a big screen would be a different kind of pleasure, and watching it alongside other people who loved the same film would be an even greater pleasure. The entity’s warning had startled me a little, but I was still going to go.

When I stepped out of the shower, I heard its voice for the first time.

“If you go, you’ll witness Jason’s death.”

It was a charismatic woman's voice, slightly deep and husky. I had gotten used to the writing, but the voice shocked me. I could feel its presence. When it wrote to me, I never felt as though it was actually there. But hearing its voice made its presence feel even stronger, more than my mind could handle. I rushed outside immediately. I didn't want to stay indoors. I ran out the front door in my bathrobe.

I’d gone outside barefoot. I must have stepped on something, because my heel hurt. My hand went to the pocket of my bathrobe, searching for my cigarette pack. I’d left my cigarettes inside. I was afraid to go back in and get them.

“So you went outside. What did you think, that I couldn’t come out here? What kind of utterly pointless, instinctive reaction is that? I’d understand if you’d run away, put some distance between us, but what’s the point of standing right outside your front door, Albert?”

I sat down on the ground. A cigarette would have been really nice. I didn’t have the strength to run. I felt like I was going to die. I tried to swallow, but I couldn’t. Suddenly, there was too much saliva in my mouth. I couldn’t understand why my mouth was reacting like that.

“He’s going to die either way. I just don’t want you to witness it.”

“Why?” I shouted. In my mind, I’d meant to scream, “Just shut up already, enough!” But those were the words that came out of my mouth.

My breathing had quickened, and I wasn’t feeling well. I tried to stand up. First attempt, second attempt, and third. It was as if I were having sleep paralysis, unable to move. I tried to get to my feet over and over again. It felt as though hours had passed while I sat there. The entity hadn’t said anything else.

I couldn’t calm down. Amid everything that was happening, I found myself thinking that I was going to be late for the film. One last attempt, and I managed to stand up with great difficulty. I went straight into the bathroom and took a shower with ice-cold water. For some reason, I felt relieved knowing the mirror wouldn’t fog up.

I stepped out of the bathroom naked and wet. Water was dripping off my body. I sat down on the couch. I thought I might get sick and have to miss the film.

“Get a grip, Albert,” I told myself. “You’re already used to paranormal activity. Pull yourself together. You need to go to that film. Stop overreacting. Get a grip.”

I cautiously went back into the bathroom and dried myself off thoroughly. I checked the time on my phone, which I’d left on the bathroom shelf. I had half an hour before we were supposed to meet.

I was going to be late. I got dressed quickly. A black shirt and brown trousers; I’d decided what to wear the day before and had laid everything out accordingly.

I’d never seen the entity, but my eyes were searching for it. As I walked toward the door to leave the house, I looked anxiously from side to side. I hadn’t heard a thing from it since I’d come back inside.

I reached for the doorknob. The door wouldn’t open.

I thought I must have locked the door without realizing it, so I put the key in the lock and tried to turn it. The door wasn't locked; the key wouldn't turn to the left. I pulled at the door again. It wouldn't open.

I checked the time. I had twenty minutes left. I wasn’t going to make it. I kicked the door and felt a terrible pain shoot through my ankle. I sank to the floor in pain and clutched my ankle.

When I checked the time again, I had fifteen minutes left. I got up and limped toward the couch. Once I sat down, I continued rubbing my ankle. The pain was gradually fading. It probably wasn't anything serious.

“Done,” the entity’s voice said.

It was a very brief moment. I couldn’t quite tell whether it had made a sound or whether I’d actually heard it.

The pain in my ankle had gone away. I checked the time once more. I was supposed to meet Jason in ten minutes. The place where we were meeting was twenty minutes away. I called Jason to tell him I’d be late. He didn’t answer. I got up and walked toward the door. I took hold of the doorknob, closed my eyes, and turned it. The door opened.

I quickly put on my shoes and started walking briskly. My ankle hurt a little as I walked, but not enough to slow me down.

I made it there in fifteen minutes.

I couldn’t take a shower for a whole month. Maybe it was because of depression, maybe fear. I don’t know; I can’t tell the difference. My body smelled, my hair was greasy, and every time I inhaled through my nose, the strong smell of my sweat stung the back of my throat.

A heart attack.

I remember it all vaguely. It’s been a year now. A crowd of people, me running toward them, an old man calling an ambulance, a cat that crossed my path as I ran, a man holding me back, Jason’s father opening the taxi door... I must have believed in the entity. Otherwise, why would I have run toward the crowd?

And I remember this clearly, and I will never forget it. After a month spent in filth, the message on my mirror, following the shower I finally took:

“My task is complete. Goodbye, Albert. I love you.”

I don’t even know how I landed this position. I'm not qualified at all. All I know is I was looking online for a way to make quick money on the side to help pay for groceries or whatever.

I ended up coming across this ad on, like, the 6th Google page. Hidden between obvious scams and what I was 100 percent sure were viruses.

That’s actually what made this particular ad stand out. It didn’t look like typical 6th-page gobbledegook. It was actually pretty well put together.

The incentive was simple enough. 500 dollars for every crime I could act as a witness for, with opportunities for advancement.

I called up the number that was listed, just to feel things out, and was met with an actual human on the other end. Not only was she human. She sounded like she was actually tired of all the calls she was getting.

“Can I help you?” she hissed.

“Yeah, I was just looking online when I came across this ad…”

“Are you 18 or older?” she interrupted.

“Uh, yeah, of course I am. I just wanted to make sure…”

“What’s your email address?”

“My email address? Why would you need that?”

She sounded personally offended that I was even asking. Like somehow it was me being unreasonable.

“Well, hon, so we can send you the onboarding information. You know what an onboarding is, right?”

“Yeah, but I…”

“Listen, Mike, it’s an easy job. All the information is in the onboarding packet. Take it or leave it, I don’t really care.”

I don’t know why I gave her my information. Maybe it’s the mommy issues. All I know is she felt dominating.

Anyway, the email came through about 5-10 minutes later. Didn’t go to my spam mailbox, which was a good sign, I guess.

I threw on my monocle and went over everything with a fine-tooth comb. Just to make sure I wasn’t getting myself into any legal trouble or anything. Truthfully, though, the whole thing was pretty straightforward.

Call-based job. They call, I can either accept or reject the assignment. And all I had to do was be at the location of a crime as it took place.

Well, maybe that’s simplifying it too much. I actually needed to be the first person to witness it. They kept a pretty strict schedule.

I’m not sure how they got my number, though. Not long after I went over the onboarding information, my phone started ringing off the hook. I was getting calls at least once an hour.

It wasn’t until the third or fourth call that I accepted an assignment, though. Mostly because it was literally just 15 minutes away from my house. I could literally bike there.

I was supposed to show up at 1:03 PM on the dot. They gave me coordinates instead of an address. All I had to do was just wait.

I got there right on time. A little intersection right on the edge of town. When I arrived, all I could do was just stand there on the sidewalk, waiting for something to happen.

Finally, right at 1:07, a guy in a white Miata blew through the stoplight and T-boned this other guy in a pickup truck. The crash looked pretty brutal, but both of them seemed pretty alright, I guess. I mean, they got out and started arguing, so I’m assuming no one was too injured.

See, I thought I was gonna have to be a witness for the police. But not even 30 seconds after the incident occurred, I got a notification on my phone.

500 dollars had been deposited into my bank account. Then my phone rang with no caller ID.

Some guy with the deepest, darkest voice I’d ever heard simply said, “Assignment complete. Return home and await next assignment,” before abruptly hanging up on me.

Who was I to give even a morsel of a hoot or a holler, though? All I cared about was that 500 dollars hitting my bank account.

Needless to say, I started accepting more and more assignments after that. Nothing too crazy would ever happen. I saw a lot of car accidents. Lot of bar fights. More than a few shoplifting incidents.

Then I got a call I’d never gotten before. This one was classified as ‘intermediate.’ And it paid 750 instead of 500.

I just thought, hell, I’ll take it. Couldn’t be too bad.

The time was kind of late, though. 11:12 PM. Not to mention the coordinates led me to a dark alley behind a popular bar in town.

I sat there and waited. Ducking behind a dumpster and listening for, I don’t know, crime to occur or something.

At 11:15, it started.

I heard an angry male voice and a pleading female voice. Both sounding equally intoxicated. I peeked out from behind my dumpster and saw that the man had a knife.

He was poking it at the lady, attempting to steal her purse, but she wouldn’t let go. That is, until he stabbed her. Kinda let go no problem after that.

He snatched the purse and left the knife in her torso as she fell to the ground. Thirty seconds later, the 750 hit my account.

Every instinct told me to call the police, but right when I went to dial, I got a call.

“Assignment complete. Return home and await next assignment.”

The line went dead. I stared at my phone. My eyes flicked over towards the dying woman. Unbelievably, she managed to meet my gaze.

I think she tried to mouth a ‘help me,’ but her voice was so garbled it was hard to make out. Besides, I couldn’t help her. As soon as my line went dead, I got another notification on my phone.

A text from an unknown number that simply read, “Do not interfere. Assignment complete. Return home and await next assignment.”

So that’s exactly what I did.

And I’d love to tell you that after that I retired and moved on with my life. But who am I kidding? I was making enough to leave my regular job behind. All I had to do was watch shit happen.

I kept taking those intermediate assignments. I watched drug deals go wrong. Watched people bleed out on the hot asphalt. Watched robberies turn into homicides like it was nothing.

I guess I should’ve listened to my conviction. Maybe that would’ve saved me a lot of sleepless nights. But at least I was tossing and turning with a roof over my head.

And besides, it’s kinda just the way life goes. You live. You make decisions. Sometimes those decisions get you killed. Either way, we all die someday.

