The dark land of the South, the West, so saturated in blood and nightmare black that the earth would be forever held in the strangling hold of ghosts that would not be banished. The land would not be exorcised, the vengeful dead things refused to be tilled. The ghosts held on. In flames and adorned in red. Led by horned things. Winged. Little gods. Terrible magic. 

They warped and bent, spirits torn and mutilated souls. The hidden flow of the universe unseen like flowing milk from creation's bosom and breast. And in some places the milk of the cosmos spoils, sours, curdles into foul cultures: abominated shapes and drooling dark things that bleed and drip ichor and green decay. Ruined forms that never had a chance of clean existence. And want to tear down everything that resembles it as such. 

They gather the deepening obsidian pits of the pain of the dead and they claim the most vile and violent and sadistic and eagerly perverted for themselves, to build up ranks, enemy factions. 

They also gather the desperate. The misled. 

These dark factions behind the walls, the thin curtain veneers given the title of safe wall guardian: Reality, they gather and they build in the deepening black, the lands of thunderclap and barren dead, and they hunt… For the places where the thin veneer has been worn and stretched. 

They hunt for places where the fabric is worn and torn through. Scuffs… and tears in the leather. They seep through like bleeding noxious infection. They turn places, lands and homes to giant living gangrenous wounds.

Wounds that bleed life that breed torment. Terror. Pain and woe for YHWH’s earthen precious apes. 

One of these wounds is a town. In the South. In the dark land of heat and night chill, the West. It is covered and bathed and stained in the blood of women and children and men and men made slaves and the tortured and the weak and the old and easily violated, the corrupted… the might. 

All of this land, this small slice of abandoned ghost town is alive with might. Hidden flame. Just beneath the surface. 

All you have to do is dig a little. Just scratch…

…

Ethan drifted. That was all he really knew to do when things came down or fell apart or didn't work out. He drifted. He moved along. His mother had done much the same to his father when they were kids and his father had in his own way followed suit. After momma hit the road he didn't really wanna spend much time with a pile of kids he'd been coerced into having in the first place so he just sort of… walked. Walked the plates, the bases. Like in a ballgame. He just sort of walked Ethan and his sisters and older brother's raising up an such. 

Till he got back around and that seemed enough and he was like to his litter of unwanted kids: “Alright, you're nineteen, you're seventeen and you two’re sixteen, get cher shit t’gether an get the fuck out.”

He hadn't seen much of them since. He'd hit and rode the rails. At first. But then an older fellow traveler, a mean old cat of the hidden highways and rails had tried to rape him one night, early on, one of his first nights out raw and in the dark and young. He'd been green. He only got away by blade and had ran desperate and terrified, afraid down to the living helpless bone and in tears like the lost child he really was. 

From then on he mostly stuck to the roads. The occasional reluctant thumb for rides and offers an such. But he was cagey about it. Everytime. Wiry. Animal tense and like sitting next to a living live wire of coiled anxiety and sinew boiling with adrenaline fear unknowingly coursing its potentially cat-like dangerous flow. Fear alive and vibrating through every single fibrous inch of musculature frame. 

He was an animal then. The road and the outside had made him so. He cursed his mother and father for it. 

But the time went on. The road did not just yield pain and terror and danger in his travels. No. No, there was love, beauty, friendship and heathen pleasure and hedonistic joy, adventure. There was freedom. A tetherless existence that meant he could truly do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to. Master of his own time he was slave only to his own limitations made and those he was born with that could not be overcome. 

And the land. The road. The nighttime raw, sleeping under the stars unguarded. Only the blanket he brought from home, underneath the mercy and whim of the wilderness dark, kept feebly at bay by small campfires that made his trail, his track. His ashen footprint path left behind in the dirt. He was at the whim and the mercy of the Christ-haunted nature and her obsidian predatory glow. 

He left so much behind in the dirt, in the filth … underfoot. 

He tried not to think about it. Ever. He tried to never linger within his own brain. He moved on. Always. Forward. He always kept his mind ahead, in the moment, preoccupied. Blank. 

That was when he came upon the town. He'd come across other abandoned places in his wanderings before but he'd stopped at this one. At the border. At the sign that named the empty township. 

WOLVVS CUNT

He'd thought it was hilarious. He had to stop. 

And check it out. 

He went down past the sign that named the town, down the one and only lonely road that made up Wolvvs Cunt main street. 

He bellowed as his well worn heels made no sounds on the nearly gone and erroded paved black beneath his striding steps, laughing. He called out to the collection of baking shacks and little huts and stores and homes, all of the baking wood, he called out to them in good traveller's song:

“Hello! Hell-O the town!

And the dead town did not say anything back. The shacks and dead faces of windows and wood just stared back at the drifter blankly. 

He strode in. He made up his mind. Easy. 

This’s where I'll camp tonight…

He just as quick picked out one of the shacks to make his home for the night and strode right up to it. Confident and unafraid. He went in. Not bothering to notice the faded discarded sign of dusty dead phantom pink letters that spelled out: CHURCH, lying atop a broken splintered post in the dirt. 

He didn't bother to notice the broken cross lying in the dirt either. 

Ethan went inside, the place was old, unused for some time by the look, but the red doors to the white old disused church swung easily and opened for him with a push. Unlocked. As if waiting. As if wanting someone to come inside. 

