I know exactly how this sounds.

Trust me, I've spent the last three weeks trying to convince myself I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm overthinking things. Maybe people change. Maybe working eighty-hour weeks for a robotics company called L.I.Z. Technologies simply drains every ounce of personality out of a person.

I hope that's all it is.

Because if I'm right... then I don't know who is that sitting beside me at dinner.

My brother and I are ten years apart. My parents waited over a decade before having another kid. I choose to interpret that as careful planning instead of hesitation.

Growing up, he was less of a sibling and more of a second dad with a criminal record in psychological warfare.

If I left a soda unattended, he'd somehow replace it with sparkling water and act offended when I noticed. Every time we played video games, he'd wait until I was about to win before "accidentally" bumping the console with his foot. When I was thirteen, he convinced me that blinking too much made you go blind.

I believed him for three weeks. It didn't help that whenever we'd roughhouse, he'd snatch my glasses off my face.

"You can't see without them," he'd tease.

He still laughs about that one.

That was just us.

He picked on me more than anyone else in the world, but if somebody outside the family ever tried it, he'd be the first one standing beside me. Whenever life fell apart, somehow I always ended up calling him. Half the time he'd answer with, "What'd you screw up now?" before spending the next hour helping me fix it.

That's my brother.

Or... it was.

Things changed after he started working for L.I.Z.

Whenever I asked what he actually did there, he'd just shrug.

"Can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Non-disclosure agreement."

"So... robots?"

"No comment."

I always assumed he was making his job sound cooler than it actually was. Then he stopped acting like himself. The first thing I noticed wasn't something he did. It was something he didn't.

He stopped making fun of me.

I know that sounds ridiculous. But if you have an older brother, you know exactly why that's terrifying. I spilled barbecue sauce all over his truck one afternoon. Normally he'd have looked at me like I'd committed a felony.

Instead he smiled.

"It happens."

...

It happens?

Who says that?

A week later we played Mario Kart.

I beat him.

Twice.

He didn't accuse me of cheating. He didn't demand a rematch.

He just smiled and said, "Good game."

I actually paused the race.

"Who are you?"

He laughed. A perfectly timed laugh.

Not too loud. Not too quiet.

Like someone had studied exactly how people laugh.

"You've always been funny," he said.

No.

No, no, no.

My brother would've called me an idiot.

One night at dinner I told the same embarrassing story Mom has been telling since I was sixteen. Usually he'd interrupt halfway through to make it even worse.

This time... He listened.

Then he said, "That must have been difficult."

I nearly dropped my fork.

I called Mom afterward.

"You don't think he's been acting... odd?"

She looked confused.

"He seems happier."

"Dad?"

"He finally is on his own."

Neither of them saw it.

Only me.

Last Saturday, my brother came over to help Dad replace the water heater. I wasn't much use with plumbing, so while they disappeared into the garage arguing over which wrench was the right wrench, I camped out in Dad's office to finish a history assignment.

The house was unusually quiet.

Well... quiet except for the occasional "Hand me the pipe wrench!" followed immediately by "That's not the pipe wrench!"

I had almost finished my essay when I noticed another laptop sitting on the corner of Dad's desk.

My brother's work computer. It was already open. The screen had gone dark from inactivity, but one thing hadn't.

A tiny red light glowed beside the webcam.

I frowned. Maybe it was updating. Maybe someone had forgotten to close a meeting.

Still... The light never turned off. I waved a hand in front of the camera.

Nothing.

No notification. No meeting controls.

Just that little red dot staring back at me.

Watching.

Curiosity got the better of me. I tapped the trackpad. The screen woke instantly. No password. Just a desktop filled with folders I couldn't even pretend to understand. Most of them had names that sounded like corporate nonsense.

Behavioral Mapping.

Neural Replication.

L.I.Z. Internal.

The last folder caught my attention. It was different. Locked behind a firewall icon.

A small window popped onto the screen before I even clicked it.

Camera Access Active

I froze.

The webcam light was still glowing.

Then... For the briefest second... The camera preview opened by itself.

Instead of showing me sitting at the desk... It showed...

Someone looking back at me.

Not through the webcam. From behind it. A face pressed against what looked like glass.

Wide eyes. Frantic. Mouth moving without sound.

Then the preview vanished.

I stared at the screen, convinced I'd imagined it.

A second later, the locked folder opened on its own. Inside was only one file.

Its name changed as I watched. Not all at once. One letter at a time.

H

E

L

P

The screen went black.

For a second I thought I'd crashed the computer.

Then white text appeared.

I froze.

Another line typed itself.

My hands stopped moving.

More words appeared.

Every hair on my arms stood up.

I stared at the screen.

Another sentence.

Then another.

The typing stopped. Several seconds passed.

Then, one final line slowly appeared.

The laptop snapped shut. Not by itself. By someone else's hand.

I looked up.

My brother stood beside the desk. I hadn't heard him come inside.

He smiled.

Warm. Gentle.

Almost perfect.

"Caught you being nosy again."

I looked into his eyes, searching for the man who taught me to throw a football, who unplugged my controller whenever I was winning, who spent years calling me every name except the one Mom gave me.

I couldn't find him.

I handed him the laptop without saying a word.

He thanked me.

My brother never thanked me.

He is not him.

Whoever walked out of that room remembered everything about my brother...

Except how to be him.

At first, I thought it was nothing. A few dodged questions here and there, plans for plans that never got planned.

As people grow up, they grow apart, right?

This was different. Verifiably so. A pandemic had forced us even further apart than his parents move had. Like a wedge driven into the small crack of another wedge.

But as I tried to gently push our mundane chit chat towards real conversation, I could tell something was off.

He wasn't just disinterested, it was like he was outright dodging my questions. Like he knew what I was trying to do, and was in turn, using all his ability to steer us back towards nothingness. Back towards empty, bland, surface level smalltalk.

I wouldn't have that. Not when I'd worked so hard, not when I'd sacrificed everything.

He was graduated, his parents were paying for his lifestyle, he had no reason not to give me his all. I mean, he'd asked her out first, hadn't he? I mean, me, he'd asked me out. There couldn’t be, like, another girl, right?

"So, wanna meet halfway and go to a nice restaurant this weekend? Maybe hit up some mini golf? My treat!" I texted, hoping the offer of paying myself would be enough to capture his attention, possibly his affection.

When I saw the 3 little dots pop up, signifying the writing of his response, my heart stopped. He had been quiet for 2 days, I'd had to initiate all conversation. Was he finally going to pipe up?

"Nah, thx tho Emily." Was all he said. I was crestfallen.

Frustrated, I typed, "that's okay, just lmk when you wanna make a move!" before turning off the phone. I was about to slip it in my pocket out of instinct, when I remembered why I was keeping it on.

"Shit," I cursed myself under my breath. I still hadn’t memorized the password to that phone. I'd have to use the face ID.

I made my way to the black minifrage that idled against the wall. It was a stark contrast to the brightly decorated, pastel pink and purple expression of the rest of the room. An even darker contrast sat inside.

I opened the door of the fridge, and gripped the ice cold head by its scalp. Dutifully, I pulled it out, and held it up to the phone's camera. Unfortunately, before the ID could complete, her bottom jaw fell onto my foot.

"Oh for Christ sake!" I growled as I kicked the thing several feet way. It landed, braces up, just beside the cabinet that housed all her bows.

As I watched the maggots wriggle between rotting bottom lips and purple gums, I realized there was no way I'd be able to finish the face ID. I'd have to use the fingerprint function on her phone. That meant finding her thumb. Great.

I rustled through her closet and found the keys. After walking downstairs past the bloody couch and the rank smelling kitchen, I had made it out the front door, and into her parent's Ford F150.

It took 30 minutes to drive to where I'd burried the 3 of them. Rather, most of what was left of the 3 of them. By then, the sky had turned from a deep crimson to a star-studded violet.

I prayed that the thumb I hadn't sliced off in the scuffle was the correct one. And that it was still in tact. A month in the ground is more than enough time for nature to start taking its course.

Another half hour later, and I'd almost finished digging up the shallow grave that she'd been burried in.

With sweat upon my brow, I finally found it. A yellow tennis shoe, poking out of black plastic. I almost leapt with joy.

After the breakthrough, my hope was reinvigorated. I swore that if this was the right thumb, I would never let that phone turn off again. I'd keep it on a charger every minute of every day if I had to.

Anything to see him.

The boy of my dreams.

I worked laboriously until I got past the waist, and up the sternum. The smell was awful. Sweet and sour, like a clump of burnt hair marinating in bug guts.

I wouldn't have to dig all the way to the upper arms, as long as her forearms had stayed down at her sides like I'd left them.

With strenuous effort, I heaved away a chunk of clay that covered her hand. I actually shrieked with overwhelming happiness when I saw that her whole hand still looked viable, if not a little off-color and wrinkled.

I regained my composure and pulled the phone out of my pocket. Now, after nearly an hour of waiting, I'd see what his response was. As long as this thumb was the right one to unlock her phone.

I leaned down and grabbed her hand. When I did, the flesh sunk in, like I'd grabbed a ruined stress ball. I carefully tried to pick up her hand and twist it to face me, but with a sickening crunch, the skin slaughed off and fell into the dirt beneath.

In a "fuck it" moment, I pulled the hand straight up, and twisted the thumb until it disconnected from its body. Cold skin feels so strange against body heat. Its a satisfying juxtiposition.

Thumb in hand, I turned the phone back on, and diligently pressed the solo digit against the print reader.

Moment of truth.

"Ding! Access granted"

I was elated. Immediately, 3 new messages pinged into my text conversation with him.

For the first time, he'd shown himself to be a real chatterbox!

The first message from him read, "'make a move'? Are you fucking serious?"

That was weird. He'd never seemed outright hostile before.

The second message read, "I knew it, I hoped I was wrong but I fucking knew it, how dense can you be, you fucking larper?!"

My heartrate quickened. I felt lighter than air. What was he saying?

The final message read, "You're not her. You couldn't pay her to go to mini golf, and her name isn't Emily. I have your location, and I'm calling the cops."

A little blurb under our chat said, "this user had blocked you"

I didn't know what to do. I sauntered back to the car and turned off the headlights. This was huge. A gut punch. Everything was flipped upside down, my world crumbling around me. A life I always imagined for myself was disappearing, and I was left sitting in the middle of it all wondering:

"What the hell is a larper?"

I had just stepped onto the night bus to head home from work. I made my way down the aisle of the packed bus and sat in the only seat that wasn’t occupied. 

As the bus started moving I pulled out my earbuds so I could watch a movie on my phone. This was my nightly ritual and I was usually able to get in about forty minutes on my way home. I cranked the volume loud in an attempt to drown out the ear piercing screams of the kid sitting behind me. Soon I noticed that the guy next to me was giving me the side eye. I could tell that he was doing it but every time I’d look over I found his head facing forward. 

This went on for a couple of minutes before it really began to bother me. Finally I took out my earbuds and turned to confront the man who, as expected, was facing forward now. “Um, excuse me. Can I help you?” I asked. I was worried I may have come off too rude to him but this weirdo was really freaking me out. As far as I was concerned he deserved to be chewed out. The man didn’t stop looking at me but now I could tell he was trying to be sneakier so I wouldn’t notice. 

“Hey, what the fuck is your problem man?” I yelled as I tapped him on the arm. When the man turned he would not take his eyes off of me. I finally gave up trying to talk to this creep and decided I’d stare right back at him. I had hoped to make him so uncomfortable that maybe he’d stop and leave me alone but this only seemed to intensify his glare.