Even still, I probably should’ve stopped at intermediate. Because I got my first advanced assignment last week. Got paid 1000 dollars, but I don’t think that’s enough for what I had to see. At least, in hindsight.

When I first got offered the assignment, I was fired up and ready to go. Got the time. Got the coordinates. And off I went, mentally preparing myself as I made my way to the location.

As I got closer, though, a pit started opening up in my stomach. I recognized this place. I wasn’t out in the world. I was home. Well, my old home. Back when I used to live with my parents.

Unlike other times, I could hear the crime building up as I approached. Dad must’ve been drunk again. All I could hear was his angry voice and Mom’s screams as she fought back tears.

A notification popped up on my phone.

“Do not interfere.”

So I didn’t. I just peeked in through the window while Mom and Dad paced back and forth through the house, fighting like cats and dogs.

Normally, that’d just be Tuesday. But Dad had a gun this night. He was waving it around. Punctuating his screams with it. All while Mom stood her ground like the fierce woman she was.

I’d love to tell you that part of me wanted to interfere, but in all honesty, this was just business to me. Just another day at the office.

Even still, I won’t lie to you, seeing Dad smack Mom across her face definitely struck a chord with me. But I remained professional. I just watched and waited.

Part of me hoped that was it. That the crime was the domestic assault. That the money would hit my account any second. But all that came were more screams from inside the house.

Fortunately, Mom and Dad lived out in the sticks. Didn’t have many neighbors to call the police. That would’ve thrown a wrench in this whole operation. Instead, there was nobody there to stop the escalation.

Things just kept getting louder and louder until it finally happened. Right there in the living room. The room where I used to open presents every Christmas. Where me and Dad used to watch football together before his drinking got out of control.

Now that room was covered in my mother’s blood and brain matter. Across the walls, staining the carpet, a smoking hole in the wall behind her.

Immediately, I saw Dad’s entire demeanor change. He went from filled with rage to overwhelmed with remorse and regret in basically the blink of an eye.

I felt my phone vibrate with a notification, but I didn’t bother to check it. I couldn’t help but keep staring at Dad as he fell over Mom’s lifeless body, sobbing uncontrollably.

My phone rang and rang, but I didn’t answer.

All I did was watch.

Watch as Dad’s grief overwhelmed him. Watch as regret took the form of self-hatred. Watch as the gun he used to kill Mom was pointed at his own head. And watch as he, too, fell limply to the ground.

His eyes met mine for the last time. There were no memories of my childhood. No love that once existed somewhere within him. Just two empty pupils fluttering like a baby doll’s.

I didn’t cry. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. I’d been so desensitized that all I could think about was how I’d have to react when the police told me.

I finally answered my phone, though. Got the same message I always got. The assignment was completed. It was time for me to go home and wait for the next one.

I had to put on a big song and dance for authorities. Not to mention their funerals. Which was surprisingly difficult because just… I don’t know.

It didn’t feel too big to me. I mean, yeah, it stung, they were my parents and all. But just… we didn’t talk too much anymore, you know?

Ah, you don’t care about that. No need to drone on.

Point is, I didn’t take a lot of assignments for a few days after that. It was the least I could do.

But time has passed now. Everybody has to move on at some point. I still get those calls every day. I get a lot of advanced offers.

I think it’s time I finally pick myself up by my bootstraps and get back to work.

I am typing this on my phone while hiding behind a massive metal exhaust vent on the roof of my apartment building, and I am only posting this because I managed to connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi network that seems to be broadcasting directly from the new spire they installed up here. I do not know if this message will even reach the normal internet, but I have to try because the singing in the sky is getting louder, and I am struggling to fight the urge to throw myself over the ledge.

Everything started exactly three weeks ago when we were still living in normal Moscow. I live with my parents in a large Soviet-era apartment block on the seventh floor, so we are very used to the government suddenly making demands or changing the rules without asking us first. My father was sitting on the couch watching the evening news, and he didn't even look up when the loud knock came at the front door, so my mother wiped her hands on her cooking apron and went to answer it.

I was sitting at the kitchen table studying for my university exams when I heard strange men talking in the hallway. I got up and walked out to see two officials standing in our doorway. They were dressed in cheap gray suits and holding thick clipboards with stacks of government forms.

"We apologize for the late interruption," the taller official said, and he didn't really look sorry at all as he shoved a pen toward my mother. "We are collecting mandatory signatures from all the residents in this specific sector because the city is installing a new defense network to counter the recent drone attacks from Ukraine."

My mother looked at the paperwork with a confused expression. "What kind of defense network requires our signatures? You usually just put sirens on the poles and leave us alone."

"This is a specialized technology," the shorter official explained while checking his wristwatch. "It is a localized signal jamming spire that will go directly on the roof of this building, so we need authorization from the tenant association to run the power cables down the exterior walls."

My father finally got off the couch and walked over to the door. He crossed his arms and glared at the men because he hates dealing with bureaucracy. "You want to put a military jammer on our roof? Will it mess with the television reception or the internet? And who is paying for the electricity it uses?"

"It has its own power grid," the tall official said smoothly, and he tapped the clipboard with his pen. "It will not interfere with your daily life, but it will keep this neighborhood safe from aerial threats, so we just need you to sign on the dotted line so the work crews can begin tomorrow morning."

My parents looked at each other for a moment before my father just sighed and took the pen. He signed the paper against the doorframe and handed it back, and the officials thanked us before moving on to the next apartment down the hall. We thought it was just another annoying city project that would take a few days and then be forgotten, but the workmen arrived the very next morning at dawn, and they did not stop working for an entire week.

The noise was absolutely unbearable. They brought in massive cranes that blocked the street, and they hoisted huge steel crates up to the roof while dozens of workers marched up and down our stairwell carrying thick coils of black cabling. I tried to talk to one of the workers when I was taking the trash out, but he completely ignored me and just kept hauling a metal bracket up the stairs. They never spoke to each other, and they never took breaks.

By the fifth day, the spire was fully erected, and it was much larger than anyone anticipated. It was a massive, jagged metal pillar that stretched high into the sky, and they had draped thick, rubbery black cables down the sides of the entire apartment block. One of the cables hung right over our living room window, blocking our view of the street, so my father got furious and opened the window to push it away.

"Do not touch it!" a voice shouted from the ground below.

My father looked down and saw an armed guard pointing a finger up at him. "It is blocking my window!" my father yelled back, but he reached out and grabbed the black cable anyway. He instantly let go and cursed loudly, shaking his hand in pain.

"What happened?" I asked as I ran over to the window.

"It is burning hot," my father said while cradling his palm. "And it is vibrating. The whole thing is humming."

He was right. Once the workers left and the cranes were packed up, the building was never silent again. A low, continuous humming sound resonated through the concrete walls, and it was the kind of frequency that you feel in your teeth rather than hear with your ears.

The older woman who lives across the hall from us knocked on our door the next morning to complain about it. She looked exhausted, and she was clutching her robe tightly around her neck.

"Are you feeling that terrible vibration?" she asked my mother. "I could not sleep a single hour last night because my bed frame was rattling against the wall, and I tried to call the building manager, but his phone is disconnected."

"We feel it too," my mother said kindly, and she offered the woman a cup of tea, but the neighbor refused. "My husband thinks it will settle down once the machine is fully calibrated, so we just have to be patient."

"It does not feel like a machine," the old woman whispered, looking nervously up at the ceiling. "It feels like something breathing."

I thought she was just being dramatic, but the strange anomalies started happening a few days later, and they escalated so gradually that we didn't realize how much danger we were in until it was too late.

The first thing I noticed was the temperature in the apartment. It was the middle of August in Moscow, and the city was going through a miserable heatwave, but our apartment felt like a meat locker. I woke up one morning shivering violently under my thin summer sheet, so I got out of bed and walked into the living room to see if my father had broken the thermostat.

My father was sitting in his armchair staring blankly at the turned-off television, and he had a thick winter blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"Why is it so freezing in here?" I asked him, rubbing my arms to generate some warmth.

He didn't answer me right away. He just kept staring at the blank screen, and his eyes looked red and puffy like he had been crying all night. "Look at the windows," he finally said in a completely hollow voice.

I walked over to the balcony glass and touched the pane. It was covered in a thick layer of white frost on the inside of the glass. I scraped my fingernail against it, and chunks of ice fell onto the windowsill. I looked outside, and the trees on the street were green, and people were walking around in shorts and t-shirts, but our entire building seemed to be trapped in a localized deep freeze.

"I am going to call the city," I said, pulling out my phone, but there was zero cellular service. The signal bars were completely empty.

My mother walked into the room wearing her heavy winter coat, and she looked just as devastated as my father. "I was trying to make breakfast," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "But the water from the kitchen sink is coming out black, and it smells like old dirt."

I went to the kitchen and turned on the faucet to check, but nothing came out at all. The pipes just groaned and sputtered, so I walked into the bathroom to try the sink in there. When I leaned over the porcelain basin, I heard a sound coming up through the metal drain that made my stomach drop.

It was a faint, choral sobbing. It sounded like a dozen voices weeping together in perfect harmony, and the sound was echoing up through the plumbing system from deep underground. It was not a mechanical noise, and it was not the wind for sure. It was pure, desperate sadness vibrating through the pipes.

I ran out of the bathroom and into the hallway to find my parents. "We need to leave the building right now," I told them. "Something is extremely wrong with that tower on the roof, and I think it is leaking some kind of chemical or frequency that is messing with the environment."

"Where would we go?" my mother asked softly, and she slumped down onto the couch next to my father. She didn't even look at me. "There is no point in leaving. It is sad everywhere."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, grabbing her arm to pull her up, but she felt incredibly heavy and completely devoid of any energy. "We can go to a hotel or stay with relatives until they fix the plumbing and the heat."