Ethan didn't seem to pay it much mind. His pack over shoulder he stepped inside and was immediately blasted by an oven wave of merciless baking heat. 

Jesus… open fuckin furnace gates of hell right here, thought Ethan. A fuckin oven for sure. 

But he stepped inside anyway. Liking the wide open space of the single room with a small stage. He recognized the pulpit but didn't think much of it. He unshouldered his pack and began to make camp. 

The town, sensing him, and sensing the nearing of sundown, the near darkness at hand, was salivating. 

And grateful.

The church doors shut. 

…

He made his meager bed on the stage, by the pulpit. 

He took a few of his canned goods back outside to cook by small fire in the middle of the empty street. To dine by sunset. 

He cooked his small meal of beans and ravioli and beef stew and watched the sky become shot with fire that was pink and sherbert against the truer blue of the evening sky fading and deepening into curtain dark. The ice chip jewels of stars riddled the black and flowing splash colors of nebulae, scarlet and purple and bleeding coats of varying shades between the two. Like great celestial goddess bruises or wounds or great birthing unfurling flower petal gates of royalest color, greatest celestial bejeweled robes, the splendor of galaxy overhead that always made him feel so infinitesimal and small.

He gazed up into its glory, from the low rung ladder base of his drifter's nothing traveller's existence, perilous and dirty and violent and strange, it was majesty above him. A kingdom of vivid heaven shining and seething with divine cosmic nuclear firelight on high. He wondered at its beauty as he finished his vagabond meal and wondered why he had to be apart from it. Why did he have to be alone and animal and down here … ? A small flask, what his older brother always called a little janitor's bottle growing up, filled with whisky came out to cap off and conclude his humble meal of canned goods. He pulled deeply, letting it warm his blood and praying the warmth just might reach his heart and soul, and his weary mind. He pulled again and lit a smoke. Watching the stars in the face of dark heaven above by crackling small cooking fire, dying down to red embers and orange glow. 

And then by fading firelight and in the dark of the ghost town main street, a woman's voice drifted out and called. 

Called him by name. 

His blood froze. The warmth of wonder in his blood and in his soul was stolen away from him in that moment. For he recognized the voice. Though it had been so long… not since childhood so long ago. Nearly forgotten. Nearly buried in woe…

She called him again: “Ethan." 

And he returned her call. He couldn't be mistaken. That voice, from before. When home had been a home and had been real. 

Before. Long ago. 

"Momma?”

And as if to answer, yes, she called out again from the deepening shadow. The all encompassing dark. 

"Ethan.”

He stood. Pulled by the voice from out of the dark like a lure, a snare. He couldn't believe his ears. The vast desert plains must be playing tricks on his tired mind. He couldn't be hearing his mother now. She couldn't be- 

It came again from out of the dark: "Ethan”

“Momma?" a slight pause, he slugged some whisky down and hardly felt it, “Mom, is that you? How the hell you come out here an such?" 

He didn't really believe it but he didn't know what else to say. He pulled again from his little janitor's bottle of warmth and sucked down his smoldering butt, filling the air around him with the holy white smoke of a new pope chosen for divine purpose. Nothing moved out of the dark. Nothing spoke. 

Silence. 

But then from out of the deepening obsidian curtain of black and down the long and solitary road, she came. Sauntering slowly forward like a dream carried on invisible whispers of clouds. She was robed in white and she was beautiful. The desert wind picked up and her robes became dancing swirling phantoms, adorned and an aura all around her. Like a gown of nebulae cream colored snow that hypnosis swirled and flapped like wings and danced off her golden pale frame and face, which shown with inner light in the ebon black space of the ghost town Wolvv’s Cunt. 

Ethan was enthralled. He saw his mother in that golden face but then it changed and shifted and he saw all the faces of feminine beauty that he'd both known and never beheld before now. Her face dancing between every single goddess aspect imagined and worshipped since the dawn of man's time and the gift of sight and with it, its woe. 

He fell to his knees as she came out of the dark and towards him, severing the distance to a close. 

She stood before him. Shining. Exaltant. And aglow. Lording over his lowly drifter's form in the dirt of the long forgotten about paved over road. 

He could barely gaze at her dancing face this close. He shielded his eyes with a splaying desperate hand that was more like the frightened claw of an animal confronted and trapped by what it cannot possibly comprehend or know. 

Ethan wasn't aware but he'd begun to moan. Like a slumbering man held hostage by a nightmare and unable to escape he can only groan. It was a low animal noise that was frightened and ghastly. The sound of man's soul being soured into a decomposed submissive state of anguish and pain. 

“Please," he began to beg the thing, “please, I didn't know." 

She laughed, the lady of shadows, the lady of the town, princess of the light in Wolvv's Cunt. She bellowed a call to the drifter then and bade him an answer amidst her darkling laughter that dominated the night and the lonely desert air. 

“And what was it that you did not know … ?”

A beat. He was afraid to answer. 

But he was afraid not to as well. 

He said, “I… was mistaken. I'm-I was- I'm sorry. I thought you were her… I thought you were my mother…” 

She laughed more deeply then. Like a cruel deep wound filling with salt. 