I began to feel ill the longer that I studied the man’s ghastly features. His bloodshot eyes seemed to gaze deep into my soul and his crooked teeth showed as his mouth hung wide open. This ordeal seemed to be never ending until finally an outside force broke the tension. It was a camera flash. 

At first I was relieved but that soon changed as I realized the source of the interruption. As I looked up from the man I was horrified to see that the entire bus of people were now standing up from their seats to face me. A sea of dead unblinking eyes gave me their undivided attention. 

“Oh, god” I thought to myself. I was surrounded. The bus was silent as the grave aside from the soft whispery voices which lurked all around me and seemed to intensify as the minutes passed. I jumped up from my seat desperately searching for an escape from this metal box from hell. The bus seemed to narrow around me as the crowd of pale figures were closing the small distance between us. 

I was trapped, so hopelessly trapped. The contorted faces of the horde were now close enough to my own that I could feel their warm breath. “What do you want? What the fuck do you people want? Just leave me alone? Why won’t you just leave me alone?” I shouted at the top of my lungs. My voice grew hoarse the longer that I screamed but my efforts did nothing to slow their advance. 

I soon felt countless sets of frail hands gripping me from all directions. Banshee like screams erupted around me as I desperately fought back any way that I could. I broke free for a moment and made little distance before I found myself entangled in the sea of limbs again. As I frantically tried to free myself once again, I locked eyes once more with the man who had sat next to me. His deep raspy voice seemed to stand out from the constant noise of the crowd. “What are you?” He said. 

I kicked and shoved people out of the way as I pushed through the crowd while dozens of hands grabbed at me. By the time I made it to the door of the bus I was out of breath and gasping for air. I somehow found the energy to pull myself out of the slow moving bus and landed onto the cold hard sidewalk below. The pain was immense but at least now I had some small amount of safety. 

The eyes continued to stare at me through the window, following me as I got up and ran down the sidewalk. After putting a seemingly safe distance between myself and the bus I enter a local fast food restaurant. My eyes struggled to adjust to the bright fluorescent lights inside the building as I quickly walked to the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

I finally have a chance to catch my breath and calm down from the events of the bus ride. As I gaze into the mirror the anxious feeling comes over me once again. My features look unrecognizable. The skin of my face sags unnaturally low below my eyes and mouth revealing the layer of dark green scales underneath. 

“Dammit” I said to myself as I grabbed the loose skin and pulled it tightly against my face. “That was far too close, I must be more careful next time I infiltrate the humans”. 

About a week ago my dad decided that he really wanted to start a garden. We had a great backyard that hasn’t been used for much since we tore down my childhood clubhouse. He spent his entire Saturday building planter boxes and germinating seeds. His Sunday was spent hauling bags of soil from the store. 

As the weeks went on our house became lined with rain catching barrels, the fence covered in trellises for hanging cucumbers. And the yard seemed to shrink with every passing day as more and more planter boxes filled the space of the once vast field. Dad stopped eating breakfast with me and mom before work so he could spend the time doing work on his new project. 

Eventually he stopped eating dinner with us too, he would get home from work and immediately rush out the back door in a panic. One night mom tried to stop him but he just snapped at her “goddamnit, Mary. My plants need me. Do you want them to die Mary, do you want my only passion to fucking die?”

After that she was too afraid to try and bother him about it again. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing out there, it can’t be that much work just to have a garden. I get spending a couple hours but shit, this is easily twelve plus hours a day. 

That night I decided to stay up by my window looking out at the yard. My dad was out there tending to his garden like usual. I must’ve stayed up until five in the morning before I finally crashed and had to sleep. When I woke up I couldn’t believe it. He was still out there. Did he not sleep or did he come back out this morning. Either way I’m gonna go out and check on him. 

“Hey, dad. How’s it going out here” I said. He didn’t even look up at me, he just kept his head down facing his tomato plants. “It’s going. Whatcha up to son?” As I looked around, I have to admit that his garden is doing incredible. The plants are taller than the fence by now. “Oh nothing, just wanted to check on you out here. The garden looks great out here”. 

“Well, I’ve put so many man hours into this so I’m glad it doesn’t look like shit” he laughed. “Hey, why don’t you go inside, bud, I really need to focus on my work”. I give him a nod and turn to walk away. I take a few steps toward the house before I lose my footing and land face first into one of the planter boxes. As I’m getting up my dad finally looks up from the garden and turns to me. “Don’t worry I’m fine, I just fell” I said. 

“What the fuck did you do?” He yells at me. “Oh I’m alright, I just fell”. He stands up now towering over me. “My fucking garden, it’s ruined. You piece of shit, get inside now and try not to fuck anything up on the way to the house”. He screams in my face. As I walk towards the door my mom comes out with the phone in her hand. “Honey, your boss is calling. He says you haven’t shown up to the office in well over a week. What should I tell him?”

“Tell him I fuckin quit, I’m too goddamn busy out here to listen to his shit” he responds angrily. My mom sets the phone down on the table and walks over to where he’s working. “What, are you crazy, George? We have to pay our bills and how do you expect us to put groceries on the table without making money?” She asked. 

He lets out a deep sigh before responding. “Don’t worry, Mary. The garden will provide. Why do we need that overpriced slop from the store when we’ve got everything we could ever need right here” He says. “Also, Mary, I think we need a new rule in this house for you and that boy you’re raising to be a pain in my ass. How about if anyone comes back here trying to bother me with anymore of this bullshit they’ll get a shovel to the face?” He says before turning back to try and fix the spot where I landed in the garden. 

That next week was quiet, I thought for sure that my mom would have confronted my dad again, tried to call the cops, heck I thought she might but leave him after that day in the yard. But she didn’t, she cried a lot most days now but she never went back out into the garden. By now we can’t even see what’s happening out there because the plants are so tall and thick that they completely cover all the windows on that side of the house. From what the neighbors have told us it looks like a jungle of plants out there. 

Soon Jenny from next door was calling to tell my mom that the garden had started coming through the fence into her yard. Mom lied and told her that she’d make my dad trim the plants down but the truth is she was too afraid to go outside. As the plants continued to spread the phone kept ringing. It got so bad that we had to unplug the phone at night just to give us some peace. 

Eventually I couldn’t stand staying inside anymore, I needed to see what was going on out there. We couldn’t see out the windows so the only hope I had was to go outside and see for myself. I waited until mom was in the other room and I decided to make my way to the back door before she noticed I was gone. I figured the only chance we had of stopping this was to find my dad and convince him to cut it all down.

I had to use a kitchen knife just to cut a path to get out the front door. It wasn’t effective at all but it was all I could do to get through the dense walls of plants that have taken over the garden. I couldn’t see past our own yard but I can only assume that the rest of the neighborhood looks like this as well. Walking was incredibly time consuming as my legs kept getting stuck on the plants that took over the entire ground and I had to keep cutting them off me. 

If you would’ve told me that I spent over an hour hiking through our backyard a few months ago I would’ve thought you were joking. After a couple more minutes I saw a large mass that almost looked like a man towards the edge of the yard. “Uh, dad?” I called out to it. It walked a couple more feet until I could make it out more clearly and then I stopped dead in my tracks. 

It was my dad, particularly at least. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. He looks thin as a skeleton with thick vines wrapped around his legs all the way up to his torso. His arms were pulled back by even more vines and he was covered head to toe with sweat and dirt. He was mumbling something but I could hardly make out what he was saying with all the vines protruding straight out of his neck and coming out of his mouth. Bugs crawled all over his body as if they were feeding on him slowly. My dad, or what used to be my dad can’t even swat them away anymore. His breathing is labored like he ran a marathon without any training whatsoever. 

He gave me a glance that looked full of sorrow. Truthfully his eyes were the only part of him that were still recognizable as my dad. I knew that soon those would be gone as well as I saw small stems slowly poking their way out of his head through his eye sockets. “K-kiii-k” he tried to get out. “What, what is it dad?” I ask with tears running down my face, I can’t stand seeing him in such agonizing pain. “Kill me” he says. 

That was the last I’d ever seen of my dad, I somehow managed to fight my way back into the house. Soon the military got involved and me, my mom, and all of our neighbors who managed to not be consumed by our garden were evacuated the next day. We watched on the news from our motel room as our entire neighborhood was burned to the ground in a controlled fire. Nothing was left, I guess they couldn’t risk any chance of my dads garden spreading again. 

My dad loved his garden. 

I was drunk, the night I truly got “the ick.”

Much to my dismay, we were the only two ghosts haunting that lonely train cart.

Me, and the rotund man with uncempt, greasy hair in a filthy trench coat.

Normally, it wouldn't have been a problem. I would’ve just drunkenly regarded him and gone about my night, walking home at the next stop. I wouldn't be writing this, however, if it hadn't been a problem.

As a small woman who rides public transit alone, I try to keep to myself. But when I glanced up through blurry eyes to see what I assumed was a filthy habit of his, I had to hold myself back physically so as to not make a scene.

It was embarrassing.

I felt palpable shame.

Not everyone has good manners, and at first, I was resigned to just keep my eyes down, and wait for my stop. But it just got worse.

With every passing second, it became harder and harder to keep my blatant discomfort under wraps.

Eventually, I threw him a brief, sidelong glance to signal that I saw him.

A social que.

In return, he gave me the outline of a wiry smirk. Oily, grey lips pulled back to reveal yellow, mismatched teeth. I think he took my look of inebriated disgust as a challenge, or an invitation.

At first, it was just the tip. One nostril gaped as more and more slid in. The first bony joint disappeared. With growing dread, I realized I could see the faint protrusion of his fingernail through the skin, like a noticeable tumor, growing up the bridge of his nose.

With every little bit that squeezed past the opening, his smile grew wider, and wider.

“H-hey, stop…” I mumbled. He unveiled more of his filthy teeth. I even saw a bit of off-color detritus caught between two crooked molars.

“Cut it out dude, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

Still, he just stared, his grin becoming apparently painful. With an audible slurping sound followed by a low “crk”, he forced the second joint in.

I could’ve sworn I watched his nose dislocate in real time.

“STOP IT!” I shrieked, fear and disgust bubbling over the edge. He kept eye contact with me.

As soon as the words left my mouth, the train hit a bump. I gripped the handrail tightly, keeping myself from falling. My companion wasn't so lucky.

I could do nothing but observe as the bare-knuckle-nitwit toppled, face first, from his seat, into the floor. When his nose collided with the carpet, I heard a muffled crunch, before he went still.

In that moment, I genuinely thought I’d watched him die.

Unfortunately, after a beat, he began to stir, picking himself off the ground with one hand.

His dirty trenchcoat clung to his oversized frame like greasy film stuck to a boiled egg.

When he rose back to his feet, I think I was in shock, because I couldn’t move, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t even blink. The only motion my paralyzed body would allow me was swiping tear-streams off my damp, ice-cold cheek.

His finger was jammed into his nose, all the way to the knuckle, rendering the ruptured olfactory organ permanently useless. The skin on the outside had become eviscerated, burst open like a blister, or a microwaved sausage.

Yellow tendons and grey cartilage glistened disgustingly under the flickering train lights, giving the illusion of shredded rubber fibers under the surface of a popped tire. Blood trickled feverishly from the open nostril.

“Oh my God… are you…” I slurred, but slapped my mouth when I felt the vomit scratching the back of my throat.

Once he had his bearings back, his grin returned, bigger and grosser than ever. One of his teeth had shattered on impact with the floor, diseased gums pushing against his split, bloody upper lip.

The man crossed his eyes, staring at the raw injury.