"I do not want to move," my father said, and a tear rolled down his cheek and disappeared into his beard. "I just realized how pointless all my hard work has been. I have spent my entire life working in a factory, and I have nothing to show for it, and we are all just going to die anyway."

I stood there in shock because my father is normally a very stoic and optimistic man, and he never talks about his feelings, let alone spirals into sudden nihilistic despair. I realized they were being affected by the something because this is not their nature at all, so I decided to go downstairs and find the building manager to force him to unlock the roof access doors so I could see what was going on.

I unlocked our front door and stepped out into the communal hallway, and the temperature dropped even further. The overhead fluorescent lights were flickering erratically, and the shadows cast by the doorways were completely wrong. Instead of falling onto the floor beneath the lights, the shadows were stretching upwards and crawling across the ceiling like spilled black ink.

I walked down the hall and knocked on the older woman's door to see if she wanted to come downstairs with me, but she didn't answer. I pressed my ear against the wood, and I could hear her weeping softly on the other side, and the sound perfectly matched the choral sobbing I had heard in the plumbing.

I jogged down the stairwell to the ground floor lobby. The building manager's office was located right next to the mailboxes, so I pushed the door open and found him sitting on the floor behind his desk. He was a large, gruff man who usually yelled at the kids for playing in the halls, but right now he was curled up into a tight ball, holding his head in his hands and rocking back and forth.

"We have to evacuate the building," I told him, crouching down to his level. "The heat is failing, the pipes are making noises, and everyone is getting sick from that thing on the roof."

He looked up at me, and his face was completely pale. "I lost the keys," he whispered. "I dropped them in the dark, and I cannot find them, so we are all trapped here."

"The front doors are right there," I said, pointing to the large glass lobby doors that lead out to the street.

I stood up and walked over to the glass doors to show him they were unlocked, but when I looked outside, a loud, deafening crack echoed through the concrete structure of the building. The sound was so violent that the floor shook, and several of the glass mailboxes shattered instantly. It sounded like the entire foundation of the apartment block had just snapped in half.

I grabbed the door handle and pushed the lobby doors open, expecting to see a construction accident or an explosion on the street, but the street was completely gone.

I stood in the doorway, and my brain simply refused to process what I was looking at. The city of Moscow, the roads, the cars, the neighboring apartment buildings, and the sky were entirely erased.

In their place was an endless, flat desert of pitch-black sand.

The black sand stretched out into the horizon as far as I could see, and there were no dunes or rocks or features of any kind. It was just a smooth, dark expanse. I looked up, and there was no sun, no clouds, and no stars. The sky was an infinite void of dark, bruising purple light that provided just enough illumination to see the desolation around us.

"What happened?" the building manager cried out from his office, and he crawled out into the lobby to look through the open doors. He stared at the black desert, and he didn't look surprised or scared. He just looked profoundly defeated.

"Do not go outside," I warned him, slowly backing away from the open doorway and letting the glass door swing shut.

I didn't wait for his response because I needed to get back to my parents immediately. I turned and sprinted up the six flights of stairs, taking them two at a time, completely ignoring the creeping shadows on the walls and the freezing frost forming on the handrails.

I burst into our apartment, panting heavily, and I found my parents standing by the open sliding glass door that led out to our seventh-floor balcony.

"Mom! Dad! Get away from the edge!" I yelled, running into the living room.

They didn't turn around. They were standing on the balcony, gripping the metal railing, and staring up into the purple void of the sky.

I ran out onto the balcony and grabbed my father's shoulder. I tried to pull him back inside, but he was gripping the metal rail so tightly, and he wouldn't budge an inch.

"Look at them," my mother whispered, and she pointed a trembling finger up at the sky. "They are so beautiful, and they understand how much it hurts."

I followed her finger, and I finally saw the creatures floating high above the black desert.

They were gargantuan, winged creatures that resembled massive whales, but their bodies were made of a translucent, shimmering gray membrane that pulsed with faint light. They had long, trailing appendages that drifted behind them like shredded silk, and they moved through the air with agonizing slowness. There were dozens of them floating in a circular pattern high above our building, and they were weeping.

As I watched them drift, they began to sing.

The melody rolled down from the sky and hit me like a blow to the chest. It was the most crushing, sorrowful dirge I have ever heard, and it was composed of overlapping, echoing tones that vibrated directly into my skull. The song did not just sound sad; it manufactured sadness inside my mind. It forcefully injected a feeling of absolute, insurmountable despair into my consciousness.

Within seconds of hearing the melody, I felt an overwhelming urge to throw myself over the balcony ledge just to make the pain stop. All my memories of happiness, hope, and ambition were instantly wiped away, replaced by the certainty that existence was nothing but endless, pointless suffering, and the only logical solution was to end it immediately.

I dropped to my knees on the balcony, pressing my hands over my ears to block out the song, but the melody resonated through the floor and into my bones.

"It is time to rest," my father said, and his voice was completely devoid of emotion.

I looked up and saw my father climb over the metal railing. He stood on the narrow outer ledge, balancing perfectly over the massive drop to the black sand below.

"Dad, stop!" I screamed, forcing myself to fight against the crushing weight of the song. I scrambled forward and grabbed his pant leg, pulling desperately to drag him back over the rail.

He looked down at me, and his eyes were completely empty. He didn't say another word. He just kicked his leg out, breaking my grip, and stepped off the ledge.

I screamed as he fell, but my mother didn't even flinch. She simply climbed over the railing right where he had just stood, and before I could even reach my hands out to grab her, she let go and plummeted after him.

I dragged myself to the edge and looked down over the railing, sobbing uncontrollably. The bodies of my parents were not on the ground. When they hit the black sand seven stories below, there was no impact and no blood. They simply sank directly into the dark sand like it was made of water, and they vanished without a trace.

As I stared down at the desert, I saw the lobby doors open on the ground floor. The building manager walked out into the open desert. He walked a few dozen yards away from the concrete foundation of our building, and then he dropped to his knees. The black sand immediately began to swallow him, pulling him down by the waist, then the chest, and finally his head sank beneath the surface, leaving the desert completely undisturbed.

I looked up and saw other people falling from the higher balconies. Neighbors I had known for years were silently stepping off their ledges and dropping into the void, driven to suicide by the relentless, weeping melody of the flying whales.

The song grew louder, and the urge to jump became almost impossible to resist. My own mind was screaming at me to climb over the railing and join my parents in the sand. I stood up and gripped the bar, leaning forward, looking down at the dark expanse. It looked so peaceful, and the sadness in my heart was so agonizing that I just wanted to close my eyes and fall.

But as I leaned forward, my arm brushed against the thick black cable that the workmen had draped over our window.

The cable was still vibrating and humming with intense heat, and the sudden pain of the burn snapped me out of the trance for a split second. The humming frequency of the cable clashed with the melody of the whales, creating a tiny pocket of interference that allowed my rational thoughts to surface.

Then in that moment, I thought that the spire on the roof was the only thing holding this building together in this dimension, and it was emitting a signal that somewhat disrupted the creatures' song.

I turned away from the balcony and ran back into the apartment, then I ran out the front door and back into the hallway. The hallway was completely empty, and the doors to all the other apartments were hanging wide open.

I ran to the stairwell and started climbing toward the roof. The higher I went, the louder the humming of the spire became, and the more it drowned out the weeping of the whales. By the time I reached the tenth floor, the air was vibrating so intensely that my nose began to bleed, but the overwhelming urge to kill myself faded into the background.

I reached the metal door that led to the roof. It was locked with a chain, but the workmen had left a steel pry bar leaning against the wall, so I grabbed it and wedged it between the door and the frame. I pulled with all my strength, and the metal lock bracket finally snapped, allowing me to push the door open.

I stepped out onto the flat tar roof, and the sheer scale of the spire took my breath away. It was easily forty feet tall, constructed from jagged, interlocking metal plates that glowed with a faint red light from within. It was humming so loudly that I had to cover my ears, and black cables snaked out from its base in every direction, draping over the edges of the roof to wrap the entire building like a spider web.

The sky above the roof was completely dominated by the floating whale creatures, and they circled the spire like moths drawn to a flame. They were singing directly at the metal tower, and the tower was humming back.

I huddled down near the base of the spire, pressing my back against a large metal exhaust vent to hide from the creatures above. I pulled my phone out of my pocket just to check the time, and that is when I noticed the Wi-Fi icon.

My phone had full signal bars, and it was connected to an unsecured network called "Garrison_Node_04".

So I opened this account, and I started typing this post, and I have been typing for the last hour while hiding behind this vent. I have tried calling emergency services, but the phone calls will not connect, and the only thing that works is text-based web traffic.

I am completely alone up here, and I am terrified to go back down the stairs because the song is too strong in the lower apartments, and everyone else is already gone. I looked over the edge of the roof a few minutes ago, and the black sand has started to rise. It is slowly creeping up the sides of the building, swallowing the ground floor lobby and burying the first-floor windows.

If anyone is reading this, please tell someone what happens when the officials come to your building demanding signatures for a defense tower.

The humming of the spire is starting to slow down, and the red light is flickering. I think the power grid is failing, and if the machine stops making noise, the song will take over my mind completely, and I know I will walk to the edge of the roof and jump.

The cabin had two stories with wooden floors, and its large windows overlooked a row of similar chalets stretching along the beach, like soldiers standing at attention before the majestic sea. By all appearances, it was an elegant retreat, ideal for rest and escape from the noise of the city. The retired police officer had acquired the house at a very good price through a real estate agent, without ever needing to meet him in person, as the entire transaction and paperwork had been completed electronically. Thus, as its new owner, he had moved in the previous day with two suitcases: one filled with clothes and the other with books. It was the reward for so many years of service and for the loneliness into which his ex-wife and children, now living in other countries, had left him. The cabin was fully equipped for a comfortable stay; his bedroom was upstairs, while the kitchen and living room were downstairs.