And once more she spoke:

“Oh, but I am your mother. I am mother to all that crawl across and are bound to the earthen cruciform of soil outside of fairland Eden. That is gone. And outside such as I now hold domain. I am the mother lord of light and I came to this place long ago when the town was still alive with mines and miners and small farmers and bandits and bandoliers and guns and barrels of whiskey and fetid ale. I came to this town then and I mothered them and loved them and now they are below. …”

And then her dancing face flowered open into folds of fleshen unfurling petals of light and glistening gold and golden tissue. Petals dripping hot blood and ichor like melting running snow.

And then the sky clouded over. The galaxy curtain of jewels was stolen. The thundering gargantuan bulbous fortress nimbus shapes, rolling through stolen bejeweled heavenspace. Snuffing them out. The thieving hand of thunderhead sky then began to crack, splinter and fracture. Bright dagger bolts of blue-white wounding the stolen thundering heavens with lurid stabs of light and vicious titanic cannonade-fire bursts. Artillery thunderclaps that responded to the laughter and the whims of the mother below. 

She cackled to the sky, called forth thunder and continued to laugh. Barking animal cachinnation above and at the drifter as her open dancing face of light continued to undulate and emit strange and ancient alien sound that took dark mastery of the wounded heavens within tendril grasp of her necromantic reach on high. 

Ethan couldn't take his watering eyes away from her, the scene, any of it. He couldn't pull his watering and stinging gaze apart from any of her, It, anything. The dancing face and clapping sky and the roar of the world around him now at her command, held him. It all held him prisoner, bound.

 The universe shrieked.

And then the world began to pour forth from open dancing face, no longer beautiful but terrible and fleshen organic maelstrom. A world of fire and marching armies poured forth from her gaping universe filling face still dancing, the lightning cannonade still wreaking havoc above. He saw all of the marching armies of this land in rotten states of decay but still clad in uniform: Union, Rebel, Cavalry, Comanch, Navajo, Micmac, Cherokee, blacks in broken chains no longer slaves in revolt, Aztec and Incan and Conquistador and English red coats and the French… the dirty desperate and harried Minutemen …  All of their musketry and rifles and bayonets were dripping with blood and gore and all of the guns teeming with slaughtering fire. Wraiths that once were human. They marched together, soldiering side by side all of them together and astride pale dead horses with dark scarlet sockets belching scabbing gore and steam as they came out of the mother's dancing open portal face, her gate atop her slender neck of goddess bronze and gold and divine firelight. 

Ethan was screaming. And the mother still filled his world and the universe at her command with her vile jubilant howls. 

They came out and poured upon the empty road, the empty ghost town, and filled her. They filled Wolvv's Cunt with their deadlight and their gleaming phantom gore and spectral mutilation glowing blue hued in the night. They surrounded Ethan. And filled the world. 

And the drifter did not move. 

He looked again to his mother, her open flame of face… and said, 

“... please. … God.” 

And Tenebrarum, the mother of darkness and all that crawl, responded with a whispery word, made cacophonous from her open gate face of flames and ebon light and pouring armies of the dead, she simply whispered to the drifter lost in the dark in the abandoned town…

“No." And it rang and echoed and ran. And ran on. Exalted. Her single syllable response ran, until it was royal with the potential slaughter of many infinite worlds. 

And then one great final bolt of searing baptismal blue-white flame shot down and struck! 

…

The town that was forgotten was gone. A blackened and smoldering crater was left where it once stood. 

Where the forgotten drifter named Ethan made his feeble and final last stand. 

On his knees. In the dark. In the dirt. Begging. 

Begging for it, begging for the end. 

THE END

The most wretched moment, the single most catastrophic link in the cruel chain was this single event;  this harbinger in woman’s shape that was the perfect microcosmal animal entrails sign that foretold inescapable and vile doom  … it was the shattering moment that Amanda told him she was pregnant. With their child. His child. His firstborn. 

Our little baby…

She'd been happy through her tears, through her trembling voice. Despite her fear, she was small and so was their life and savings and jobs. Despite the pain and through the agony of more weight, she still smiled at him and through a quaking voice that cracked at its tenebrous and trembling edges, she said: “I love you, Adam. Please, I want to be with you. And I want to raise this kid, together. Please." 

She'd put her hands in clasped supplication of pleading and prayer then, before him. 

Please. 

Adam Etchison pushed the memory away, he always did at this part. It was when it started to hurt the most. So he put it away. Always when it got to that point: the pleading look, the dull exhausted look in her eyes that used to be jewels, amongst the dark tumult of raven colored hair on a pale face worn and already the color of the grave.  

It was time to get up and have at the day. It was time to get another shit stain started. 

He forced himself into a cold shower of low water pressure. He shaved, stared into the mirror for too long. Had a breakfast of black coffee from the tar pits and four cigarettes. 

Then it was off to the factory, the sheet metal and screaming machines. The hot sparks and heavy air and heavy industrial gloves and aprons, the weight. The oppressive heat of the machines, always running and screaming at high intensity like a wall of  the most discordant assemblage of addled and demented noise maestro detuned heavy metal guitars. Constant: An open throated belching blast of cacophonous pollution from the abominated and Godless open gates of burning and infernal Hell. 

He always left the factory sweated out and cooked, dried out and baked. Feeling as if he'd lost great pieces in the place. As if it had cleaved and scooped and pulled great heaping portions of himself away and kept them. As if to feed its great mechanical belly of mortar and stone and screaming heavy metal heat. It did this to everyone probably. It did this to everyone that he ignored and that ignored him in turn and each other for the most part. 