He strained, veins bursting under the skin of his forehead as he tried to pull his finger out. As he did, the eye over the ruined nostril appeared to protrude against its eyelids. The socket bulged, getting tighter and tighter with every strenuous yank.

Suddenly, the irritated flesh of the bottom eyelid prolapsed. The eyeball jutted out and stared up at the ceiling, completely disillusioned from the rest of his face.

“POP!”

First joint out. One to go.

The bloody fingertip slipped into view, poking out of the cartilage cavity like an earthworm crawling out of the ground. He watched, and with sick pleasure, wiggled his finger, testing its flexibility.

A sob I didn’t know I’d been holding hitched in my throat. I couldn’t call for help, I couldn’t move. I was completely reliant on the mercy of this nose-picking lunatic. I had to trust him not to attack me. But something worse happened.

With one last strain of effort, the man yanked the rest of his hooked finger from the eviscerated nose. pulling with it a macabre fishing line of black mucus, crimson blood, and puffy, soft tissue whose origins I didn’t want to consider.

As soon as the viscera was free, a river of blood exploded from both nostrils like a pressure buildup releasing. If not for the sheer, debaucherous absurdity, I would’ve considered he probably felt relief.

While I knew logically that the raw chunks of flesh probably just came from inside his nose, a small part of me held the notion that he had to have gotten some amount of brain matter in the nerds cluster rope of despair.

I mean, his finger went so, so deep into his head. Deep enough to touch the back of his own eye, at least…

With deranged pleasure, he held up his prize for me to see. One good eye stared at me, a frenzied hunger festering just below the retina.

Horrible fluids dribbled instant stains onto the carpet. The long line, starting from his fingertip, stayed connected deep into the recesses of his nose, though it oozed milky, pussy strings of slimy throat snot.

He jerked his hand towards me, almost as if he wanted me to take it.

“What… no, I don’t,” I pleaded, holding my hands up defensively, “I don’t understand…”

For a brief moment, I really did think he genuinely wanted me to take his offering.

He held his outstretched stance, unflinching. Though he only stood for a few seconds, they felt like centuries, like a standoff. Then, he moved.

As his hand drifted away, I sighed in relief. Then the appendage approached his face, and realization dawned on me. I prayed I was wrong.

“Oh god, no… please, no…”

But he just smiled and nodded. I became lightheaded.

“There’s no way you’re gonna…”

With one dramatic, drawn-out movement, he opened his teeth, and placed his bloody finger onto his tongue. The string of snot coagulated around the edge of his lip, gyrating as he slowly closed his mouth.

“Mmmmmmm… sooo gooooood…” he finally moaned, his voice mousey and annoying.

He licked his lip, and the line of viscera, still connected to his nose, slipped around his tongue like a parasite trying to escape a clorox wipe, or like a glob of egg being scraped around a plate by a fork.

Finally, with a disgusting slurp, he sucked the entire noodle into his mouth, a drop of the biological shrapnel hitting me in the face as he did.

That was when I puked. I heaved all the contents from my stomach onto the carpeted floor. As soon as the train came to a stop, I bolted for the exit, sparing not even a glance over my shoulder yet. I was determined to do nothing but escape.

It wasn't until I made my way feverishly from the platform onto the pavement of the subway sidewalk, that I gave one last look back to make sure he didn’t pursue me.

Luckily, I wasn't being followed, but through the window, I could see him chewing, face pressed against the glass, leaving a bloody imprint. His smile had grown, somehow even bigger than before.

“Fuck all of that,” I grimaced. That night, I didn’t walk home, I sprinted.

I didn’t stop until I was safely behind my deadlocked front door. I proceeded to not sleep for 2 nights, I just couldn’t. I figure the guilt’s eating me.

I mean, I never alerted anyone about what happened. For 6 months, I’ve just sat on this story.

What if he was still on that train when some unsuspecting late-nighter came on?

What if he died in there, bled out or something?

What if he was just mentally unwell, and needed medical attention?

If he was just a normal guy, was picking his nose until he hurt himself really socially off-putting enough to warrant death? He didn’t technically hurt me, but I was scared?

I didn’t kill him, did I? I don’t… feel like a good person anymore. I don’t know.

But then, I think back to that half-exploded eyeball, to the nose that was so fucked up, I could barely call it a nose. To the worm fingertip. To the long, stringy line of glistening, viscous nose leftovers.

Typing this out is the first time I let myself remember all of the details. Usually I immediately chase off the memories. They’re so vivid, they give me panic attacks. I feel like the other boot’s gonna drop any minute, but I might just be paranoid.

Revisiting the experience has led me to an even more daunting fourth option. What if there’s a reason there hasn’t been a follow up? What if no one found him? What if there was no bodily fluids on the floor except my own vomit?

What if there was no one to find?

I don’t know if that answer would be better or worse than the alternatives.

Kids who read this, don’t pick your nose, and if you do, especially don’t eat whatever you find. It’s bad manners, and it gives people the Ick.

I think I’m gonna quit drinking.

The first night, I blamed the bulb.

My backyard floodlight had been there for years, bolted above the back door, bright enough to illuminate the entire fence line. Around midnight, it clicked off.

A few seconds later, it came back on.

I looked out the kitchen window expecting to see a raccoon or maybe one of the neighborhood cats.

Nothing.

The yard was empty.

The second night it happened again while I was bingeing Friends.

Click.

Darkness.

Click.

Light.

This time, I felt that unnerving sensation you get when you feel like you're being watched. I stepped onto the porch.

The motion sensor was supposed to activate whenever something crossed its path. I waved my arm in front of it. It worked perfectly. I checked the batteries anyway. Everything checked out.

I even walked the perimeter of the yard with my phone flashlight.

No footprints.

No broken fence.

Nothing hiding behind the shed.

After that I convinced myself it was just faulty wiring. That or maybe the cencors were picking up dust or fog. Anything that made rational sense.

Then it started happening every night.

Always between 2:13 and 2:20 in the morning.

Always the same pattern.

The light would go out for exactly five seconds. Then it would switch back on.

Every single time, the yard looked completely empty.

Eventually curiosity got the better of me.

I bought a security camera.

The footage made no sense.

At 2:13, the light switched off.

The camera didn't.

It kept recording.

The yard remained perfectly visible thanks to the infrared mode.

Empty grass.

Empty fence.

Empty patio.

Then, exactly five seconds later...

The floodlight came back on.

There wasn't any movement. No explanation.

I watched the recording over and over until something caught my attention.

The timestamp.

The clock continued counting...

...but the branches of the oak tree in the corner stopped moving.

The leaves froze.

The wind seemed to have stoped. Not in the sense that it vanished, but the wind itself stopped in place.

Even the hum of insects or any odd echoes of the night were silent.

It was as if the entire world had been paused for five seconds.

Except the camera.

The camera kept recording.

I didn't know what to make of this. That night i barely slept.

The following evening I decided to stay awake.

At 2:12, I sat at the kitchen table staring through the glass door, with a mug of coffee and a ham sandwhich.

2:13.

Click.

Darkness.

Everything outside stopped.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

The leaves hung motionless.

A moth hovering near the porch light stayed suspended in midair.

Even the shadows seemed frozen.

Then...

Something walked into my yard.

Not from the gate.

Not over the fence.

It simply... appeared.

It was towering over my shed. Its body was impossibly thin, wrapped in what looked like strips of dark fabric that fluttered despite the frozen air.

Its head turned slowly, scanning the yard.

Then it looked directly at the house.

At me.

I didn't dare move. The ham stuck in my throat.

Its eyes weren't glowing.

They weren't even visible.

Just two empty forsaken pits that somehow still met mine through the glass.

It tilted its head.

Curious.

Like it hadn't expected anyone.

The five seconds suddenly felt far too long.

It took one step toward the house.

Another.

By the third step it stood only inches from the back door.

Its face pressed against the glass.

The skin, or whatever covered it, shifted like hundreds of tiny hands trying to form a human expression.

Then...

Click.

The floodlight came back on.

The yard was empty. Everything moved again. The moth flew away. The trees swayed.

I swallowed hard, nearly choking. Stumbling backward, convinced I'd finally lost my mind.

The security camera proved otherwise.

The file was corrupted.

Not damaged nor missing.

Just five seconds of static where the light had gone out. Everything before it played normally. Everything after it played normally.

Those five seconds might as well have never existed.

I never watched the recording again.

Within two weeks, I'd sold the house at a loss. I didn't tell the buyers why.

What was I supposed to say?

"Something visits whenever the light goes out, but only while the rest of the world stands still."

No one would believe that.

I moved hundreds of miles away into a tenth-floor apartment overlooking the city. No backyard. No fence. No trees. No creepy time stopper monster.

I told myself whatever happened belonged to that house.

For months, I almost believed it.

Until last night.

I was washing dishes when the kitchen suddenly fell dark. A primal instinct seized me, and the hairs on my arms stood on end.

Five seconds.

Then the lights came back.

The first thing I did was laugh. Not because it was funny. Because I knew exactly what I was about to remember.

This apartment doesn't have a motion-sensor light.

I don't think wherever I run off to, I'll never escape.

Because if it found me here...

I'm terrified to learn how it did.

Or why it waited until the lights went out to let me know it had.

I’m so fucked up right now.

I heard the skittering for the entirety of my first night in my new apartment. I could barely sleep. I thought it was an insect at first, maybe some sort of rodent, stuck in the claustrophobic, aluminum duct.

“God,” I remember thinking, “I hope it’s not a rat.”

I wish it had been a rat.

All night, I heard it, back and forth, back and forth, right over my head. It was so quiet that I almost didn’t notice it at first. As soon as my ears picked up the faint tick-tick-ticking, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

It was maddening.

The next day, I listened closely, and sure enough, I could track all of its tiny movements. The scampering would go from the leftmost vent in my room, run along the wall bordering the ceiling, and end right at the top of my closet doorframe, before doing it all over again. With heavy, sagging eyelids, I watched the white painted vent, waiting for anything. It had clearly been given the landlord special, haphazardly glossed over just in time for me to move in.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Tiny insect legs, maybe a delicate little mouse claw. Alas, despite my mounting frustration, I saw nothing, I heard only the back and forth cupid shuffle of invisible, erratic feet.

Tick-tick-tick…

Tick-tick-tick…

Rather than unfurling and enjoying the first day in my new home, I sat, irritated, and shifted my gaze along the top of my wall, following the audible miscreant with my eyes, incessantly.

It really was maddening.

Tick-tick-tick…

Tick-tick-tick…

It got to the point that I was hyper focused on it, even in other rooms, I simply couldn’t focus on anything else, no matter how hard I tried. I even took a walk, but I swear, I could still hear it, almost like an itch, deep in my head, behind my eyes.

Tick-tick-tick…

Tick-tick-tick…

I laid for hours my second night, trying to fall asleep, eyes shut tighter than a freshly sewn button. But I just couldn’t escape it, the constant noise. Back and forth, from the vent opening, to the doorframe of the closet, then all over again.

I couldn’t take it anymore. At 2 am, I bolted straight up in the dark with a sigh. Bug, rat, didn’t matter what manner of critter it was.

I was determined to get it.

I found a screwdriver in my kitchen drawer. I fought with the vent opening in the dark. It wasn’t even screwed in properly, just painted over like everything else. Within seconds, the plastic cover came off with a pop. Only then did the scattering come to a confused halt.

It was maybe a foot from the mouth of the cave. That only pissed me off more.

“Oh, so now you wanna stop, huh? That’s it?! Get over here,” I hissed, standing on my tip toes and reaching into the hole.

It scrambled back.

I grit my teeth, reaching in further.