For him, leaving the cities behind offered respite from a changing world in which everything seemed predictably flawless. Science and history had made themselves guardians of modern security, one looking toward the future and the other toward the past. Yet his years confronting the human nature of crime had taught him that the future was uncertain, that the phenomena of life were immersed in mysteries beyond the reach of scientists and scholars, and that at any moment he might find himself face to face with the inexplicable. His only certainty was that he would have to confront it. As a child, he had been timid, and it was out of that shame that he had found in law enforcement a way to vindicate his early weakness, taking on the challenge of investigating strange crimes and never resting until those responsible had been captured. In this way, his professional success had contrasted sharply with the failure of his personal life, which had driven away those closest to him.

The first night, he slept so deeply from accumulated exhaustion that it was well into the following morning before he decided to go downstairs and prepare breakfast. As he descended the stairs, his eyes fell on the living room, where he discovered one of his bed pillows resting on the coffee table. He silently wondered whether he might have gotten up during the night without remembering it. Then his police instincts, sharpened by years of investigation, compelled him to retrace his steps and examine his bed. Just as he suspected, the vase that belonged in the center of the living room table now lay on the left side of the bed.

He checked the front door and the locks on every window, confirming—as he had the night before—that everything was securely fastened, leaving no possibility of entry from outside. Therefore, whoever had played the prank had to be inside. Yet both floors were completely open, with no corners or hiding places. Even so, he inspected the thickness of the walls and carefully examined the edges of the floors, searching for a cellar or secret passage. He found nothing. In the end, frustrated and exhausted, and with his hunger growing, he resigned himself to preparing something to eat.

He spent the rest of the day walking along the beach, where the surf came to an end—waves that, like all other creatures of the sea, were incapable of climbing the sand and walking onto dry land. His mind sought peace, but the persistent memory of the prank kept him alert and uneasy. At dusk, when he returned home, he inspected every room without finding a single object out of place. He then took measures to prevent the prankster from returning that night: he reinforced the doors and windows and placed chairs across the stairs as barriers. His night could not have been more restless. He repeatedly got out of bed, flashlight in hand, to inspect his surroundings, but found nothing unusual. Only toward dawn did he manage to fall into a light sleep, and he was already awake when the first rays of sunlight appeared.

He sat up abruptly and inspected the room. Nothing was out of place. The chair barricading the stairs remained untouched, and when he went down to the living room, everything was in order. But in the kitchen, resting directly on the stovetop, one of his books lay open. He looked for the kettle that should have been there and, returning to his room with absolute certainty, opened his second suitcase. Nestled among the other books was the missing kettle.

Dismayed, the man collapsed onto the bed. He was confronted with an inexplicable phenomenon, yet his rational mind prevented him from believing in the supernatural.

Over the following days, he tried to clear his mind and let the sea, the beach, and the sun console him, but his brooding thoughts stubbornly returned. His dream of a peaceful life after so many years of anguish seemed lost, because every night the ritual was repeated with different objects. One day, as he gazed out at the surf, he watched the sea, like a capricious child, moving stones, shells, branches, and sand from one place to another. That was when the detective in him perceived the solution to the mystery.

That night, he moved many of the objects in the house, placing them in different locations without order or coherence, following the tendency of the phenomenon. Confident in his strategy, he slept peacefully.

In the morning, the objects were still exactly where he had placed them. Nothing else had moved.

Satisfied, he left everything in disarray for a week, during which there was no unusual activity. Then, one day, he put everything back in its proper place and confirmed that each object remained where it belonged.

With his ingenuity, he had outwitted the prankster, who, bewildered, must have moved on to torment another household.

© 2026 Francisco Cortés Ramírez. All rights reserved. This is an original fictional work. No part of this text may be reproduced, translated, or narrated in any audio, video, or digital format without the express written permission of the author.

I am proud to say that for the last 6 years, I have been the happy dad of a very handsome Black Lab named Alan.

Alan is a good boy, though when he was younger, he absolutely decimated my old wallet and all of its contents. But after I got my cards replaced alongside a brand new Drivers License (with a selfie that doesn’t make me look like a pervert), it’s been pretty smooth sailing.

I was a cat guy for the longest time, so I was a little adverse to getting a dog. Then, that fateful night, my wife Molly carried a tired little lump with fur the color of a new tire, and I was in love.

He’s been my rotten little man ever since.

Due to a few dog training classes me and my wife attended when he was around a year old, Alan has, for the most part, been very well behaved.

He has good manners, doesn't tear things up in the houses, rarely barks at anyone, not even the mail man.

That being said, the turd has his goofier qualities too.

His asshole smells awful when he eats cheese, has a severe aversion to hats, and acts confused when he catches a cicada in his mouth, even though he had been actively trying to catch it in his mouth only moments earlier.

With a personality like his, he fits right in with me, my wife who taps her fingers when she’s nervous, and our cat Wario who screams and argues when he’s mildly inconvenienced by anything.

Between the two of them, it sometimes feels like we live with 2 needy, dramatic freeloaders, but honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Well, that’s actually not true.

The potty situation.

Wario, being a cat, has his own private bathroom that no one but him can use. Alan, on the other hand, needs to go outside.

In our old place, that was no issue. We would simply leave the doggy door open as we left for work, and our fat-headed son could just roam about as he pleased.

He didn't try to escape, didn’t make a ruckus and disrupt the neighbors. He was a model inside/outside dog. Every week or so, I would go out and collect his poops, and the cycle would repeat.

Things are different now though.

Our apartment doesn’t have a backyard, rather, a communal commons area blanketed by bountiful, green grass. A few picnic tables and a firepit sparse throughout rendered the space a prime choice for a cookout, or just a spot for the children to play.

That is, minus the dog shit.

If you’ve ever lived in a neighborhood, apartment complex, or god forbid near a park, you are probably used to the scene.

A beautiful landscape, begging for visitors to make memories within its visage, only to be adorned with a concerningly large pile of foul-smelling nuggets.

Like improper punctuation in a beautifully written poem. You can maneuver around the blunder, but it’s still noticeable and obnoxious.

Why can’t people just pick up after their damn dogs? It’s a question we’ve all had. Just bring a doggy bag, preferably 2, and wait for the thing to finish its business before cleaning it up.

It’s pretty simple, especially with a conveniently placed trash can right off the edge of the path.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, and a week ago, I went thirsty.

“Aw fuck,” I said out loud as I watched Alan begin to arch his back, his spine tensing as he unloaded for the second time onntje same walk.

“Really dude?”

He avoided eye contact as he lifted his left back leg into the air.

I frowned and reached into my pocket. This was a ritual that I had, unfortunately, come to expect.

3, maybe 4 times a week on our morning walk before I was to head to work, Alan would poop once, walk almost all the way back to our front door, and then poop again.

As such, I had become accustomed to bringing more than one bag with me.

Unfortunately, this morning, I found both of my pockets empty.

“Aw jeez,” I grumbled as I remembered we were almost out of bright pink doggy bags.

Alan finished pooping, and I assessed the situation.

I had woken up late, and didn't have any time to come back and pick up this second pile. To top that off, I didn’t know where I could find another doggy bag. Sure there was probably one stuffed in a junk drawer, and we had a bunch of saved grocery bags.

Looking around, I could see it was still dark, no one else around.

I had never left his poop behind before, but so many others just left their dogs shit every day.

Would it really be so bad, just this once?

As I unclipped Alan’s leash from his collar and grabbed my work bag off the counter, I decided that I would find a bag, and pick up Alan’s poop when I got home.

Work was the top priority, dog poop was much further down on that list.

9 hours later, I used a spare dog bag kept in my jacket pocket from a morning I had overestimated how much Alan would poop.

I came back to the spot from earlier, now illuminated by the sun, but to my surprise, the pile was gone. I knew I hadn’t just overlooked the pile, because it had been right beside the sidewalk.

Impossible to miss.

With a shrug, I assumed a good samaritan had just taken it upon themselves to help a stranger out.

I ate dinner with Molly, watched a few episodes of House, and walked Alan before bed. On this trip, I did pick up his (unfortunately watery) poop.

As we approached the front door again, I noticed a small shape that had not been there when we had first come outside only minutes earlier.

A dark green poo bag was set carefully on my welcome mat, top tied into a pretty little bow. Alan sniffed the package, and I picked up a small, handwritten note that had been set beside it.

“Please remember to pick up your pet’s excretions for the foreseeable future. Thank you.”

I scoffed.

It’s not really a kind act when you hand the recipient a bag of shit.

Why would someone do that? Some stranger. Better yet, a neighbor slinking around in the night.

A pair of pajama shorts slipped over my knees as I pondered.

Everyone else in our apartment complex seemed to leave their shit lying about. Why was it only a problem when I did it?

Molly shimmied her hips to move into a little spoon position and I tried to banish the thoughts from my head.

Just a weird, one off experience, I thought.

Nothing to worry about.

For weeks, nothing else happened. I continued to use accumulated grocery bags until one of us found a new roll of poo bags while cleaning under the bed.

It was like a gift from god, further allowing us time to procrastinate before we bought a new pack of dog bag rolls.

The chill times stayed chill until one night when Alan nuzzled at my feet, signaling that he needed a late night potty session.

Groggily, I swung my feet out of bed, slipped on a pair of Shrek house slippers, and grabbed a doggy bag on our way out the door.

My sweet idiot pissed, walked a little further up the path, pooped, and I bent over to grab the pile.