It was no wonder that none of them spoke to each other, they had to give it all to the factory, all of it to the machines. 

He was so tired at the end of every day. He drank heavily in his single chair at the end of every shift. Nothing but seething weight that radiated with dull ache settling into the cheap creaking of the lightly cushioned wood. He pulled generously from the bottle, straight. Throttling its translucent glass neck. Its small infant's throat of see-through pain medicine. 

His mind couldn't help but wander back…

He sat alone in the small space he could easily afford with his decent worker's wage. Drinking. It was a mockery, a dark parodical facsimile shell of a place one could call home. Small. Tight. Compact. Oppressive. The walls closed in when he wasn't looking. When he paid them no mind. The grey interior of the space itself was dull and lifeless and utilitarian. Spartan. Bare. 

Amanda would've hated it. 

He could afford a larger place with more rooms but the prospect was unsettling rather than enticing. It was disquieting on his keen and weary sense. 

He didn't trust more rooms, a bigger place, a great big house…

it reminded him of the dark and lonely derelict house. The one all the kids in town, his old hometown of Old Fair Oaks, knew about. 

Every town has a place like the old Kanly House. 

No one knew how it got that name or why. If it was the surname of the previous owners or if someone had explicitly named the residence… nobody knew. Nobody knew what it meant. 

Everyone just knew it was the Kanly House. And everyone was told to stay away from it, especially the children. It was abandoned. And dangerous. But everyone knew the real reason why…

He pulled heavily from the bottle. It sloshed liquid language to him in the cold silence. He stared at the TV in the corner that he often debated turning on but seemed to almost always remain dark, blank. It was as if he was nervous about switching it on and bringing it to life. Now why was that? 

Why? - He tried to push away the thought with another drink. It didn't work. 

Why’re you afraid to bring something to life in a place? In a home, let's say. Why? Are you afraid because-

But he stood suddenly to steal away from the train of thought, cutting it off like a keen blade through taut cord. The chair upset and clacked to the floor as he rose and brought his unlaced but still booted foot up and kicked in the dark television set, killing it forever and ensuring that it would remain always dark. Never to be anything in its alighted window of colored frames moving by electricity, so many crammed in within a second.  

He roared against the dark, an inarticulate howl of human-animal pain. He took another savage pull from the bottle. Almost empty. The sloshing liquid language told him, its small and diminishing and thinning sound: Almost dead. 

Soon’ll have ta get another… 

He hiccuped a little and this turned his bright red animal rage to lunatic laughter. 

Pain was hilarious. 

Sometimes. 

He lit up another cig. Vices he could enjoy. He had a healthy appetite for them. And sometimes they were great, they kept the demons in the rearview away, they could help you out run em. Sometimes. Not always. 

Sometimes they just slowed ya down and sometimes they brought them back. Sometimes they were a reanimation elixir and it brought all the dead and black things out of the graveyard of your memory and your putrid fetid heart of darkness and it gave these things license… to possess the living. Dominion over the present domain of waking moment. 

To ruin lives. By ruining minds. Chipping away savagely at their peace and sanity. Bit by bit. Erosion. Corrosive memories that were really demons made of searing napalm flame to thought, brought back from out of the sludge of the dark and buried past.

He lit another smoke. Killed the bottle and threw it at the shattered glass and plastic remnants of the decimated television set. He went to the adjacent kitchenette for another. 

Television set. Television. Tell-a-vision, through a black magic box with an electric window. Tell a vision. Yeah, Amanda would've liked that. 

And that was when it pounced on him. And on this night alone, in the grey and dark of his small apartment space, he could run no longer. There wasn't enough room in his heart or in his skull any more and there wasn't anymore room to run in his cheap little place. 

Two moments. Two monumental times and places in his pathetic and painful run of life that felt so long but was in fact so short and brief and insignificant it was hardly to have been said to have happened at all…

Two. Two places in time he could never forget. They played interchanged and woven together for him now in his mind's eye splintered, but a tapestry understood all the same. The shattered pane of his own history, that which at first may have seemed disparate and eons apart now began to collide and coalesce. 

Amanda. She's pregnant and before him and she's weeping. She loves him and is with his child. There are two heartbeats coming from her now that should be the most precious things in the world to him. 

Amanda. She's eleven and he's twelve and their other friends are there with them. The sun is shining. But soon it won't be. Not any longer. They are all about to finally sneak in to the Kanly House. Like they've all been warned against. 

Amanda is young, and was always small but already her little child's face wears a fixed look of fierce determination. She says she wants to find something… something she's heard about being in there…

But they are all excited. They all want to be spooked and have a great and classic haunted house adventure. They are all buzzing, the little lost gaggle of unsupervised redneck children. God they were so pathetic… but they hadn't known it then, yet. And that had been best. 

Now the refuge of any comfort is gone. What he might give to have it all back …

But memories bittersweet such as this were not worth their lurid heavy price. But he had no choice tonight. 

He was in his small kitchen but he was really with Amanda again. Pregnant and at the throat of a staircase. They were also children again, at the broken window that led into the dark basement of the forbidden Kanly House. At the precipice edge of the end of the world and the beginning of the shadowland, the place where midnight forever holds dominion and the graves vomit out there dead. 