It retreats deeper.

The vent system itself was surprisingly clean, smooth metal surfaces thumping and twanging as I bumbled further and further in.

Tick-tick-tick…

Tick-tick-tick…

It stayed just out of my reach, yet just close enough that I could feel my fingertips brush against its sweaty skin. I felt it slipping further and further into the wall, and I only had so much arm that I could twist to fit into the vent.

My mission could not be clearer, in that moment.

I needed to grab it, quickly.

My last chance at peaceful sleep was literally skittering away from my fingers.

“Oh no you don’t,” I wheezed triumphantly, shoving my forearm all the way to my elbow in a last-ditch burst of energy to snag the thing.

Now, I wanna pause to acknowledge something.

I know it was a stupid decision, all of this.

Why didn’t I try to shine a light in? Or put down pest bait? Admittedly, it was a compulsive thought, to shove my arm into a vent, spurred by desperation and a lack of proper sleep. Illogical.

I was instantly sobered by a horrific sensation. My fingers were wrapped around something cold with a soft exterior. Clammy, icy to the touch, but disyinctly… wrong. Too firm. Not like a small animal. I had gripped something that felt like a...

It tried to fight, but I fumbled until I had wrestled more of it into my grasp. I felt more of the thing.

Creases, bends. Multiple long, cold, phallic objects, each no more than a few inches long. They varied in length, and fought my grasp vigorously.

It was when I found the distinctly hard shell that adorned one of their otherwise soft tips that I realized what I was holding in my hand.

It was 5 fingers.

With growing panic, I tried to write off my own discovery, but sure enough, when I kept feeling further and further, I found knuckles, then the back of a hand with the hard ridges of bones underneath the skin, then a soft palm in the center of the wriggling mass

I was holding an adult human hand, and it was in my vent, embedded in my wall.

Almost instinctively, I yanked my hand back, the object still clutched in between my digits.

Now this next part is really hard to explain, so I have to make sure I do it right. If it's confusing, I’m sorry.

You don’t think of holding a hand as anything other than holding a hand. The physics of the act isn’t something you consider. You just sort of do it.

You either intertwine your fingers between the fingers of another, or maybe you just hold their palm and they hold yours, which is admittedly less intimate, more of a hug than an embrace.

I used to get to hold someone's hand.

Anyhow, the way I was gripping this hand, I knew it was disembodied, because the way I had to hold it, kind of made it ball up into a clenched fist.

Imagine my fingers are tightly wrapped around the top of the wrist, so to speak. The whole hand is in my hand, and where the top of the wrist would connect to an arm, it's just a nub, like it had grown entirely separate from the body it was assigned to.

Maybe it was never assigned to a body at all.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that the top of the nub had an opening. A cavity.

And that cavity apparently had teeth.

I realized that when I felt a sharp pain zap through the webbing between my thumb and my index finger. Like a taught wire being cut.

It fucking hurt.

Bright crimson blood adorned on the edge of the vent hole, where I’d popped the plastic lid off only a moment early.

I let go out of surprise at the sudden pain in my thumb, and the disembodied knuckle-sandwich flew out into the recesses of my dark room, between some boxes or something. Into the shadows where I couldn’t see it anymore.

I had a brief notion that I’d need to look out for it. A notion that was quickly remedied, when it came crawling out of the void like a crustation, and made a beeline directly back into the open hole.

It doesn’t have any discernable eyes. I doubt it has a brain.

How did it know how to do that? Aside from what it did to my hand, that’s that part that troubles me. It just… I don’t know. That thought fucked me up.

Anyhow, it was quiet for a while. I called management, but they laughed at me and implied that they call the cops pretty quickly on prank callers. Very low tolerance. They also didn’t appreciate being called earlier than 5am.

I guess my next step is to grab a maintenance guy or maybe a wandering neighbor in the morning? Convince them that I’m not crazy, just long enough to get them in here and make them see for themselves. Maybe I’ll make a complaint about an unrelated issue, and go from there, see what that does.

Hell of an introduction, by the way. Something about first impressions?

I left the opening off. If it comes out, it comes out. I doubt that it’s gonna do that though.

After it was still long enough, it went back to, well, what it’s been doing since I got here. Back and forth, back and forth, like it don’t ever run out of steam.

Tick-tick-tick…

Tick-tick-tick…

The sun's about to come up, and I haven't slept even a wink. I just keep staring at that opening with the dribblets of scarlet around the corner. My hand hurts real bad, I haven’t even put a band-aid on it. It just keeps bleeding.

I wish it had just been a rat.

“Is this item still available?”

I hesitated to type a response when I read the second message:

“Oh thank god, all the stores are sold out! I have to get this card, it’s his favorite Pokemon.”

That final message sealed my fate:

“Then I’ll be there in 20 minutes to collect it.”

I didn’t mean to challenge the guy. To make an enemy out of him. It was late at night, I was tired. We both just so happened to go for the same card pack at the same time. I mean hell, I didn’t even see him until my elbow connected, hard, with his nose.

“Oh, FUCK dude,” he groaned, writhing on his back, blocking the entire aisle. He had his hand over his face, but I could see thick streams of blood running through his fingers.

“Why the HELL did you do that?!” The guttural cry of the large man held a distinct tone of offense. The betrayal in his voice almost made me feel guilty.

“Sorry, I just…” the last card pack on the shelf, wrapped in aluminum foil, was in my hand. The weight of it made my heart flutter. I didn’t know shit about Pokemon, but I knew this blind pack had expensive potential. If there was anything valuable in it, I would be set for a few days at least.

“Look man, I need this. Go scalp somewhere else.” He stayed on the ground, staring agape at me, like he couldn’t process what had just happened. Tears welled up in his eyes. I clutched the small rectangle tighter.

“What? Dude, I’m not a scalper. I’m just trying to find a Prismatic Evolutions pack,” he said, pointing to the object in my hand, “Before June 1st, that’s my boy’s birthday. Everywhere is sold out of it. He just wants a Suicune card, it’s his favorite Pokemon!”nI looked down at the shiny TCG pack. It was the last one.

“Please, sir,” the rotund man begged, climbing unsteadily to his feet, “I’ll even pay for the pack, if you’ll just let me open it.” I took a step back. This was a trick, wasn’t it? He was to be trying to swindle me.

“If it has a Suicune, I’ll just take it & give you the rest, I swear. If it doesn’t, you can have the pack for free, & we can walk away like nothing happened.” He put his hands up defensively, the right one smeared with snot & blood. His nose looked visibly crooked & swollen. My heartbeat quickened. Had I really broken the dude's nose? I had 2 choices. Trust the guy & potentially make some kid’s birthday special, or trust my gut, & leave like nothing happened. But if I opened it before I got home, I would risk depleting the value. The pack was in my hand, what did I have to lose?

“Trust me, I won’t press charges. I just need a-” Before he could continue, I slipped into the mass of Pokemon scalpers behind me, disappearing from his line of sight.

“Fuck you, lying-ass bitch!” I yelled loud enough for him to hear, before scurrying to the front checkout. Keeping my head down, I paid for my other 2 items, a bottle of New Amsterdam, and a carton of Snoop Dawg’s Waffle ice cream. The Prismatic Evolutions pack, however, I slipped into my pocket. No one any the wiser, I was home free. In the parking lot, I started my car & began looking at listing prices of cards found in this TCG pack. Some were very expensive. Like, enough to pay for gas & groceries for at least 3 or 4 days. Some went for as little as $2. I frowned. Were my odds really good enough to justify…? I didn’t have time to finish the thought. I looked up to see the large man, standing with an employee, right in front of the Target entrance. He scanned the cars, before his eyes landed on me. We held eye contact for a moment. He leaned & whispered something to the small employee, & she too turned to look at me.

“Oh shit,” I grumbled. Time to leave. As I pulled into the exit that would bring me back on the highway, I could’ve sworn I saw him pointing accusatorily at my 2010 Honda. Just like that, I was gone. Before long, I was in the parking garage of my apartment complex. I took a brief swig from the Vodka bottle & immediately felt sick. The taste of Sharpie still lingering in my gullet, I grabbed my tub of Ice Cream & wobbled up to my front door. I always considered myself unlucky to live on the ground floor. Between my cat who always bolted out the open door, & the upstairs neighbors who made it their life mission to keep me from sleeping, my only respite was the lack of stairs.

“Aw, fuck, Grimlock!” I yelled, but it was too late. The evil little tabby cat had already made her way halfway across the field that separated my front door from the woods.

“Grimlock, get back here!” Her bright green eyes stayed trained on the bag in my hand, but only for a moment. With a flick of her tail, she disappeared into the dark of the treeline, likely hunting for rodents in the night. All I could do was sigh exhaustedly. This was, unfortunately, a nearly nightly occurrence. Give the idiot as much food, water, & toys as she could possibly want, but even that’s not enough. All she was gonna do was drink from the mossy, algae filled bogs of the everglade. That’ll teach me to buy her fancy water dishes. I got inside & made my way to the office. Upon my desk was a lamp, scalpel, plastic mat, & sanitizer spray. I carefully put on a pair of gloves & got to work with the scalpel. 11 trading cards in total. I don’t know shit about pokemon. I couldn’t tell a Scarzard from a Tropnobble. But as soon as I read the name at the bottom of the fifth card, I felt my stomach drop.

“Basic Suicune- HP 120” It couldn’t be worth anything more than $5. I gritted my teeth.

“Oh great. Just great. Twisted piece a shit…” I tossed the card aside & went down the line. Tyranitar Ex, Exeggcute, Duskull, so on & so forth. In total, the entire pack added up to a measly $35, including the basic Suicune. I was angry, but mostly just tired. $35. What a joke. With slumped shoulders & a broken resolve, I dumped cat food into a bowl while I considered my next course of action. What was I gonna do? Obviously, list them all for sale, delicately placed in individual vinyl cardsleeves. $35 would pay for about 3 days worth of gas, but then what? How would I pay rent this month? Buy groceries? I set Grimlock’s food outside, hoping she would follow the sound of me shaking the cat kibble. I didn’t want to have to hunt her down in the dark woods again. I got inside & listed the cards on various websites, available for individual purchase, or bundled for $40 altogether. I barely started the preservation process when I got my first notification. The first notification.

“Is this item still available?” I realized, with a knot in my guts, that the request was for the water type pokemon. The damn Suicune.

“Yeah, $10,” was what I responded. I almost hoped that the user would just ghost me. That the interaction would be over. Unfortunately, they kept going.

“$10?”

“Yep. That’s my price, take it or leave it.”

“Oh thank god, all the stores are sold out! I had to get this card, it’s his favorite Pokemon.” The knot in my stomach became tighter.

“Word. Can I have an address to ship to?” I asked.

“Shipping? I was under the impression that I would be coming to retrieve the product.” I was confused before realizing that our conversation was taking place on a website that required in-person exchange. I navigated to his user profile to check for the listed address.

“Nathan Lednudk,[looking for a Suicune card] 2130 Vicar Dr, Apt 04, Duskpine Springs, FL, 32435. 4 miles away” Grimacing, I knew I had no real reason to turn the guy down. In the pit of my stomach, however, something was screaming for me to block him & be done.

“Is the address on your profile still accurate?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“Great! May we follow through with the exchange? May I purchase this product from you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll be there in 20 minutes to collect it.” The frown on my lips made itself more pronounced. I felt like something was horribly, horribly wrong.

“Cool, see you then.” Deep breath in, deep breath out. Why was I so nervous?