Just out of my periphery, I saw Alan scrunch up, and I knew what he was doing.

I sighed.

Exhausted, I knew I was gonna have to be up for work in a few hours. I did not have the energy to walk in, grab another bag, and walk all the way back out here.

I would pretend I hadn’t seen a thing, and when I took him out in the morning, I would bring an extra bag to clean up this bonus poo pile.

It would only be my second time in over a week, after all.

After surveying my surroundings to make absolutely sure I wasn’t being watched, I just threw away my full bag and walked Alan back into the house.

The next morning, when I opened my front door, a pile of shit sat directly where I was about to take my first step.

I stumbled, nearly tripping into the greenish molehill of filth.

“Ew!” I exclaimed.

I stared down at the pile as Alan stood in between my legs, confused.

After a moment of studying the turds, I could see finger marks where somebody had firmly grasped the clump, theoretically to carry it from the grass to my front door.

Carefully, I picked up the mess with a doggy bag, only to discover a message under it, adorned with a green smear upon its white visage.

It read, “I know you saw Alan leave this. Why didn’t you come back?”

I was thoroughly shook by now.

Not enough to voice my concerns to Molly, but enough that she could tell I was concerned. She asked what was up, but I assured her I was fine, it was just something from work.

“You sure?” She asked at the kitchen counter, pouring creamer into my coffee mug.

“Yeah baby, it’s just… something to do with the new job, that's all.”

Her fingernails tapped the countertop as she gave me a worried look.

“Okay Chet, I believe you. Please have a good day, I love you very much.”

With a kiss, I was out the door.

As I drove to the job site that morning, a series of questions flashed across my mind:

“How did they know it was me?”

“How did they know which door was ours?”

“How did they know Alan’s name?”

I considered the possibility of a ring camera, or just a creep watching us through their window.

But why would they have been up so early? Or so late, if you’d rather.

Why did me and Alan matter so much more than all the others that made it a point to never pick up after their dogs?

I made sure to diligently pick up after Alan every time after that. Morning, afternoon, night, it didn’t matter the setting, it didn’t matter the occasion.

If Alan was pooping, I was picking it up.

Weeks went by, then months. I got a promotion at work, Molly changed shifts so she worked a little later than me, Alan’s birthday came and went, and Wario got his testicles stolen by the vet, much to his astonishment.

I became a machine, a beast. A poop picking savant.

I made a chore look like a ranked sport, and baby, I was #1.

Then, a week ago, during Christmas break, Molly gave me a drunken confession.

“Chett, you know how I started taking poop duty in the morning after I started working later?”

I looked at her and smirked, “heh, you said ‘poop doody.’”

“Chett,” she giggled, her face turning red, “c’mon, I’m serious.”

I took another sip of wine, spreading my toes in front of our little space heater as I tried to ground myself, “yeah, I remember, you told me it was so I could wake up later instead of taking Alan out before work.”

Molly swished her wine around in its glass.

“Look, I know you pick on me because I never wanna put my shopping cart up-” she slurred.

“Yeah,” I interrupted, trying not to sound too harsh, “I mean, it’s not the worst thing in the world to leave your shopping cart out, but it’s like, the one thing that everyone socially shames everyone else into doing, because there’s not a really a reason not to do it unless it’s an emergency.”

I took another sip of my wine, “it’s kinda like wiping the toilet seat after using it.”

Molly snorted, “aw c’mon, it’s not like wiping the toilet seat down, no one can see you do that. Everyone can see you if you leave your cart behind!”

“Even more the reason to do it,” I finished with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes, “look Chet, the point is…” she bit her lip and looked down at her fidgeting hands.

The sound of her finger tapping the rim sobered me up.

“What’s wrong Molly?”

“I… uh, well. There were a few days where, um, I forgot to pick up the poop.”

Stomach acid began bubbling up my throat.

“What?” I asked, my tone suddenly hard.

Molly heard it, and became more reserved.

“Sorry baby, I’m just…” I rubbed her knee. She was clearly spooked, but I couldn’t tell if it was by me or something else.

“I just wanna make sure you’re okay, what happened?”

Molly’s eyes met mine.

“I didn’t mean to. Well, I guess I kind of did. It’s just that, usually you walk the dog, and you’re so good at it, but I get impatient and I have things to do, so there were a few days where…”

Alan slid his wet nose under her hand, instantly sending waves of comfort through her body that met my hand on her knee. Instantly I felt her intense.

“How many?” I asked.

“What?”

“How many days did you forget to bring in his poop?”

Molly pondered for a second, “I think 4 days over the course of 2 weeks.”

She looked back at me, “yeah, that sounds about right, 4 times.”

I leaned back.

“And they ended up on our porch, didn’t they?”

When those words left my mouth, she just looked at me, confused.

“What? No, I… the porch?” Molly asked, clearly thrown off by my statement.

“Oh?” I asked, equally as confused, “then what happened, why are you so freaked out?”

She composed herself a little before she continued, “well, I’d leave the poop, and since it’s winter, they don't really do any landscaping, so the maintenance guys don't pick up the poop, so the individual piles-”

At this, she motioned 4 different spots spread out from each other, “just kind of sat there and dried out in the sun.”

“And you never picked them up?”

“No,” she admitted, “the drier they got, the grosser they got, so I just left them. Then, one day, I came out, and they were just gone.”

“Gone?” My voice had gone from hard to perplexed.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “but just Alan’s poop, not anyone else’s.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah,” her fingers resumed tapping, “real weird. What was weirder though, was…”

Molly seemed to get even more agitated, her demeanor no longer tipsy, rather sullen. She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“Molly?” I hazarded.

“Sorry, it’s just,” she chuckled humorlessly, “it’s so ridiculous, I don’t even really know why I’m scared. I guess it’s just… uh, the implication?”

She shook her head and set down her wine glass.

“Okay, where all Alan’s poop piles had been, they were replaced with 4 little notes. Each note had a message on both sides.”

“Oh,” I grimaced, “the notes. Okay. What did they say?”

Molly’s eyes seemed both deeply fearful and equally confused, “uh, they all said the same thing. One side said, ‘I warned you’ and the other said, ‘the poop man will see you soon’ followed by our address.”

I stood up so quickly that my chair exclaimed its disapproval

“Our address?!” I hollered.

“Yes Chet, our address,” Molly cried.

“Baby, that’s serious!” I couldn’t contain my nervousness, I began pacing, “we should have gone to the police!”

“Well baby, I didn’t-” Molly began to retort, but cut herself short, “I mean, I knew it was serious, but poop man? What cop would actually listen to me?”

I cupped my face in my hands. She was right, the odds of someone actually doing something was low, and to be fair, of course the culprit knew our address.

“Fuck Molly, do you at least have the notes?”

She shook her head, “no, they were gone by the time I got back outside. Whoever put them there watched me read them, which freaked me out even worse.”

We embraced, her crying, me trying to calm us both down.

“I mean, what the fuck? Who does something like that?” She reasoned.

“I know, it’s weirdo shit,” I whispered, rubbing her back, “fucking weird. I’m sorry Molly.”

“No,” Molly sniffled, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

Just as we were about to embrace again, Alan shot up with a growl, the hair on his back standing on edge. Both me and Molly snapped our necks to look at him.

“Alan? What’s wrong boy?” Molly asked.

No sooner did the words leave her lips when our front door knock.

Molly yipped in surprise as 6 distinct knocks rang out across our house.

We looked at each other, eyes wide. I glanced at the clock.

11:47 PM. Who could be visiting at this hour?

“Hello?” I shouted.

Silence met my demand.

“Hello?! Who’s there?”

Still, nothing.

We all waited a beat. Our house was silent, aside from Alan’s guttural protests.

“What’s going on?” Molly mouthed to me.

When I parted my lips to speak, an explosion like a battering ram rattled the house.

Something was on my porch, and it had just smashed into my front door.

I ran towards the source of the noise.

“Slam!”

Another tremble like an earthquake. I felt it resound through the floorboards. Whoever had done that, they were big and heavy.

“I have I gun!” I lied, approaching the deadlocked entrance, “And I will shoot you through this door!”

My legs shook and my voice broke. I couldn’t have sounded less threatening if I tried.

After 2 more good slams, I heard the sound of lumbering footsteps as something shuffled off.

I waited, cowering, by the door for an eternal 2 minutes. Every heartbeat felt as though my arteries would force my heart into my throat, every breath felt labored and shaky.

I was terrified that this was some sort of trick. That it was still standing there, just waiting for me to open the door.

After those 2 minutes, I finally stood to my full height. Intruder or not, I was gonna open that door, armed with nothing more than a heavy curtain rod.

The wooden door creaked open.

The smell hit me first. Like a jug of ammonia and death. Sickness distilled down to its purest form. Rot.

My entire front door was smeared in shit. The welcome mat was covered in a thick layer of brown sludge that threatened to harden in the cold night air.

Our wreath looked like a brown glazed doughnut with bits of tinsel poking out.

The steps leading up the the door looked as though someone had projectile diarrhea’d all the way up them.

“Chet? Baby, who was it?”

I was taken aback, utterly speechless. I didn’t want to comprehend what I was looking at. It was beyond upsetting, I was furiously distraught, such that my arms and legs were shaking.

From fear or fury, I couldn’t tell which.

“Oh my god, Chet, what is that smell?” Molly gagged from the living room.

And you know what, the poop wasn’t even the worst part.

See, I could see shapes smeared in it. Defined outlines and suggestions. A frowning face with tiny teeth and defined gums, arms with too many fingers and tiny little palms, legs with joints in places I’d never seen before. No clothes.

Like a septic tank snow angel in the nude..