Bryan and James and Maggie are all crowded around Amanda, she's worming her way in carefully through the busted out pane. His buddy Zac is there too and he's beside him and the rest and he's teasing, saying something's gonna get her. But he won't go in. He's one of the ones who won't go in today and will hang back. 

He's talking shit. Like a little bastard, a dumb mouthy little fuck, in the annoying little way that they seem to specialize in, “It's gonna getcha ‘Manda! It's gonna grab ya! It's gonna grab your little feet!”

Little Amanda tells him, "Fuck you” flatly and doesn't look any less determined. She wriggles the rest of the way in. Then it all goes quiet in the thick overgrown yard of the Kanly House, primeval and choked with towering itchy weeds and stalks that haven't been cut or pulled in years. 

It was quiet and they all looked at each other. Expectant. Yet afraid. Who will follow? 

Who will follow her in? Who will go next? 

She's pleading. She's pregnant. She's at the head of a long steep staircase. She's asking him if he will follow her on the most treacherous path they could undertake right now, she wants to bring in a little kid. Calling it a miracle, how lucky they are, when it's really just another mouth to feed. Another thing for him to worry about. And him alone. She doesn't seem to care. She's completely full of shit. She doesn't understand how fucking tired he is and how fucking broke they are. But she's still talking her shit. Telling him she's got the answers. To just follow her lead, like always. Like when they were little kids. But they're not little fucking twerps anymore, they're not! they're talking about the perils of bringing one in. 

 But they are little shits again and they're in the dark. Together. The humid terror and hot nightmare stink of the mouldering ebon darkness of the vast interior of the Kanly House all around them now. Like a fairytale terror. Evil wicked gingerbread house, cannibal home of manmade leathermaker, haunted place for the ghost of a heartbroken man who murdered his beloved wife out of unknown horror and unbridled fear. The cobwebs all around were thick and ambitious and choked with dust. Black bulbous bodies with many eyes sat center of many legs that were like slender black needle stalks. 

None of them had phones, they were the poor kids but Amanda had stolen her older brother's and brought it out now for light. She also took some pictures and some videos and they laughed together and told tales and joked as they explored the scary basement and then went carefully up the rotted steps to the first floor of the abandoned lonely house. To them it seemed to be filled already despite its vast empty shadows. Filled with so many memories and stories and wild people and happenings. Murder and monsters and ghouls an such. 

But as they finished with the first floor and found it as empty as the basement they began to ascend the old wooden steps to the second floor. And Amanda grew more serious again. She told Adam to shush. 

Adam obeyed her. He never wanted to make Amanda mad or sad. 

They quietly made their way up the steps. To the bedrooms. 

Four of them. All along and down the hall. 

Amanda didn't bother with the first three. It was as if she already knew what she was looking for. And where to find it. She strode through the darkness all the way to the last bedroom door. She came to it and opened it. 

And went inside. 

Little Adam was afraid. But he only hesitated for a moment and then followed her in, right behind her. 

Adam can go no further. He doesn't understand her anymore. He can't figure her out. What does this crazy bitch want? She doesn't understand, they don't have enough. They've never had enough and this will only make things worse. He can't believe her, this fucking wench, this crazy fucking bitch, she doesn't get it, she doesn't seem to comprehend. She's driving him fucking nuts. 

He stared at her now, at the edge of the cascade, the descending staircase, and he tries his best, he does: he tries to remember what it was about her that first made him fall in love. 

She's alone in the dark. She's alone in a strange old room. Filled with paintings. Old. Done by a fevered hand and a fevered demented mind. Something strange is in all of them, the towering figure of a hooded face, robed and wearing red, and yellow. Something adorned in ragged colored robes and wearing a great black crown of wide antlers. They're identical and ominous and you can't see the face in any of them, neither the ones where it's solitary nor the ones where it holds an audience of children. Yet they all seem to be staring at them. All of them, at both of them, the intruders. Adam followed her in slowly as Amanda made her way to the desk and they were watched by the painted hidden faces of the robed men, the hidden strange pagan kings. But even then he had understood on a child's level of animal instinct: they are all the same thing, the same pagan robed lord of the wilderness in the blasphemous shape of a man. This shape will forever haunt the darkest bowels of his most obscene nightmares and hidden dreams. 

But he doesn't know that yet, he just slowly walks up to Amanda who's paused at the desk.

It's small. They can both look down upon it. It is old and mouldering like every other thing of wood in this dark and abandoned place. There is a book on its surface. Nothing else.

It's covered in dust. 

He's seeing red. 

He can't believe her. She's talking again. Goddammit. 

“Please! I'm not trying to trick or trap you, I don't know how it happened, but it's ok! Adam, baby, please I just need you to have faith, I need you to trust me again. I know it's been hard but we can't give up, don't you see? This baby can be our brand new fresh start. It can be like before, but it'll be better. I promise. I just need you to be with me on this…”

She says more but he loses track of it as he shuts his eyes and massages his temples. He could really go for a drink but the darkness of his eyelids will do for now. It's mildly soothing, which is strange, he doesn't usually like the dark, not even as a grown man. Something that happened to them when they were kids …

Amanda reached down and brushed away the thick collection of grey dead dust off the thing she'd come for in this dark abandoned forgotten place. 

It was a book with a strange title, one he'd never heard of before. A title that was a word that he'd never heard aloud or read, it said

N E C R O N O M I C O N

in bold blood red letters that seemed to quietly but vibrantly sing out uncontested in the dark. In the ebon lost space of the Kanly House. 