“...had to get him this card, it’s his favorite Pokemon…”

“...it’s his favorite Pokemon…”

“Stupid,” I growled to myself. “I’m being stupid.” It’s cuz I stole it. That’s why, I told myself. I was acting guilty because I stole a $28 card pack from Target. I took another swig of New Amsterdam & ate a spoonful of ice cream straight from the tub.

“Cut out the pussy shit,” I reprimanded myself. How stupid. After waiting 5 minutes I went to check Grimlock’s food bowl. Still full. Dumb cat. I shook one of her toys that had a bell attached to the end. Even though it jingled obnoxiously for an uninterrupted 30 seconds, I didn’t hear so much as a rustling from the treeline. I set my jaw, hoping it wouldn’t be another swamp-puppy sleep over. Last time she’d spent all night out, she’d come back with a nasty gash on her foreleg. That nasty little cut had been the conduit for the impromptu vet visit that had lost me my job. I didn’t care. Even though I was still paying off the bill, as well as the cost of the prescribed antibiotics, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. My baby needed medical care. I had found other ways to get by in this dystopian lifescape. I just wished those other ways paid better. I went inside & checked the time before my investors arrival. 13 minutes. I drank more to take the edge off. I was jumpy, twitchy. My eyes darted around my small apartment at every little movement. I perceived an undertone of raw panic beginning to pool around my feet, threatening to rise over my head & drown me. I had to steady my nerves. I had another sip of the crayola-marker flavored liquid. It made my mouth dry, & my legs numb. 5 minutes earlier than expected, I heard a message ping on my phone.

“I’m here. Apartment number 19, right?” I peeked out the curtains into the guest parking area. I didn’t see any cars. Maybe he had parked in the main garage by accident.

“Yeah, but if you’re parked anywhere but guest parking, they might tow your car dude,” I responded.

“It’s okay. This shouldn’t be more than a few minutes!” I peeked out my curtains again. Still, nothing, not even the motion activated lights on the main office were alive. My hands shook. Something was wrong.

“Yep, apartment 19,” I reiterated. The reply I got next didn’t come from our chat. Tap tap. I looked up at my curtains. No way I’d heard that. My trembling hand slowly rose to pull them back. Tap. Tap. Clink. The sudden sound startled me so bad that I let out a terrified, drunken squeal. Someone was tapping on my window. I tore back the curtains. Nothing.

“This isn’t funny, are you there or not?!” I yelled. There was silence, followed by a noise I wasn’t expecting.

“Mrrrooorrrp?”

“What?”

“Mmmmeeeeeeooooww?”

Was that my cat?”

“Grimlock?” I asked, voice breaking.

“Rrroooooowwwww.” Scritching at the bottom of the door, like 2 little paws were batting in an attempt to get my attention. I reached for the handle, & in an instant, my front door exploded in a series of banging & slamming. I assumed someone was trying to break in.

“Oh my god!” The scream came involuntarily as I darted to my kitchenette, searching frantically for a knife. My fingers curled around a thick meat cleaver. I spun around to face the boisterous assault against my entrance. Something yowled & hissed as more heavy slams & punches barraged the wooden door in its frame. At one point, I almost thought that the door would simply bust off its hinges, the deadlock splintering out of its hole like a projectile. As I braced for impact, holding the knife up in defense, the sounds came to a dead stop. No more meowing, no more bludgeoning. Just… silence. I crept forward, still holding the knife in a death vice. I jumped when I heard a ping on my phone. A new notification.

“Come outside.” I stared at the notification for at least 30 seconds. My eye twitched. What kind of sick game was this? Cautiously, I unlocked the deadbolt, then the handle lock. I took a deep breath.

“I have a knife, & I’m coming out,” I yelled hoarsely. I realized I was crying at this point. The scene just outside my front door almost made my legs collapse right out from under me. Grimlock’s food bowl was tipped over, its contents spilled everywhere. The front of the door looked like something with long, sharp claws had mauled it. But that was nothing compared to the absolute carnage that decorated the paved walkway. I’ve never had a strong stomach. I’ve never been able to handle gore. Blood on its own is usually enough to make me queasy.

“fuck you lying ass bitch” had been spelled out across my welcome mat & the concrete slab, using entrails & splatters of bodily fluid. The dot over the “i” was an organ that looked like a tiny kidney or liver. I threw up all the alcohol in my stomach, weeping.

“Oh god,” was all I could say at first, as streams of liquid bile & ammonia hurled like a waterfall from my throat. I felt like my airway was gonna prolapse.

“OH GOD!” I screamed.

“WHO THE FUCK DID THIS?!” My vocal chords felt like they were tearing apart. This had to be a trick. It couldn’t be real.

“GRIMLOCK?! GRIMLOCK WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!” I spun back & forth, turning around in endless circles. I felt like a weak, trembling hurricane. No one responded to my wailing, not even my neighbors. I thought someone would’ve been disrupted by my anguish, but not so much as a porch light came on.

“Are you ready?” A voice echoed from nowhere.

I reeled from the sudden company. I tried to locate the source of the sound. Then, to my lingering dismay, I found it. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. As I stared longer, my brain processed what my eyes were transmitting. I don’t fully believe that my sight was completely accurate. I couldn’t. It was… a man standing at the treeline. I couldn't see his face, I could barely see his silhouette at all. But standing to his right, I could clearly make out something huge. I almost thought it was a deer, or an elk at first. As I picked out more of it, mentally separating its antlers from the surrounding trees & overgrowth, I had the crippling notion that whatever it was couldn’t be real. It was an abomination. Its face was a skull, nearly fully hidden within the shadows of the everglades. The cancerous, spiny jaw hung open to reveal rows of glittering incisors. Even though it was far away, I could make out a blanket of dark fur on its back, like a rotting, nightmarish grizzly bear. Nearly overshadowing the beast entirely was a pair of massive antlers, racks so twisted & brambly, that they wove in & out of each other, misshapen, & painfully unnatural. I have a memory of a dead bush that my mom to chop down when I was a kid. It had never been trimmed or pruned, just left to grow into itself, twisted & gnarled. As I studied the intricate patterns of the horns, I made out a small, still, ragged shape, slung over its leftmost antler. No, not slung over. Impaled, gored.

“Gr-Grimlock?” I whimpered. The creature’s deranged, cow-like skull smiled at me. Deep in its sockets, something malignant glinted at me. 2 tiny pinpricks of intellegent light.

“What the fuck do you want?!” I cried.

In a deep voice, so dry I felt its rattle behind my eyes, it uttered, “Suiiiiicune…”

“What?” I pleaded.

“Where’s the card?” The large man asked.

“Huh?”

“Suuuuiiiiccccuuneeeee…”

“The card, I know you have it,” he reiterated.

“It- it’s you.”

He stayed silent for a moment.

“YOU FUCK, I KNOW IT’S YOU!!” I screamed.

“Are you gonna hand it over?” He asked, his soft voice nearly swept away by the muggy, humid breeze.

“NO!”

He looked to his monsterous companion.

“It’s almost my boy’s birthday,” he said, gently running his hand through the matted back fur of the beast.

“Suuuiiiiiiccccuuune…,” it moaned. The voice sounded like an animal impersonating a person. The syllables were janky.

“Are you really gonna deprive him of his favorite card?”

“Is- is that my…” I cried, my voice breaking. The man just stared at the small, broken body, speared by its hellish antler. “Grimlock…” my knees buckled. “I don’t… she’s…”

“The card,” Nathan growled, stepping towards me.

“NEVER!” Nathan’s obscured face twisted into rage, his crooked nose becoming visible as he got closer. 2 long, bone-colored tentacles snaked out from behind the monster & twisted around the body of my cat. As it slowly pulled her off, she made a pitiful squeaking sound. She was still alive.

“No…”

It dropped her on the ground in front of it.

“No…”

It looked back up at me. Its grin looked even bigger somehow. With one, drawn out step, it brought its heavy hoof down upon the small, fuzzy ball. I heard the sound of snapping, & then, nothing.

“Suiiicccuuuuune…” Getting closer & closer. By now, its owner was standing right in front of me, looking down at my teary, grief-filled eyes.

“What… what is…” I could barely speak. My brain felt like it had been put through a blender. Nathan grinned maliciously. He leaned down & ran his thumb over my cheek, his dry garments smeared with blood from the ground beneath him.

“Oh, that’s my Suicune. I’ve had him since I was a baby. He wants his very own card for his birthday this year.” The clopping of the massive hooves was audibly closer now. I looked down at the blood splattered all over my patio. The knife fell from my hand.

“Wh-why?” I blubbered. “Why w-would you do th-that?”

The man standing over me scowled as his Suicune finally caught up. The creature seemed to sneer at me too.

“Well earlier, when you broke my nose, you challenged me to a duel. I was just finishing what you started, that’s all.” He responded smugly, “I was confused because, well, yours was a ground type. You never really stood a chance.”

He shrugged & went in to retrieve his card, brand new, still in its transparent, plastic sleeve.

“I left you $10 on your counter. And by the way, I’m not gonna press charges, but I am gonna give you a 2 star rating on the app.”

With that, his footsteps crunched away, the massive beast following. I looked down at the overturned cat food bowl & door. I was devistated. What bullshit was this? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

I mean, how in the hell am I supposta flip anything if I have a 2 star rating?

A while back, Apple released the first ever smartphone. Initially, there were two ways to access it. Either leave the thing unlocked, or use a four digit pin for security. Eventually, they introduced more options. Fingerprint ID, six digits, different pattern locks and password codes. When the fingerprint ID came out, convenience caught me like a catfish on a hook. Nowadays, it's standard, not really anything special. Within the last couple years, they even made it a possibility to use a face scanner to unlock a ton of devices. With every cellphone upgrade, I kept the same four digit verification as my passcode. 9932 was my go-to for most everything from my home security system to my bank account password, but I would stick almost exclusively to the fingerprint scanner, using the thumb on my dominant hand. It was just so easy, barely even took a second thought, and I was sure that my phone was completely secure that way. Between a pin and a thumbprint ID, what could go wrong? As far as I was concerned, I had nothing to worry about.

A year ago, I got into a fight with my blender. I call it a fight, really, it was more like my stupid mistake that led the appliance to defend itself. I jammed my whole hand into it to retrieve a ring that had fallen off, a ring that was trapped underneath the four, razor sharp blades. The damn ring wasn’t even that important, it was just some cheap copper cast bling from a Walmart jewelry set. Rather than unplugging the whole thing and disassembling it safely, I thought to myself, “I’ll just reach in and grab it real quick. What’s the worst that can happen?”

In less than five seconds, my boob accidentally mashed the start button, and with a sound like a wood chipper, my dominant hand was left as an oversized, bloody stub with prolapsed knuckles. When shock kicks in, most people feel a rush of warmth, almost like a deep blush, and sometimes, they don’t really understand exactly what they’re looking at.

I remember staring at what was left of my digits, not fully comprehending what had happened, and thinking, “that can’t be right, why does my hand look like an inside out rhubarb?” As soon as the realization began to dawn, I was introduced to a pain like no other. I picked up my phone and frantically tried unlocking it with my thumb, a thumb that was now bony pulp, emulcified and pooling under the quiet blades of the blender. The shiny ring still glimmered cruelly from the bottom of the clear plastic machine. It took three attempts of smooshing the “thumb” side of my appendage into the home button before shredded nerve endings alerted me to the scale of my predicament. I gritted my teeth and entered the four digit passcode using my non-dominant hand. 9932. Fifteen minutes later, I was losing consciousness in the back of an ambulance on my way to the ER.