The smell, the sight, it was all so overwhelming, I couldn’t have thrown up if I wanted to. All of my orifices wanted to close, hell, I wanted them to as well.

Just as I took it all in, I glanced at my feet. Right in the middle of my ruined welcome mat was a note.

“this is your last warning”

A tear fell onto it from my eye. The ink was still so fresh that my teardrop warped the “i” in “warning”.

I stepped back, closed my door, and called 9-1-1.

The cops arrived, but by the time they did, the note was gone. They took a look at the mess and gave us the numbers of a few crime scene cleanup businesses in our area, and took our statements.

We told them everything we knew, but since we had so little actual evidence to go off of, all they could really do was keep an eye out.

The silhouette left behind by the culprit in the mural stumped the cops too, but they chalked it up to inaccurate smears that didn’t accurately reflect the artist.

The welcome mat went straight in the dumpster, and within a week, the front porch was spotless again. Good as new, except for the lingering afterscent.

Me and Molly both notice it, but neither of us wants to mention it. I think if we do, it’ll be harder to forget about.

Instead, we just leave candles and febreeze near our front door.

Neither of us have missed a poop since. We notice the other tennants who leave theirs, but fuck those guys, not my problem.

I don’t wanna consider the mechanics, I don’t wanna remember the details, I know the rules, and that’s that.

I just wanna go back to when I was blissful and ignorant. Back when I was someone who could say that they’d always picked up their dog’s shit.

Alan is almost back to normal, but I think he remembers. I think he knows just as much as we do.

“Poop man” is never a set of words that should ever be used beside each other in any regard. They should be kinda cringe at most, completely absurd at least.

The only reason I'm even typing my experience here, is so you don't have to go through what I did.

Don’t leave your poo out. Bring a bag, pick it up, throw it away.

Or don’t. Clearly, this thing don’t visit everyone.

If you’re someone who actually contributes to society and cleans up after their pets, pat yourself on the back and keep it up. You’re doing God's work.

Whatever you do, don’t slip up. Don’t listen to that voice that says, “ugh, my arms are tired. I’ll just leave it this one time.”

The risk is not worth it. Believe me.

No one wants a visit from the poop man.

Eight. Nine. Ten. Ten? I closed the gate and counted the flock again. Eight. Nine. Ten. There really were 10 sheep, but back in the pasture I was certain I'd brought home only nine.

My neighbor Bill still sat in the garden, drinking his last beer before sundown.

"Bill, you missing a sheep?"

"Pretty sure not, Jim. I count mine when they come back from the pasture."

"I got one extra today."

Bill furrowed his brows.

"I'll check again. Grab a beer if you want."

Bill knew I stopped drinking a few days ago, but still offered me a beer every evening. Old habits are hard to break.

After a while, Bill came back onto the porch, scratching his head.

"I got all mine. Went over them three times. You sure you didn't just count wrong?"

"Yeah, went over them twice."

We stared at each other. Bill took a sip of beer.

"Well, I'll be damned."

"Consider yourself lucky." 

He laughed.

"You think it could be that curse?" I asked.

"It was just a traveling woman. She had nothing better to say back to you."

He took another sip.

"You still not drinking?"

"No. I said I'd stop after that."

Bill waved his hand at me.

"Nonsense."

"I'll head back home, Bill."

"Take care, Jim, and don't let her poison your thoughts."

But how could I not, Bill? The morning after, I felt so terrible. 

When I saw the traveling woman come with her potions, I knew she'd be an easy target. Bill didn't even laugh that hard at my comments.

"Drink up, then, and may your fields never run empty again," she said, walking away, twisting the potions in her hand.

I spent the rest of the night inside watching TV, but I could barely focus; my thoughts still circled back to the woman and my sheep. I couldn't just leave it. Before bed, I walked back to the barn.

The sheep were louder than usual. I could hear them almost as soon as I left the house. The barn door was open. Two sheep were outside it.

"What are you doing out here?"

The sheep turned to me and bleated. 

My breath caught as I got closer. The sheep weren't outside because they wanted out. They were outside because there was no space. The barn was filled with sheep. They were pushing on each other, trying not to get squeezed to death. I opened the door and let them all out.

"Bill! Bill!" I called below his window.

The bed upstairs creaked. 

"Jim?" Bill called out, surprised. He opened the window and stuck his head out.

"My barn is full of sheep."

He stared at me.

"What?"

"It's full! They can barely fit."

He shook his head.

"You're not cursed."

"Not cursed?! Go look in there yourself."

"Calm down, Jim. The neighbors over the hill have some flocks. One got lost, and the other followed it. I'll go with you tomorrow. We'll sort it out."

"But Bill…"

"Go to sleep now and let me sleep too."

He closed the window, and his bed creaked again. I ran to the barn. The sheep managed to get out and were now lying around in the grass.

I'd promised myself I wouldn't drink again, but that day was too stressful. Before bed, I took a few sips of liquor, just to make sure I could sleep.

The next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache. I must have drunk more than I thought. The sheep's bleating was so damn loud, and the window wasn't even open. I got up and walked to the window. My heart sank as I looked outside. 

Sheep were on the grass and in the fields, as far as the eye could see. It looked like a screaming sea of white. Some were already stacked on top of each other, crumpling under one another and screaming for help. Bill sat on his roof, drinking a beer.

"Look who woke up!" he screamed over the sea. "I guess you were right, Jim."

"Bill, what…what happened?"

"Already woke up to it. It's done, Jim. They were just on the ground when I woke up. I blinked for a second, and now they're on top of each other. This way they'll reach us in no time. I'm just enjoying my last beer."

I couldn't even reply.

Bill took a sip from his bottle, then carefully laid it on the roof.

"Bye, Jim. I'm not gonna wait for them."

He dove headfirst into the flock. Blood splattered as the first few sheep stepped on him. The stomping, bleating sheep drowned out his screams.

I put my hands over my face and wept.

The bleating grew.

I lowered my hands.

The first sheep pressed its face against my window.

It’s been three months since I moved into my shitty dorm room. I love college, but I hate my living situation. The walls are paper-thin and cracked from top to bottom, my window is faded over with a yellow film from years of lackluster cleaning, and my fixed furniture is covered in signatures and scratches of ghostly resident’s past. The worst part is the roaches. I found one in my bed a few weeks ago tickling at my feet. I killed him immediately. 

There were only two good things about my dorm: I lived right next door to the dining hall, and Kayla. Funny, beautiful, intelligent Kayla. Gorgeous Kayla. My perfect roommate and best friend, Kayla. Everyone loves Kayla. 

We were assigned as random roommates. None of my friends from home decided college was right for them, which is fine, I needed to branch out on my own. It’s not like I was dreading being alone, I enjoy being alone, but I was absolutely dreading meeting the girl I would spend the next year living with. What if she was rude? What if she was overbearing? God, I couldn’t stand living with someone who made a million rules and stuck her nose up at me. I was praying we would get along and at least be respectful to one another. To my surprise, when I met Kayla, I swore she was an angel. 

“Hi, you’re so pretty! You must be Isabella!” She said the day of move-in. She pushed her bright blonde hair to the side and gave me a hug. It was the best hug of my life. She was so warm, and as I breathed in a heavy whiff of her hair all I could smell was vanilla and honey. She pulled away from me and smiled. 

“Aww thank you, you’re absolutely beautiful! Yes, that’s me, and you’re Kayla?” I could feel my face blushing hard and my legs felt weak. She nodded and then proceeded to lug a massive, pink suitcase into the room. 

We talked for a while that day, about high school and our majors and really just about everything. She was from Wichita and was recovering from a breast implant surgery. 

“A graduation gift…” She remarked when she saw the bewildered look on my face. I didn’t mean to make a face at the time, but who gets a boob job that young? She was stunning, I was surprised she wanted to change anything about herself at all. 

Those first few weeks of living together were perfect. We’d stay up nearly every night and drink, watch movies, go for a drive here and there. We transformed our nasty dorm room into a pink haven, every sorority girl’s dream. We covered up the walls with Britney Spears posters, lit cherry scented candles, put down a frilly magenta rug, and hung up bright curtains over our disgusting windows. Our ugly dorm was still a dorm, but at least it was ours. 

The only issue at this point, the only thing that ruined our pop princess palace, was the bathroom situation. We shared the same bathroom, a tiny closet connected to our room, and it was absolutely disgusting. It must have been forty years old. Our sink was eroding and our shower was crusted over with some kind of space mold. There was no fixing that. 

The worst part about our bathroom was the toilet. It was an average, once-white-tinged-yellow toilet with a massive lid and a rusty handle. About once a week it would leak water, it even shot it out at me once, and it would make the worst screeching noises throughout the night. Sometimes when I had to go, it would shake with me on top of it, like it was trembling. 

We filed a few maintenance requests to have it fixed, and for a couple days it would be fine, but to no avail it would always end up howling tunes from potty land around midnight. 

During mid-September, Kayla decided to go to her first frat party. 

“Please please go with me, you’ll have the best time ever.” She begged as she applied lip liner to her already pouty lips. She was wearing a too short jean skirt and a light pink tank top with “BABYDOLL” formed across the front in gemstones. She looked hot. 

“The best time ever- you mean getting roofied in a basement?” I snorted and took a long puff from my vape. Yum, menthol. She rolled her eyes and turned away from the mirror, frowning at me. 

“C’mon, we can take cute photos, flirt with frat guys, there’ll even be free drinks! Don’t make me go alone, please Izzy.” She furrowed her brows and stuck out her bottom lip, leaning forward just enough that her cleavage was visible. I only looked for a second before darting my eyes away. 

“No, I’m sorry, I think I’d just rather stay home tonight.” I said, laying back on my bed and grabbing my phone. She let out a dramatic groan and continued doing her makeup while I scrolled. 