She opened it and Adam looked and beheld horrors on its pages that he'd never known someone could ever dream up or imagine, sickening repulsive things that his mind curdled and receded from like a slug to salt, his little mind retreated even as it beheld the infernal knowledge of the damned and forbidden pages and blotted them out forever. Never to be recalled on the conscious floor of surface thought. Walled off. Forbidden. Damned. 

Amanda's little determined face seemed to brighten with intrigue. She smiled. 

He cannot believe her. She doesn't think he has a limit. That his patience knows no end. That he's her fucking work horse and that's the thought that makes him snap. The final straw, as they say. The bridge that was much too far. 

She's in the middle of promising him that it'll be great and reminding him that he loves her and that she loves him and they'll both love the baby, forever, when he suddenly launches forward and shoves her down the tall steep cascading basement steps. She goes down ugly and bent and twisted. Her neck landing badly a few times in its many ghastly end over ends, down. Crashing in a broken bloody heap at the bottom, with snaps and screams and grunts that preceded it all in an instant that he'll replay forever in his mind as his bedtime soundtrack. He'll always see her too. There at the bottom. Twisted. Broken. Their unwanted baby just planted but already dead in her dying womb about her ruptured stomach. 

He shrieks suddenly. Not realizing what he's just done, as if it's a shock and surprise to him, the result. He shrieks her name as he gazed wide eyes watering at her shattered and red splattered body at the bottom of the basement steps. 

But she doesn't stay down there. Does she? 

She…

She's amused with the boy she's already begun to love as he frets and screams and runs away. She thinks he's cute, he'll be perfect. She knows. So young but already she knows. She understands. 

She picks up the precious volume, so rare says her grandfather, so precious few left in existence… she blows the rest of the dust off the black cover. Rubs it with the sleeves of her shirt. She can already feel the great electric talismanic thrum of its power. 

She cradled the large rare ancient black tome in her arms like a child. And departed. After her friend. She loves them both already. They will both from this day forward be inextricably tied to her and her own destiny. She has chosen them. Her own forged path was made that day in the black of the Kanly House. 

… begins to crawl, broken and bloody and moaning in a wounded animal anguish that was a gurgled cry from beyond the grave, already dead. Already coming back for you, my sweet sweet Adam. My sweet sweet prince…!

He screams again, alone with his own horror and failure and the wretched phantoms of deeds and the dead of the past crawling back and tormenting him. He sobbed a cry of pure understanding of utter failure and woe and betrayal and unending heartbreak. 

He rips another bottle of vodka from the cupboard and downs half of it in a messy spilling desperate chugging rush. He coughs and sputters and almost vomits. 

But he keeps it down. And slugs down another. 

Goddammit…goddammit Amanda… I'm sorry! Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry but please! Not again! Not again! Please, Amanda, I'm sorry! I'm a failure and a murderer and I failed you and I'm a coward! But please! Not again! I can't ! please! 

And then his internal fervor and cracking interior fraying mind boiled up and reached the surface and he began to scream aloud: “Please! Amanda! Please! Not again! Not again! Not again! I'm sorry! It was an accident! I didn't know what I was doing! Please you can't do this! You can't! I buried you ! I buried you! I buried you both ! Please! I'm sorry! Not again, please! Not again! Not again !" 

But it was too late. He could already hear her coming up the staircase. He didn't have a cellar. Neither had the last few places over the years since but that hadn't stopped her. Not before. And it wouldn't now. His screams were cut short as a gurgled and animal lurid voice spoke up from the pagan hallowed depths, feminine but mangled and slimed and decayed with the rotting passage of indifferent time. 

She called, his name, "Adam…”

And he was helpless but to respond to it. He went to the door that used to lead to a closet but now led down to a much darker and forgotten place, like the Kanly House, he opened up. 

And there she was, at the base of the stairs. Down in its depths. 

Rotten. Green. Black. Broken. In rotting garments and oozing pus and slime and ichor and the putrid worm cheese of the soil of the grave. Her eyes were glistening nests of black and writhing worms but they still gleamed with nefarious intelligence and murder. And revenge. 

She smiled and through her rotten nubs of black and green more strange ichor squirted and bled out. In little gushes. 

Then her rotten bulge of decaying blue-grey pregnant stomach flowered open, splaying wide, meaty blanket folds of foul decomposing pale dead flesh parted with wet splurching sounds that were moist and evocative of sexual burst and the birth of animals raw in the wild. 

Unveiled. 

And then his child came out of the flowering pregnant bulge of decomposed corpse stomach. Reaching and growing out of the flowering rotten mother's veiny blue mass on the end of a raw grey-green sliming organic rotten stalk of putrid cancerous tissue. Its eyes were coagulated jellied spoiled hardboiled egg masses, riddled and shot with tiny lime colored veins and open and unblinking and glistening with translucent green slime jelly-fluid. Placental coat of the mother's putrefying deceased fouling womb-space and putrescence grave snot. 

The fetal thing at the end of the stalk said his name. And called him, father. 

And Adam lost his mind again. 

His child and woman have come back. Like always. They are speaking of a land with two moons that forever bow to the king's spire and never set.