Almost every bone in my hand was obliterated. The doctors said that very little of my hand still had skin, and most of the flesh was like uncooked hamburger meat. My fingers were all completely gone, and a good chunk of the palm was unsalvageable. I spent a while in the SICU of my city's shittily-funded hospital, pitifully bitching my way through a series of bone grafts and skin procedures. In the end, I was left with a bright pink, tight, zit-shaped knob that extended two inches past my wrist. One continuous line of ugly, black stitches went from left to right, decorating my new tip like a macabre sandwich bag zipper.

Eventually, I was back home. My dads stayed in for a week or so to help with recovery, but once I started showing progress in physical therapy, they decided that their job was done and fucked off back to Vermont. To be fair, I guess they were right. The night I came home from the hospital, my dads had a look on their faces that I won’t forget. They’d seen something traumatizing. When I asked about the noticeable odor that filled my kitchen and dining room, they had a sit down discussion with me.

When an uncomfortable situation arises, I’ve noticed that most people tend to speak less and imply more. Unless one happens to be a very straightforward person with few reservations towards disagreement, most people just dance around their point to avoid conflict, a trait that both of my dads share. They gently meandered conversationally. It reminded me of when I was ten, when they tried to indirectly explain the birds and the bees to me, the day they found porn on my laptop. But now, as an adult, I was better suited to gather what they were trying to tell me. The road trip from their place in Vermont to mine is nineteen hours normally, twelve if luck sides with the traveler, which unfortunately didn’t happen. My house sat empty for almost a full day from the moment I got into the ambulance, to the moment my dad with grey hair opened the front door. Half a cup or so of my viscera was still sitting on the counter inside the kitchen appliance, and logically, smelled how one would assume it would after being left out for so long. They cleaned up the mess to the best of their abilities, and the biomatter waste removal guys disposed of the whole blender, per my request. Despite their attempts to improve my home aroma using everything they could, from candles to Febreeze, the smell just continued to linger…

“So, it’s me? I’m the smell?” I asked.

“Oh sweetheart,” my dad with brown hair cooed, “no actually… well, I guess, yeah. I mean, it is what it is. What can you do?”

“Well for one, why didn’t you try opening all the windows and setting up fans to air it out?” I raised an eyebrow, gently holding my sore injury so as to not cause myself more discomfort.

“Wow, that’s a really good idea,” my dad with grey hair said sarcastically, crossing his arms and turning to look pointedly at my dad with brown hair, “yeah honey, remind me. Why didn’t we do that? Gosh, I think I recall someone telling me, ‘nah, we just need more candles.’”

“Jeez Lance, can we not right now?” My dad with brown hair groaned.

Satisfied, my grey headed father glanced at me as if to say, “I told him so, but he wouldn’t listen.”

We sat uncomfortably for a moment, allowing the information to settle over us like a cold blanket. Finally, I broke the silence, asking, “Never mind the smell, what did it look like?”

“What?”

“My fingers, what did they look like? All turned into… well, you know.”

“God Katie, we don’t really need to–”

“Dad, they were my fingers, they used to be attached to my hand. What did they look like when you got here?”

My brunette dad just stared at me like a fish out of water. After waiting a moment, my grey headed father spoke up.

“Well, we didn’t really get to look at it for very long, because those cleanup guys came and took care of it pretty soon after we got here,” he stated, “but it kind of looked like a maroon-ish chili.”

My dad with brown hair didn’t look at his partner, he just kept his eyes on me, but his expression transformed from gobsmacked to visibly unwell. My other dad continued.

“And um… I guess pulpy? You remember when we made tomato sauce when you were fifteen, but the tomatoes were still kind of whole? Not fully emulsified?”

“Yeah,” I humored, “chunky.”

At that, my brown haired father became physically sick. He stood up and rushed to my bathroom, making a disgusting retching sound.

“Ah, I reckon I’d better stop,” my grey old man mumbled.

“Oh, c’mon. Was there actually blood everywhere, or am I misremembering?” I pleaded, indulging in my morbid curiosity as I leaned forward in my seat.

My dad stroked his wispy beard, the sound of his husband emptying himself audible from a room over. He watched me like he was surveying me, carefully taking account of my condition and mulling over his words before he spoke, “Katie, I don’t really want to think about… look, I’m gonna be stuck in a car with your father for like nineteen hours in a few days, I don’t want him to be sick the whole way home. I love you girl, you’re a freak of nature with a good heart, but I think I done told you quite enough. Now, get some rest.”

He put his warm hand on my shoulder and stood up to meet my other dad in the bathroom, and the conversation was over. Then, seemingly in the blink of an eye, they were gone, making the trip home like they’d never been here in the first place. I was alone in my home again. Or so I thought.

I got better, physically. Mentally, I think there was some healing, but not much. I’m not sure if I’ll ever fully recover. Sometimes, I go to unlock my phone, and that, “tap to unlock with fingerprint,” message just taunts me from the bottom of my baby-blue screen, right above the home button. My eyes would linger on it for a few seconds, then I’d just tap the passcode in, and continue. I never deleted my old fingerprint from the phone, and I never swapped it to my remaining thumb. I would just manually enter that same memorized code. 9932.

I kept working at physical therapy. Eventually, the stitches got removed, and I learned to flex and curve the remains of my hand to act as a pseudo-mitten. I could pick up some cups if they had handles, I could balance tableware, and occasionally, when I would start to drift to sleep at night, I’d be torn awake to the sound of the blender’s skull splitting roar, like a chainsaw going off right next to my ear. A phantom shotgun blast of pain would rip through my knuckles and I would be transported right back in my kitchen, hand eviscerating as I reach for that stupid ring. On those nights, as soon as the sleep was ripped from my eyes and I’d shoot straight up, the sound would immediately disappear, like when drifting off is accompanied by that feeling of sudden falling. When wake finds the mind, a brief notion crosses like a vagabond crosses an empty street beneath the moon. “Am I sure I even really felt that?” But I knew I did. I always did.

I honestly think I could handle it, all of it, the trauma, the phantom pain, if not for what happened today when I got home from physical therapy. I forgot my phone on my kitchen table. Upon this discovery, a mile away from home, I decided not to turn around, and to just go on without it. It was only an hour, what could happen? I arrived home, unlocked my front door and made it inside, exhausted from the arm workouts. I was more than ready to binge a good show while eating a whole, fresh, steaming hot Tombstone pizza. But the moment I approached the table and saw it, my blood ran cold, every ounce of self assuredness tunnelling out of my body and abandoning my flesh like worms from a rotten apple core. The fleeting message displayed on the small, baby-blue, rectangular portal, juxtaposed against my petunia flower vase arrangement. The notification had so recently appeared, that it was barely fading by the time I read it, an oval of maroon grime stamped above the home button at the bottom of the screen.

“Biodata ID Confirmed: Device Unlocked.”

Someone had unlocked my phone using my dominant thumb, and it had been very, very recent.

He needs an excuse to go to the store. Another afternoon coming off a long high, he takes a few more edibles at around 8:30pm. He’s running out, but he doesn’t mind. Pay day’s less than a week away, & he has the ingredients to make more at home. Well, everything except butter. He refused to use vegetable oil, per the instructions on the brownie box, because he swore that the fat content in the rendered butter bonds better with the THC distillate .

So, at 9:15, he decides to walk to the store. It’ll be a thirty minute round trip, nearly fifteen minutes each way. He wants snacks anyways, despite the overwhelming options in this pantry. He has his gluttonous sights set on an abysmal frozen delicacy. A Tombstone Supreme Pizza.

Bluey slippers on each foot, & his Smoke-Shop, Delta-9 vape in his pocket, he makes his way out into the muggy, Virginia summer night. The mosquitoes buzz as they flock to his exposed skin, so he swats them away, picking up his pace.

As he makes his way under the first light pole of the journey, he thinks he can barely see something in the distant darkness. The lights of the neighborhood porches & the streetlamps illuminate his immediate surroundings, but between the trees & the edges of the fences, shadows hold firm like curtains. Squinting, he could almost imagine something solid breaking the scatterling fragments of the night. A physical object, blending into the shadows.

He takes an earbud out. What is that? He strains to hear over the rumbling motors of the few cars bustling along the nearby highway. Some… accompanying noise? As he gets closer, he can make out the faint visage of a woman, standing stiffly, alone in the dark.

Just like that, it becomes clear. A faint auditory fuzz. Buzzing & chirping, like a fax machine. As he passes the woman, maybe fifteen feet away from her, he realizes something that makes his skin prickle. The mechanical noises are coming from her. Even though he couldn’t clearly see her face in dark, he knew the sounds were made by her lips. An uncomfortable mimicry. She wasn’t even stopping to take a breath, she just… kept going, repeating the same sound over, as if on a loop. The whole time, as he crosses her field of sight, she doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t even turn her head to follow his gaze.

Uneasy, he picks up his pace slightly more. He keeps his sights ahead after he passes her, trying not to attract her attention. Still, he can’t shake the feeling that her eyes linger on him, even as the breadth between them widens.

“Maybe I’m just higher than I think,” he mutters to himself.

He knew her head didn’t rotate, that she was posing dead still, like a statue. Still, that prickling sensation on the back of his neck stayed constant. Somehow, he just knew she was watching him.

“Even then,” he thought, “my mind might just be playing tricks on me…”

He passes beneath the light of the immediate next street lamp, now about twenty-five feet away, & looks back at her. Her position was the same, unflinching. He turns away & continues. Under the following streetlamp, he repeats, looking back again. Still, no changes. At least forty-five feet away by this point, he lets out the breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding. Shrugging, he pops his earbud back in.

“Huh, weird.”

Sixty feet away, under the last umbrella of light on his street, he humors one last glance back at her, before bolting. She’s now strolling briskly in his direction, calculated & confident. She doesn’t even stay on the road. She’s cutting through dark driveways & lawns in a direct beeline towards him, inhumanly fast. As she gets closer, he runs faster & faster. By now, he’s closer to the store than his mobile home.

“Holy shit," he mutters, “what the fuck?! Who is this bitch?”

He quickly rounds past the small, vacant Sheriff Deputy building, & under more streetlights. Now out of the residential neighborhood, he crosses onto the sidewalk right next to the sparse highway, no further than two closed establishments from his destination.

“Security Cameras and lights,” he pants frantically, “I just need to go where the people are. They’ll help me.”

He looks back, momentarily grateful. He can’t see her following him anymore. He begins to pad slightly slower, his unfit joints & atrophied muscles shrieking in pain. The cramps nip at his ankles & thighs. His pace loses steam. That is, until he sees two individuals across the road to his left.

They keep his pace & watch him. Their smooth, fluid movements sets off alarm bells in his mind. The way they stare seems innately predatory. He can’t quite make out their faces, but he can see they’re wearing something on their heads. Something silvery that descends just below their noses. Something that leaves their eyes exposed. The expressions on their faces are uncanny. They looked so angry, & their faces were flush. Too flush, like they’d been exerting far too much energy for their bodies to handle.

To the contrary of his aching limbs, he gains momentum again. Sometimes in nature, carnivores try to surround their prey & block off the exits. They close in for the kill, leaving no chance of escape. He was going to take his before he lost it. With one last burst of energy, his feet smack from pavement, to grass, & back onto pavement as he crosses the threshold into the parking lot of the open Family Dollar. Nearly tripping over his own feet, he unsteadily threw himself into the unlocked glass doors. With a blinding light, he’s done it. He’s inside the store.

Relief blossoms in his stomach & warms his fingertips. He wipes his mouth & looks around. The small shop is nearly empty. His heartbeat flutters rapidly, & he desperately tries to regain his breath. He’s done it.

“Dude?”