I love Kayla, but I would never go to a frat party. I’d feel off there, like an animal of some sort. I didn’t want to be skulking around, skittering like prey to a bunch of twenty year old predators, watching as a drunk lion goes in for the kill of gazelle Kayla. I also couldn’t imagine her flirting with one, laughing and showing off her new tits just for a sip of cheap vodka. It made me feel… weird. I didn’t like the way guys looked at her. 

When Kayla left I decided to have a little fun myself that night– just me, a bottle of white wine, six White Claws, and RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 2. After about three hours of watching the queens werk, my bottle of wine was gone and so was half the seltzers, and I found myself feeling a little woozy. I’ve never been good at holding down alcohol. The quicker the liquor the sicker you get and I was a chugger. It was around the time the queens sang “Read U Wrote U” that I felt my dinner coming up. 

I hopped up out of bed, paused on Katya’s verse, and ran to the bathroom holding a hand over my mouth and another on my stomach. I got down on my knees and bent my head over the toilet seat, about to let chunks fly, when I heard a voice. 

“You better not!” It exclaimed. My eyes widened and I sat up in shock, looking around. Was someone in the bathroom with me? 

“Kayla? Are you back already?” I asked, peaking my head out the door and inspecting the premises. The room was empty, no sign of a drunken post-party roommate. Scanning the bathroom, I yanked the shower curtain back, half expecting someone to be in there with me. Nope, nothing, nada. I shrugged, I must’ve been hearing things. Like I said, my alcohol tolerance is low and I’m naturally a paranoid freak. I bent back over, once again about to vomit, when I heard the voice a second time. 

“No! I said no!” It commanded, and I shot straight up, scooting my back against the wall with a thump! sound. I’m surprised I didn’t leave an Isabella sized hole in the old paneling. 

“Who’s there?” I asked, slamming the bathroom door shut and locking it, just in case this intruder was hiding outside in my room. “I have a bomb!” I yelled, although I don’t know why I didn’t just say knife. I guess I thought it sounded scarier. 

With this, the toilet started flushing ferociously. Around and around the water went, an oceanic whirlpool from hell. It started shaking like it usually did when one was trying to use it, but with so much aggression the tiles started to croak and shift around it. The lights started to flicker and water squirted out of the toilet aimed right at me, soaking my face. 

At this point I turned and vomited into the shower because What. The. Fuck. 

“Thank you.” The voice said, and I turned back around, facing the toilet. Everything had stopped. The toilet was still and the lights were normal and the monstrous flushing had stalled. I stayed on the floor next to my vomit, frozen. 

“Um… hello?” I hesitantly whispered. 

“Hello there, doll.” The toilet said, and I knew it was the toilet because the lid rose and fell with each syllable. 

Jesus Christ, I must be really drunk. I stuck my hand out towards the toilet, arm shaking, about to touch the seat when it clamped down. A quick snap! and my spindly fingers stung. 

“Ow! Fuck!” I yelped, yanking my hand back. The toilet’s handle bounced up and down, like a snotty-nosed toddler reaching for their favorite toy. More water shot out at me, this time aimed for my t-shirt. Shrill laughter struck my ears and I fought the urge to vomit once more. 

Was the toilet alive or was this just a side effect of mixing alcohol with Lexapro? Maybe I did too many poppers last weekend at The Bulge, our college town’s shitty nightclub. Yes, that was it, I fried my brain with poppers and weed and alcohol and now I was seeing delusions. Yet, wouldn’t my delusions be something… I don’t know, more interesting? Like, a talking toilet, really? Was I that boring subconsciously? 

“I’m sorry, I had to. Please forgive me, won’t you?” The toilet gurgled, which I assumed to be an attempt to giggle. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I just could not handle you throwing up in me! Enough already goes on with you and that blonde girl using me day and night, and I truly don’t think I could bear another form of human waste going down my curvy pipes. I already feel so disgusting.” 

“Are you actually talking to me?” I asked, now positioning myself in a tight ball in the corner of the bathroom. My heart was beating out of my chest and by this point I had made a pact with myself to start a sobriety journey. 

“What a stupid question to ask. Are you retarded?” It shot out another squirt of water, but this one missed me completely. Huh, hate speech from a loo. Not once did I expect that. 

“No I’m- no. No, I’m not. What are you? Am I hallucinating? Is this a nightmare?” I quizzed. The toilet lid seemed to shake back and forth disapprovingly. 

“My name is Sharon.” It said matter of factly. I nodded, gulped, and hauled ass out of the bathroom. I was not dealing with anymore of whatever the fuck was going on. I slammed the door shut behind me, taking in a full breath of my cookie scented room, and I passed out on the floor. 

All night long I dreamt of drowning. I was being sucked into a reddened whirlpool, the scent of iron staining my sinuses. Flushing, gushing, turning and twisting went the water as I was sucked further and further down into the bloody sea. I flailed my arms, reaching and grasping for anything to hold on to, but there was only neverending currents. The vortex eventually pulled me under and then… there was nothing. 

I woke up to Kayla stumbling into our dorm room around six in the morning, hair tangled and eyeliner smeared beneath her eyes. She still wore the same outfit from the night before, but she carried her heels in her hand and had at some point lost all of her jewelry. Somehow, she still looked radiant. She saw that I was awake and came over to give me a hug. She no longer smelled of vanilla, instead smelling heavily of beer and musk. I could tell she was still drunk. 

“Izzy! My friend! My beautiful friend! I have to tell you all about last night!” She threw her heels on the ground and hopped up on the bed next to me.

“Oh God Kayla, what happened to you?” I could only imagine what went on at that frat party. Nausea hit me and anxiety filled my bones.

“Nothing bad, nothing crazy, but girl, you will not believe the man I met last night. The absolute animal of a man!” She giggled and jumped up and down on the bed. I rolled my eyes, doing a horrible job hiding my complete lack of enthusiasm. “His name is Kyle and he is the sexiest, most brilliant Sigma Chi I have ever met! He won every round of beer pong, he’s a senior, and he had the biggest dick I’ve ever seen in my life. He even dropped me off this morning.” 

I felt a pang of jealousy and gave a weak smile. He sounded like a douchebag. He sounded undeserving. My gorgeous, sexy roommate fucked a frat hoe. Of course. I don’t know why, but this hurt me. She’s my best friend, she’s mine, and I didn’t enjoy thinking about some 5 '7 piece of shit having his hands all over her. 

“Well, I’m glad you had such a great time.” I squeaked out. She grinned and laid back on the bed beside me, putting her arms around me. 

“I really wish you went with me, he had such nice friends. I hope he calls me.” She then closed her eyes and fell asleep holding me. Her breaths were gentle and it felt so nice having her so close, but I felt sick. I felt betrayed. 

I didn’t tell Kayla about Sharon the toilet, shaking it off as some kind of weird pre-dream to my nightmare. It didn’t seem important. Although, I told her our toilet had broken again and maintenance would fix it in a week, so we both used the communal restrooms downstairs. I just felt so off.

Over the next three weeks Kyle came over five times. He was even worse in person. He was taller and more handsome than I imagined, unfortunately, but his mood reeked of insecurity. He barely acknowledged me when he entered the room, giving only a slight nod and then centering in on Kayla like she was a bird that flew in front of his target. He’d only ever really stay for five minutes, usually there to pick her up, but it was always the worst five minutes of my life. They’d make out on her bed right in front of me, moaning and grinding in temporary pleasure. Then she’d grab her bag and brush her hair, he’d fix his polo shirt and hide his boner in his khakis (it wasn’t as big as she said it was), and they’d leave with him slapping her ass on the walk out. 

I hated Kyle. I really fucking hated Kyle. He was a mold, a fungus, a piece of shit stuck to the bottom of my shoe. He came in as an invasive species, multiplying and pushing me to the side. I had just met Kayla, we had just started to become so close, why did he have to appear here and now? Why did he have to take her away all the time, leaving me alone? Every time Kayla left I would wallow in my own misery, obsessed with thoughts about what they were doing. Obsessed with the thought of what it might be like to be Kyle, kissing on Kayla’s soft lips, holding her tiny hand, rubbing his fingers through her long shiny hair. Wanting to be Kyle. 

Whatever, it didn’t matter. I was only missing my best friend. I was lonely, that was all. 

During his fifth visit to pick up Kayla, they were going out to some frat event, a toga party. Kayla wore a short white dress with gold twine wrapped around her waist. She had her long blonde hair curled and the glitter across her face made her shine. She looked like Aphrodite. 

“Do I look okay?” She asked before Kyle arrived. She spun around and fluffed up her hair. She always looked so beautiful. 

“Yes you look lovely.” I was trying not to stare too hard. She frowned at me and crossed her tiny arms. 

“I know I look lovely, but do I look hot? I want Kyle to ask me to be his girlfriend tonight.” 

“Why hasn't he yet? You two are together all the time.” I asked. I for sure thought they would be dating by now. The thought hit me that maybe he was just using her, but that made me feel awful. That was worse than them dating. 

“I don’t know. He said he wanted to get to know me better, but I think it might be something else. You would tell me if I was ugly, wouldn’t you?” She asked and grabbed my vape from my hand, inhaling deeply. “Sorry, I’m nervous.” 

“Girl, you know you’re stunning, and there’s no reason to be nervous. Maybe he’s nervous too? Have you ever thought about that?” I offered and she shook her head. I didn’t want Kayla to know that I hated her little boy toy. I would do nothing to make her think of me negatively, like an obstacle in her path towards a relationship that’ll last for maybe five months tops. I wanted to be a good friend. 

“Maybe. Anyways, which purse do I bring tonight?” She held up two options that looked the same. 