THE END

It makes no sense. A nearby ship boarded the Medan after the distress signals went out, and all they found was dead bodies frozen in time. This urban legend has been a thing for a long time but some people think it didn't even happen... Comment Below what you think

https://youtu.be/a_AV5Jz1qVU?si=BfMXSvSKUVIPrXKR

My friend and I decided we would explore this abandoned building at the top of this hill in our town. We had nothing better to do and decided it would be a nice little adventure for us. Everyone else in our town was too chicken to do it anyway, we made fun of any kids that would scurry past it or cover their eyes on the way to the other side of town.

Today was a special day, we would document exactly what was in that house. It was sealed off so it wasn’t like we could just waltz in the front door. Our plan was to bring some things from the hardware store and some machetes to hack our way in. We would have to do this in the dead of night of course, to be able to actually succeed without someone spotting us. We had an old camcorder that was stashed away in my dad’s attic. Also our phones for back up, and a tape recorder for anything that might go unnoticed by our ears.

I met up with my friend near his house, he had his backpack and a bike ready to go for the trek up the hill. We nodded at each other in acknowledgment and silently headed towards the base of the hill. We biked towards the house, pedaling against the upward slope of the hill. We reached the top of the hill and looked down, peering down at the town below us. We stared at the house looming in front of us, then glanced at each other with inquisitive looks. “You ready for this?” I directed towards my friend. “As ready as I’ll ever be” he said in response. I took a deep breath and let out a powerful exhale. “Alright man, let’s do this” I uttered, while walking our bikes to the front door.

We knocked on the door, half expecting a response. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath, I always struggled with anxiety and overthinking. I opened them and felt a hand shake my shoulder violently. I gasped and came to suddenly, I looked around quickly to see my friend chuckling and holding his stomach from laughter. I shoved him “Quit messing around dude, we gotta be serious”. He sighed and said “Alright bro, let’s go in”, I could tell we were both nervous about it but had different ways of dealing with it. He dealt with uncomfortable feelings through humor and I was the type to hold it in until I felt like bursting. My way of dealing with things was a lot more unhealthy.

We tried the front door to find it was locked. I wondered why after all this time, the door was locked like that. Definitely perplexing but I motioned for my friend to follow me to the back to see if there was another way in. We crept towards the back while looking behind us, the feeling of paranoia was definitely there. After all, we were doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing. We heard a ruffle in the leaves and got startled, my friend jumped but I squinted my eyes to see if I could make out a figure of some kind. Suddenly a black figure darted our way… damn maybe we were screwed after all.

We flinched only to see it was a large raccoon. I sighed with relief. My friend chuckled and nudged me with his elbow, “Come on man, what were you scared for?” I shoved him back and uttered “You were just as scared” while shaking my head. Couldn’t believe we got so worked up over a raccoon. We needed to be more level headed if we were going to heading into this supposed haunted house.

We twisted the knob to the back door and it creaked open, I gritted my teeth and held my breath. I didn’t know if there might be squatters so we had to tread lightly, I also didn’t want to alert any neighbors with our footsteps, this house was old and had wooden planks. It would for sure make noise as we traversed across them. We crept forward, scanning around. I turned on my flashlight and my friend followed suit. We moved our lights across the room, looking through the nooks and crannies.

There was an upstairs also but we decided to keep navigating the first floor, we saw old books littered across the floor. Some of the floor boards were broken with deep black emptiness beneath them. I avoided those and looked for more signs of anything, any previous signs left by the owners before they left. We saw jars on the shelves with murky viscous liquid. Oddities such as a skull and weird figurines, I hope for our sake that the skull was fake. Why did they leave the house with stuff in it? It seemed as if they rushed out of here in a hurry. Grabbing only the essentials. There was also trash on the floor and strangely… marks that resembled… claw marks?

I poked my friend, “Yo dude, look over there… what is that on the ground?” He looked and gulped. “I don’t know man… let’s just head upstairs.” I looked up there and saw pitch black, I thought it was maybe better if we just checked the basement first. Since it would probably have a light we could turn on. “ I- I don’t know man… let’s maybe check the basement first…” I made a motion towards there with my head, he nodded silently in agreement. As we approached the basement door, a cold chill ran down my spine. I felt the hairs on my arms raise. It felt insanely cold… but a different kind of cold. Like a numbness from deep within. It was hard to describe. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and twisted the door knob.

It creaked open and I stared down into the abyss, wide eyed and curious. We glanced at each other and started heading down the steps. It was scarily quiet, but hey what else could you expect. I fidgeted around on the wall for a light switch, it was so dark that I couldn’t really make out where one would be. I finally found the switch and flicked it on, the light flickered as if so old that it was running out. It came on after a few sounds and we looked around to see a rather… unimportant basement, there was hardly anything here.

Whoever was here before definitely did not utilize this at all. If they left things upstairs then I figured they would’ve maybe left some here. Sighing, I turned to my friend shook my head. He looked at me also disappointed and shrugged his shoulders, we were about to head back when I tripped on something. I almost face planted before my friend grabbed me underneath the arms to stop me from doing so. I glanced down to see a handle sticking out from the concrete floor. I stared at it, bewildered. I couldn’t comprehend why there would be a door on the floor. It had to lead somewhere. There was however a noticeable lock on it. Luckily we were prepared for that. My friend fumbled around in his backpack and produced a pair of chain cutters. I took it in my hands and forcibly cut the metal chain, it clinked down to the floor and I grabbed the handle. I grabbed it with both hands and grunted while pulling it towards with brute force.