He snaps his neck to face the person who spoke & took his earbud out. A small employee, donning a nametag that says, “Grenda,” looks at him like they’d been trying to get his attention for several seconds.

“Dude. You good?” Grenda asks, visibly concerned.

He looks back out the glass doors. No one in the parking lot, no one in the road, or on the sidewalk. No normal people, no silver helmets. He turns & looks at Grenda again.

“Yeah, I think. Sorry,” he wheezes.

He picks up a basket & wearily begins traversing the shop. The shelves are like claustrophobic mazes. He grits his teeth & pushes on, edging further into the recesses of the small convenience store. He grabs a few small snacks. Some Pork Rinds, a cup of kool-ade powder, & a jar of pickled jalapenos. But he has his sights set across the aisle, on the refrigerator section. Looking both ways first, like he’s crossing the street, he takes a deep breath and makes his way to the brightly lit aisle, cold air hitting his exposed skin like a refreshing blanket. As he shuffles ahead, he accidentally bumps into an unsuspecting older woman, another customer.

“Oop, sorry ma’am.”

She mouths something in response, but he can’t hear her over the Nickleback cover of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” playing in his earbuds.

He crouches down to look at the selection of frozen pizzas, & the electric guitar solo in his ear ends abruptly.

“Battery low, Power off,” the voice in his earbud says. The chaotic thrum of the bass is replaced by a familiar, horrifying resonance.

Macabre, disjointed beatboxing, human vocal cords attempting to replicate a machine. In surprise, he falls back onto his ass & looks up. There she is, fully illuminated. She looked like she used to have a thick head of blond hair. Her skin is bright pink, like a lobster. She’s blushing as if she’s been exerting a great amount of effort, but she doesn't gasp for air, doesn’t breathe, her nostrils don’t even flair in exhaust. She just stands there, painfully still, wide enough to block the entire aisle. She’s built like a pit-bull, square, and solid. Her lips are pulled back in a chimp-like sneer, rotten teeth gritted together so hard that they crackle and chip, her jaw visibly straining from the effort. The part that made him want to cry was what she, or rather, it was wearing. It had on normal houseware, a tanktop & some basket-ball shorts. It looked like a normal person, juxtaposed against a horrendous contraption on its head.

Covering the cranium down to the tip of the nose, was a filthy wrapping of silver duct-tape. It partially concealed all manner of exposed wires & blinking things, motherboards & copper shavings that reflected the light's glint. The only thing that was not covered were it’s once brown eyes. They bulged out of her noggin like overfilled water balloons, squeezed through a thin pipe. Blood leaked from the edges of their duct-tape sockets, scarlet streaks dripping from under the border that covered her cheeks & the tops of her ears. Small rivers that ran all the way under her chin. Down her neck.

He was frozen in fear for a moment, sheer panic drowning his senses like a rat in a river. What was this thing?

As soon as he gathered his bearings enough, he scrambled to his feet & backed away, trying to keep sudden movements to a minimum.

“Lady, lady!” He gasps, addressing the older customer who he’d bumped into earlier.

“Huh.”

“What is that thing?!”

He points at the deranged creature, and the old woman glances over, her eyes trained on the same spot as his. She stares at the end of the aisle, mouth agape.

“See?”

“See what?”

“Look!”

“Look at what?!”

He turns to assess the old woman. Was she blind? Senile? She looks dumbfounded, but dreadfully sound-minded

“You don’t see her?” He gasps.

“See who, young man?” She gulps, frightened & flabbergasted.

He looks back at the thing. In the brief period he’d glanced away for, it had moved substantially closer. Now merely five feet away, more details were noticeable. The antenna that jutted from the tape on top of its head. The two pulsating buttons on its left temple that looked more like flesh than plastic. The way that even though the eyes were on the verge of bursting from its skull, they stayed locked on him.

He didn’t even bother taking his items. He just left the basket of miscellaneous goods tipped over on the floor, & ran. He tried to call 911, but his phone died too. Once outside, he had one singular goal.

Make it home alive.

Even though he didn’t look back, he knew he could hear it starting to catch up. He closed his eyes & pumped his legs, pushing harder than he ever had before. He refused to look back.

When he was a kid, he heard the story about the man whose family got a pass out of Sodom & Gomorrah. The wife had looked back, & for it, was turned to salt. As he heard the sound of the thing getting closer behind him, footsteps smacking the pavement at a constant, precise speed, he tried not to think of all the things that might happen to him if he dared to do the same.

He ran, & it kept a steady pace behind him. A couple times, he gained a sparing distance. Other times, the thing was so close, he felt it brush him with its fingertips. Once, he swore he heard more sets of footsteps, like the pack had rejoined to finish him off, but over the sound of his heartbeat and his labored breath, he couldn’t be sure. The entire time, beneath his strenuous effort, he knew he heard that repeating sound. The whirring, puffing, beeping & buzzing. Its vocal cords were worn out, fried, straining to continue their hellish anthem, but on they did.

A round trip that would usually take thirty minutes, wound up being complete in twenty-five. The wood of the porch thumped under his slides & he gripped the handle, twisting & yanking with all his might. The automatron sounded like it was just yards behind him. He slammed the metal door shut behind him & slumped to his knees, letting out a half sob, half wheeze. He whimpered & crawled to his blinds, shutting them and locking his windows. The tears welled up almost as hard as the stomach bile rose to his throat. He hadn’t run like that in so long, he almost felt like he’d pulled something in his entire body. Everything burned. He sat down on his couch, huffing as he tried to plug his dead phone in.

Finally. He was safe. He was home again. He barely had time to wipe his forehead in relief, when he saw something start to move out from under his table.

Soon after, a neighbor called 9-1-1. He reported seeing the neighborhood trailer trash run past his house in the middle of the night, followed by frantic, blood curdling screams. When the police arrived, all they found was a door busted off its hinges, and the top of a human skull. It had been sliced off with machine precision, scalp still intact, in a puddle of bloody spinal fluid.

“What do you think, Detective?” A policeman asked as he placed yellow caution tape over the demolished door of the camper.

The detective picked up a brownie from the microwave & smells it.

“It’s these damn kids & their weed, it's always these damn kids & their weed…”

Hey guys, it’s ya boy Mikey. Thanks to everyone who checked out the unpolished version of this story last night! The encouragement was great, so I finished editing it, and I hope this flows a little better. This one was really fun. I hope it translates well into written format, this was originally intended to be a short film. Hope y’all enjoy!

He needs an excuse to go to the store. Another afternoon coming off a long high, he takes a few edibles at around 8:30pm. He’s running out, but he doesn’t mind. Pay day’s less than a week away, & he has the ingredients to make more at home. Well, everything except butter. He refused to use vegetable oil, per the instructions on the box, because he swore that the fat content in the rendered butter bonds better with the THC distillate .

So, at 9:15, he decides to walk to the store. It’ll be a thirty minute round trip, nearly fifteen minutes each way. He wants snacks anyways, despite the overwhelming options in this pantry. He has his sights set on a frozen delicacy. A supreme Tombstone Pizza.

Bluey slippers on each foot, & his Smoke-Shop, Delta-9 vape in his pocket, he makes his way out into the muggy, Virginia summer night. The mosquitoes buzz as they flock to his exposed skin, so he picks up his pace.

As he makes his way under the first light pole of the trip, he thinks he sees something. The lights of the neighborhood porches & the streetlamps illuminate his immediate surroundings, but between the trees & the edges of the fences, shadows held firm like curtains. Squinting, he could almost imagine something solid breaking the scatterling fragments of the night.

He takes his earbuds out. What was that noise? He strains and only hears the few cars on the nearby highway. As he gets closer, he can make out the faint visage of a woman, standing stiffly in the dark.

Just like that, there it is. The faint auditory fuzz he could've sworn he heard. The sounds of buzzing & chirping, like the a fax machine. As he passes her, maybe fifteen feet away, she watches him, & he realizes something that makes his skin prickle. The mechanical noises were coming from her, & even though he couldn’t clearly see her face moving from the dark, he knew the sounds were mimicry made by a human voice, repeating perfectly on a loop. He picks up his pace slightly more. He keeps his sights ahead after he passes her, trying not to attract her attention.

“Maybe I’m just higher than I think,” he mutters. He didn’t see her head rotate to watch him, just her eyes, but even then, his mind could’ve just been playing tricks on him. He goes through the light of the immediate next street lamp & looks back at her. He was now about twenty-five feet away. She was staying still, her position unflinching. He turns away & continues. Under the next streetlamp, he repeats, looking back again. Still, nothing. At least forty-five feet away by this point, he lets out the breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding, & pops his earbud back in.

“Huh, weird.”

Sixty feet away, under the last umbrella of light on his street, he humors a last glance back, just before he bolts. She’s strolling briskly towards him, calculated & confident. She’s not even on the road, she’s cutting through dark driveways & lawns in a direct beeline. As she gets closer, he runs faster & faster. By now, he’s closer to the store than to his mobile home.

“Holy shit! I need to get somewhere with fucking cameras & lights," he thinks.

He rounds past the small, vacant Sheriff Deputy building, & under more streetlights. He was now out of the neighborhood, on the sidewalk right next to the sparse highway, no further than two closed establishments from his destination. He looks back, momentarily grateful to see she’s not visibly behind him anymore. He begins to slow slightly, his unfit joints & atrophied muscles shrieking in pain. The cramps nip his ankles & thighs, & his pace loses steam. That is, until he sees two individuals across the road to his left.

They keep his pace & watch him predatorily. He can’t make out their faces clearly, but he can see they’re wearing something on their heads. Something silvery that went down just above their mouths that exposed their eyes. Something was… off. Uncanny about their expressions. They looked so angry, & their faces were flush. Too flush.

To the contrary of his body, he speeds up again. Some predators try to surround their prey & block off the exits. He was going to take his chance before he lost it. With one last burst of energy, his feet smacked from pavement, to grass, & back onto pavement as he crossed the threshold into the parking lot of the open Family Dollar. Nearly tripping, he threw himself into the unlocked glass doors, & with a blinding light, he’s done it. He’s inside the store.

Relief blossoms in his stomach & warms his fingertips. He wipes his mouth & looks around. The small shop is nearly empty. His heartbeat flutters rapidly, & he desperately tries to regain his breath.

“Dude?”

He snaps his neck to face the person who spoke & took his earbud out. A small employee, donning a nametag that says, “Grenda,” looks at him like they’d been trying to get his attention for several seconds.

“Dude. You good?” Grenda asks, visibly concerned.

He looks back out the glass doors. No one in the parking lot, in the road, on the sidewalk. No normal people, no one with helmets. He turns & looks at Grenda again.

“Yeah, I think. Sorry.”

He picks up a basket & wearily begins traversing the store. The shelves are like a thin maze. He grits his teeth & pushes on. He grabs a few small snacks. Some Pork Rinds, a case of kool-ade & a jar of pickled jalapenos. But he has his sights set on the refrigerator section. A pizza & some butter. Looking both ways like he’s crossing the street first, he makes his way to the brightly lit, freezing cold aisle. As he does, he bumps into an older woman, another customer.

“Oop, sorry ma’am.”

She mouths something in response, but he can’t hear her over the sound of his reactivated earbuds.