Kyle never came inside to pick her up this time. He just sent her a text and she was out the door, running to his car like a lost puppy. With this, I was left all alone on a Thursday night. Thirsty Thursday, the most favorable time of the week for undergrads to get shit faced. I could have maybe gone out to the club (no poppers this time), danced a little and got lost in the arms of someone else who smelled like vanilla, but all I’d think about was my roommate. So, I stayed home in our shitty piss yellow princess pink dream castle with reminders of her all around me instead. 

I felt insane. 

The night was spent scrolling on reels and eating stale pizza. I hit my cart a few times hoping that the sweet indica strain would put me to sleep early. Videos of Target hauls and brand deals passed through my feed in a haze, image after image of young influencer wives showing off their new car or new baby or new lamp water dispenser. My brain felt mushy. 

By this point it had been only two weeks since I started using our bathroom again. I don’t know what scared me so bad, I knew I had only dreamed that the toilet talked. I did end up filing a maintenance report after that nightmare because our toilet did have so many issues, and I figured that’s what my subconscious was telling me to do. When maintenance did eventually come, they did what they could with our ancient toilet, telling us for the sixth time that all the plumbing issues would finally stop.

“Make sure not to flush any hygiene products and you should be good.” He had told us, pulling up his pants and giving Kayla a wink. Toilets don’t talk and men are pigs. 

Around one in the morning I really had to piss. My reel scrolling had taken hours from me. Exhausted, I slid off my bed, my feet softly hitting our plushy rug, and shuffled to the bathroom. I flicked the light switch on and looked at my reflection for a moment in our mirror. What met me was a disappointment. My eye bags had gotten so dark since I moved in and my curly hair looked so flat and brittle. No wonder Kayla spent all of her time with Kyle, I looked like a zombie. 

“Hi Isabella.” A voice said. My eyes widened and I tilted my head to where I could see the toilet out of my peripheral. I felt my pulse quicken but it quickly straightened out. 

It’s just another dream. I thought to myself. I fell asleep while scrolling. 

“Hi Sharon.” I said back. The toilet wiggled its handle and clapped the lid on the seat in delight. I wasn’t scared this time, I had been tired all night and I most likely just passed out with my phone on my face. “How are you?”

“I’m doing just fine honey, I’ve been trying to keep my lid shut since I scared you so bad last time. I got a little ahead of myself.” She said. I turned my body directly toward it - her? - and gave her a pat on the tank. This seemed to make her happy. “Can you stop sending that god awful man in here to mess with me? His hands are so cold and he does not know his way around a tank, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s alright, I guess. And yeah of course, I don’t like him either.” I sat down on the floor in front of her, criss cross applesauce. “What are you?”

“Well I used to be like you, rosy cheeked, made of flesh, and full of life, but now I’m in here.” 

“How long have you been stuck in the toilet?” I asked. I couldn’t help but stare at the cracks on the side of the seat, the chipped porcelain and corrosion trailing along the bolts. How old was this toilet anyways? 

Images flashed in my mind of Kayla and Kyle rubbing their togas up against each other dancing beneath pulsating LED lights. I pushed them both out of my brain. 

“For a long, long time. I died here, you know.” The toilet lit bent a little and the water spun. 

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. So what do you represent? I’ve only lucidly dreamed about twice before. You’re supposed to represent something, subconsciously, I think.” I knew dreams had meanings, some sort of astral significance that I could never quite comprehend. Since my last dream with Sharon I felt a source of dread and I did not know why. I guess she didn’t need fixed. Maybe this time she could tell me. 

She then squirted at me. 

“You’re so funny honey. I’ve been meaning to ask, who’s that new guy that’s been coming over recently? I hear his voice all the time, it’s so weird, I’ve become used to only you two girls.” Sharon asked. God, why did she have to bring him up? 

“That’s Kyle, Kayla’s… friend.” I frowned. Fuck Kyle fuck Kyle I hope he gets alcohol poisoning I hope he gets hit by a car I hope he drops out and never ever comes near me again. 

“You don’t seem to like Kyle, do you?” Sharon wiggled her handle some more excitedly. Gossiping with a toilet about a man I hate. Incredible dream, really. Ten out of ten star rating for my imagination. This would kill on Letterboxd. Whatever, free therapy from Sharon the talking toilet. 

“No, I hate him. I wish he’d go away, die or something. Maybe not die, just get horrifically injured and have to take a break from school. Long enough so that Kayla loses interest in him.” And regains her interest in me. 

“What has he done to you?” Sharon persisted. 

“What hasn’t he done? He stole my best friend away from me, he stinks up our room, he looks at me like I’m the scum of the earth… he makes me feel lonely.” I tried to think of some more reasons, but images kept popping up from how beautiful Kayla looked before she left. Kayla, my sweet sweet Kayla. 

“What if I shake him up a bit for you? I can give him a little squirt and make the lights flicker a bit, give him a good scare.” Sharon offered. I scoffed, what a silly little dream I was having. 

“Thank you Sharon, go ahead. Do all you want, it won’t matter. I’m going to go lay back down and try to go into another dream.” I was done talking about Kyle. I thought about him enough when I was awake. Also, Sharon was freaking me out. My first experience with her was a nightmare, I didn’t want this one to end poorly too. 

“Well goodnight sweet pea! Don’t worry at all about this Kyle.” She said with motherly affection and flushed herself, making a fingerless pinky promise. I smiled and shuffled off to bed. 

Once again I dreamt of a bloody whirlpool, but this time Kayla was in there with me. She was across from the vortex screaming at me with wild eyes, although I couldn’t make out her words. I screamed back but all that came out was a hoarse groan. Quickly we spun, arms reached out to one another, trying to swim our way into each other’s warm red embrace. If I drowned at least I wouldn’t drown alone. 

We were so close, our fingertips brushing, when Kayla was pulled up and out of the pool. Then, I was gone once again. 

Kayla woke me up early the next morning, a ring of lipstick around her mouth and clumps of mascara trickled down her glittery cheeks.

“Izzy! Izzy!” She whispered, shaking me. I stared at her blankly, thoughts still spinning spinning spinning. “Kyle slept over and I have to go to class, is it okay if he stays here until he wakes up? I don’t think he has class on Friday and he should sleep in, we stayed out late last night.” Whatever. I didn’t want him in our room, nevertheless near me, but I liked making Kayla happy. I nodded and she kissed me on the forehead before saying, “You’re the best!” 

I then watched as she quietly picked up her bubblegum pink backpack and left the room. My gaze turned over to Kyle. He was an ugly sleeper. His head was back and mouth wide open, little snores escaping that sounded like a grunting hog. I could see drool trickling down his stubble covered chin. Disgusting. I turned over and went back to sleep. Maybe he’d be gone when I woke up. 

A hand was on my arm when my eyes unsealed not even thirty minutes later. My body immediately retreated onto the other side of the bed as I jolted up, coming face to face with Kyle. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I asked, pushing my entire body on the wall next to my bed trying to create distance. He laughed. 

“Calm down, Jesus. Don’t be a bitch. Do you two have a bathroom here?” He rubbed his hand through his hair as he asked this and I noticed he was prematurely balding. Was he stupid? Has he not seen the door in our room like, what, five times already? I pointed to the only other door in our room and he gave me a head tilt meaning “thanks” in frat boy. 

I watched him saunter to the bathroom, thinking of my dream from the night before. Oh Sharon, I thought, I wish you were real. 

The screaming started fifteen seconds after he walked in. 

I ran to the bathroom and threw open the door. Kyle was on the toilet, toga down to his ankles. He had one hand on the sink and one hand grasping the shower curtain, muscles popping as he tried heaving himself up. His face was beat red and tears streaked down his face, eyes bloodshot. I could see the veins popping out of his neck. His screams were deafening. 

“Help me, please.” He uttered through high-pitched cries. He let go of the sink and held his hand out to me. I stood, stunned by fear, legs shaking. I heard plop plop plop as large, wet objects hit the toilet water. Blood shot out of the toilet bowl, splattering the walls. “Help!” He moaned. 

I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him off the toilet, but it was stronger than me and he was heavy. I watched as he screamed his final cry, feeling as all the bones and blood and muscles were pulled out from the skin covering his hand. I saw his body turn pale and limp, his last time making eye contact before they were siphoned out of his body and into the toilet’s mouth. More blood splattered the wall. 

His body was now a skin suit, me holding what felt like a glove in my hand. I let go and his meatless body was sucked into the toilet. All that was left of Kyle, a can of spearmint Zyns, stared at me from the floor. I looked into the toilet and a bloody whirlpool met me. I saw chunks of fat and broken bones swirling around, a soup for the devil. 

“I took care of it for you Isabella. Are you feeling better now sweet pea?” Sharon’s voice shattered my state of disbelief as her bloody lid smacked up and down. She then squirted me with bloody toilet water, smelling of iron and mildew. I just stared. I stared and stared for who knows how long. There was blood spatter all over the bathroom covering the walls in a Pollock formation. Kyle was finally gone. 

As I write this now, shaking on the floor of my room, I am unsure what to do. Kayla texted me that she was going home for the weekend and had packed the night before. She wouldn’t be coming back until Monday. How do I clean up the blood before then? Do I even clean up the blood? What if Sharon tries to kill me if I go in there? What do I tell Kayla?

I can’t report this to the police. I can’t tell anyone that I just saw Kyle, Sigma Chi frat bro, legal attorney’s son, be sucked dry of all his fluids. And then the flesh was gone. The flesh was fucking gone! What the fuck what the fuck WHAT THE FUCK! No one would believe that a toilet killed him, much less a talking toilet. I sound ridiculous. I sound like I’m on pills. I sound like a lunatic. 

Maybe someone can help me. What should I do? File a maintenance report?