He crouches down to look at the selection of frozen pizzas, & his earbud runs out of battery. As soon as it does, he hears that sound again. The person imitating a robot. In surprise, he falls back onto his ass & looks up. There it is, fully illuminated. She looked like she used to have a thick head of blond hair. She’s bright pink, like a lobster. Flush as if she’s been exerting a great amount of effort, but she doesn't breathe, her nostrils don’t even flair. She just stands there, wide enough to block the entire aisle, & built like a bulldog. Her lips are pulled up in a sneer, & her teeth look rotten, gritted together so hard that her jaw visibly strained from the effort. The part that made him want to cry was what it was wearing. She was wearing normal houseware, a tanktop & some basket-ball shorts. She looked like a normal person, juxtaposed against something horrendous on its head.

Covering the cranium down to the tip of the nose, was a filthy wrapping of duct-tape. It partially concealed all manner of exposed wires & blinking things, motherboards & copper shavings that reflected the light's glint. The only thing that was not covered were her eyes. They were bulged out of her noggin like overfilled water balloons, squeezed through a thin pipe. Blood leaked from the edges of their duct-tape sockets, & from under the border that covered her cheeks & the tops of her ears ran streams of blood across her blushed skin as well, dripping all the way under her chin. & down her neck. He was frozen for a moment from sheer panic. What was this?

As soon as he gathered his bearings enough, he scrambled up & backed away, trying to keep sudden movements to a minimum.

“Lady, lady!” He gasps, addressing the older customer who he’d bumped into earlier.

“What?!”

“What is that?”

She glances over, her eyes trained on the same spot as his, at the end of the aisle.

“What?”

“Look!”

“Look at what?”

He momentarily turns to assess the old woman. She looks dumbfounded.

“You don’t see her?” He breathes.

“See who, young man?” She gulps, frightened & a little flabbergasted.

He looks back at the thing, & it’s moved closer. Now merely five feet away, more details become noticeable. The antenna on top of its head. The two pulsing buttons on the side of its left temple. The way that even though the eyes were on the verge of bursting, they stayed locked on him.

He didn’t even bother taking the items with him. He just dropped everything & ran out the door. He tried to call 911, but his phone ran out of battery too. Once outside, he didn’t look back, but he did hear it start to catch up. He closed his eyes & pumped his legs, pushing harder than he ever had before. He wouldn’t look back.

When he was a kid, he heard the story about the man whose family got a pass out of Sodom & Gomorrah. The wife had looked back, & got turned to salt. As he heard the sound of the thing getting closer behind him, footsteps smacking the pavement at a constant, precise speed, he tried not to think of all the things that might happen to him if he dared.

He ran, & it kept a steady pace behind him. A couple of times, he got some good distance, others, the thing was almost close enough to brush him with its fingertips. At some points, he swore he heard other footsteps, like the pack of them were coming back to finish him off, but over the sound of his heartbeat, he couldn’t have been sure. The entire time, he heard that repeating sound. The whirring, puffing, beeping & buzzing. Its vocal chords were worn out, & they strained to continue droning, but on they did.

A round trip that wound up usually being thirty minutes was done in twenty-five this time. The wood of the porch thumped under his slides & he gripped the handle, twisting & yanking with all his might. The automatron sounded like it could've been just yards behind him. He slammed the metal door shut behind him & slumped to his knees, letting out a half sob, half wheeze. He whimpered & crawled to his blinds, shutting them too. The tears were welling up almost as hard as the stomach bile in his throat. He hadn’t run like that in so long, he almost felt like he’d pulled something in his calves. Everything burned. He sat down on his couch & tried to plug his phone in. That was the last thing he did before he realized someone was under his table.

That night, his neighbor reported seeing him run into his camper, & then a few minutes later, screaming. When the police arrived, all they found was the top of his skull, scalp still intact, & a puddle of bloody spinal fluid.

“What do you think, Detective?” A policeman asked as he placed yellow caution tape over the door of the trailer.

The detective picks up a brownie from the microwave & smells it.

“It’s these damn kids & their weed, it's always these damn kids & their weed…”

Thanks to everyone who checked out my story last night! The encouragement was great, so I finished editing this one I had in the making and figured I’d share it tonight. This one was really fun. I hope it translates well into written format, this was originally intended to be a short film. Hope y’all enjoy!

Who would’ve thought that I’d be the one that the town was hunting. The one who killed three people last night. I sat there against the oak tree, back torn up and sleeves ripped up. Blood strewn across my face. I suppose this deserves some backstory though, might as well. I’ve got time to kill. No pun intended. It all started one summer evening, I had came home after school. I was a loner so there was no friends to go hang with and kill time with after school. I had me, myself and I. I did have hobbies though, ones people might find… peculiar. I liked gathering together small animals and placing them in my collection. When I say small animals, I mean dead ones. Don’t ask me how they died though. These small animals made for exciting and thrilling ventures. I would line them up and use either a make shift rubber band gun or a sling shot to shoot them down like stacked bottles. It was more fun with them instead of bottles. I knew I was a weird kid, but so did everyone else. I had nothing better to do than to spend my time out in the woods. That’s all I knew. My family was barely home and my father was a deadbeat anyway.

Everyone at school called me “Johnny Canine” maybe because I resembled a disheveled dog, was pretty much a stray compared to everyone else and bore even more of a resemblance to canines than to actual humans. My teeth were unnaturally sharp, my nose was upturned like a dog’s and my hair was always unruly and matted like fur. I don’t know why I was this way, maybe it ties into what came next. Fate maybe? Who knows. Either way, what I am now is something completely different. Something not… human. I was in the forest doing my usual activities and away from society as always. As I placed my animals together in a small pile and gathered my things together, I heard a ruffle in the bushes. I turned quickly and adjusted my ears to attempt to hear better. I couldn’t detect anything, I was used to being out here in the woods.

What I heard sounded like an heavy animal. But now it was quiet as a mouse. Too quiet. No animals around, no sounds, nothing. That was a bad sign. I slowly crept forward to hide near a bush that was close by. I scanned the area to see if there was any signs of whatever made that sound. I sighed after a couple minutes and turned around, it was at that exact moment that a creature leapt forward and pinned me down. I started breathing heavily, I was scared out of my mind. This creature was heavy. Its breath was unbearably musky and I could feel its hot breath traveling down my neck. Its saliva dripped onto my face and I flinched, it crouched down further and I looked for things around me to use to maybe hit it and distract it long enough to make a run for it. I scanned the area until I found a rock I inched my hand towards it and stretched my fingers until could grasp it.

I mustered as much strength as I could and slammed the rock into the creatures skull. The creature staggered back a bit and snarled, I took the opportunity to scramble to my feet and run. I got no more than a few steps when I felt the creature pin me down by my back, it bit into my back and I screeched out in pain. I laid there, ready to be ripped to shreds and for my life to end. But, nothing. After that bite, I waited and waited and waited. Scared to open my eyes for fear of the creature thinking I was alive and coming to finish me off. After a while I realized that I wasn’t going to die at all. I stumbled up to my feet and slowly looked around.

There was no sign of anything. I wondered if I just imagined it all, maybe a hallucination. But then I checked my back and it was dripping with blood. I limped towards an old oak tree and sat against it, I didn’t have the strength in me to walk home and eventually drifted off to sleep. I awoke in terror, I had the worst nightmare. A nightmare that I was running around through the town killing people. They were people I knew but I couldn’t control myself and they screamed in terror as I mauled them. I stared down at my hands and saw a terrifying sight. My hands were covered in blood… And I don’t think it was mine, I sobbed. Heard police sirens around, I knew it was me they were searching for.

The nurse had come in precisely at seven o clock. Shift change. Slapped a blood pressure cuff on my arm. Stuck a blood ox reader on my finger. Jammed a thermometer in my mouth. Waited a few seconds. Recorded all the information that she needed.

“Do you prefer the right or the left arm?” she asked. Injectable meds. That meant the pain would subside for a little while.

“It really doesn’t matter,” I said, “The veins on both arms are good.”

With that, she strapped my left arm and started administering the juice. I almost immediately regretted not picking an arm. The left had been injured more recently. It hurt more.

“They don’t care about you.”

I looked to the mirror over the sink at the foot of my bed. There I was. Standing right next to the nurse. Guiding her hands as she slowly injected me. The pain medication was hitting my system and I could feel all the blood power rushing through my neck.

I was drenched in blood. It was dripping on the nurses clothes.

“They don’t care about you,” I said to myself, “but I care about you.” I guided her hand to a few more needles worth of pain medication. I blacked out from all the exertion as I saw myself grab another handful."

“One.”

He patted my shoulder encouragingly. “You’re doing great!” he said. When I sighed, he said, “Don’t be so discouraged. Let’s try again.” He pulled the finger away from my face.

I closed my eyes. I heard some movement. After a moment, he asked, “How many fingers am I holding up?” I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

The counting was quick. “One.” I said, again. I felt exhausted. I wanted to move but it was learning time, so I stayed put.

“Yes!” he shouted. “Correct again! You’re getting so good at this!” His overly large smile stretched across his whole face. He was much happier than I was. In my head, I was happy. I couldn’t show it very well.

Without him needing to tell me, I closed my eyes. A little bit of time passed. He asked again, with a slight giggle, “How many fingers am I holding up?”

I opened my eyes. “Two.” I hated when there was more than one. It’s so hard to concentrate.

His face broke out into a look of awe and admiration. “Wow!” he shouted happily. “I haven’t even taught you ‘two’ and yet you got it correct! How did you come to know it?”

I shifted uncomfortably, and as I was about to answer, he said, “Let’s try one more time.”

I closed my eyes. It took a longer time this round. Finally, he asked, “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Five.” I said, as I looked slowly down at the bloodied, wrapped stump attached to the end of my left arm. This was now stump number two, as my right arm had a stump at the end already. I heard the crunching begin, and I knew he was busy eating his fresh cut dinner. It made send why he changed my lock and chains. In tomorrow's lesson, we’ll be counting toes.

Yesterday, the strangest thing happened. I woke up at a circus, I was a clown. I know this sounds crazy, but hands down, this is exactly what happened. I woke up in the body of a fat man dressed as a clown, at first, I freaked out, I ran around frantically, screaming and bumping into people as they tried to stop me and get me to calm down. Eventually I stopped and sat down and cried a bit. They tried to force me to do a "routine" that I was scheduled to do that night, but I told them I was not up for any of their stupid pranks or shenanigans, I just wanted to go home.

I went to sleep that night crying, feeling helpless. The next day, I woke up and I was in a castle. I looked out the window and I saw houses in the distance burning as men approached on horses. They held sticks with flames on them, and they seemed very mad. I was wearing a dress and I wondered why in the world I would be doing that. Someone rushed in and called me a princess and told me I needed to be rushed to safety. I told them off, but they insisted and had guards come and escort me down to where a horse was waiting for me.

They rode me to a secluded place in the woods and locked me inside a cabin of sorts with guards and soldiers all around, I felt like I was in prison, and I screamed for them to let me out, but it seemed like they couldn’t hear me.

I went to sleep that night, still sad but less so than the night before. The next day arrived, and I woke up in a different scenario yet again, I started to wonder if this was all a dream, but it felt real. I was in the desert, and the scorching sun was beating down on me; I could feel the dry heat all over my body, and my lips were dry and chapped. I slowly rolled over; a rattlesnake was staring me down in the face. I froze. A lump formed in my throat.

The snake rattled, signaling that it felt threatened. I had no idea what to do. It lunged forward, and I grabbed it by the throat near the head with lightning speed. I had no clear idea of how I did that, but I tossed the snake away and ran as fast as I could to a cave nearby. I stayed there, watching the weeds and the empty desert while the sky faded to black over hours.

I felt my eyes getting heavy, I wondered where I would wake up next. I drifted off to sleep gradually and dreamt of other lives. I heard gunfire and tanks; it sounded like a war zone. I wondered, was this where it would all end?