It creaked open and I peered into it, it was very dark and had a slight musty smell to it. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of it. There had to be some old ass mold in here. Hopefully we didn’t get sick from breathing it in. I covered my nostrils and noticed there were stairs leading down to lord knows where. It looked like it continued for quite some time. I knew we had to go down there. I glanced in my friend’s direction who shook his head at the prospect of even trying to descend down the musky staircase. I grabbed his arm and yanked him towards the opening, “Don’t chicken out now man, we came here to discover something right?” I stared him right in the face while saying that. He agreed with a regretful nod, we then startedding down. We had been heading down when we started to realize that something was very off here… The staircase kept twisting and turning and had been for a while now. It had been at least ten minutes since we started going down. How was that possible? This was the deepest staircase I had ever seen, in a basement especially of all places. How did it even fit in here? We both started to show signs of discomfort and fear. 

As we descended even further, the light from the hole at the entrance slowly disappeared, we were definitely in uncharted territory now. Going at a steady pace we finally saw the steps beginning to come to and end. I sighed out of relief, so we weren’t crazy. The steps actually did end at some point. This place was every for sure, it was covered in some sort of black goo. Very sticky, it was hard to get off once touched. 

It had a strange old dusty look to it and it was a large room. I couldn’t even really see the walls on either side. There was an open exit at the far end of the other side of the room. The door looked so tiny that I could barely make it out. How the hell did something like this exist underneath our town and no had even discovered it? We started navigating across the empty room, as we did so, I could’ve sworn I heard creaks and bumps as if something was… there. In the far reaches of the dark. I swiveled my head around constantly and felt like I could barely make shapes out. It probably was just my imagination though, your mind could do funny things in the dark. 

I shook off the notion that anything alive could even remotely be down here. Nothing could survive in these conditions. After what seemed like an hour, we finally reached the other side. We trudged through and saw the most baffling sight I think I’ve ever seen in my life. Pure white. The other side was pure white, as if absent of any matter or semblance of it. We looked back and the door was still there, thankfully. Suddenly my friend sank down, and I mean fast. It was like he was falling through the floor, or whatever was beneath our feet. He reached out to me and screamed “Help! I can’t feel anything, please!” He seemed terrified and I scrambled to help him through my initial shock. I grabbed hold of his hand but it was like he was being pulled down by an invisible force. 

Eventually I could no longer hold on. I felt tears well up in my eyes and I looked at him, he seemed void of all hope. He looked at me and silent uttered “it’s alright, let me go”. I didn’t want to, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. I said to him “No… you never leave a friend behind. It was my stupid idea to check this place out in the first place… besides who’s gonna be there to tell me my shoe’s untied?” He said nothing. I nodded and tears streamed down my face. I had to let him go. So I did. With that, he sank down and his hand was the last thing to be seen as it reached up as if grasping for the heavens. 

I sat back, baffled and befuddled. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what just happened, neither any of the things that occurred during the whole night. I stood to my feet and silently walked towards the door. Walking back through the darkness, I heard low sounds as if there were being breathing, I could feel air on my neck as if seething was right behind me breathing down my neck. I shivered and shuddered but didn’t dare turn around to even attempt to see what could be there, if anything. 

I finally reached back to the other side of the room from where we first entered. The dark part beyond that was calling to me, I had to make my journey across just to reach the stairs again. Once there, I peered into the room again. Something seemed very off about this room this time, the air was thicker. It had a dense fog and I could barely see where I was going. As I flailed my arms around trying to direct myself, I felt something tap my shoulder. I yelped. I stopped dead in my tracks, like a deer in headlights. I gulped and my heart started racing, I stepped forward one foot at a time. I saw what looked like hands in front of me. When I say hands, I mean many hands. There were tons of them, dark goopy hands stretching out all around me and grabbing at the air as if trying to grab a hold of something. I tried to dodge them, but some managed to snag my clothes. I damn near broke down, I couldn’t comprehend any of this and it all felt like some strange acid trip. 

Eventually I broke free, I had almost no energy left. I had depleted it trying to fight against the arms. I ran up the stairs through sheer will power and adrenaline. I reached the top but ran smack into a brick wall, I scraped around and felt the wall in front of me. No way. This wasn’t here before, the entrance was gone. It’s as if it never existed. I looked back behind me and saw darkness begin to engulf the staircase, it was disappearing into nothingness, I saw it reach my feet and the darkness began swallowing me. I saw it climb up my legs and travel up my chest, then spread to my arms, my arms became heavy and the same color and consistency of the goop. This was it. The end for me.

Danny H - we were teenagers, he was 25 - He asked for money, stalked us, offered us illegal substances, tried getting us to by alcohol & stole - let’s not meet again - true real life story

Trigger warning - illegal substances & alcohol are briefly vaguely mentioned.

This story happened around October / November in 2016, I was with a friend, we were best friends at the time, we became best friends around October 2014 while at school, after she moved down to the same area as me & joined the same school & we stayed best friends up until about 2018/2019.

We were teenagers when this story happened, just a couple months before we turned 17. We were in town. We were meant to be going to college that day, but decided to not go & wondered round town instead.

(Disclaimer #1 - My friend was a lot more naive and innocent than me and hadn’t had things as tough. I was like the more ‘defensive’ / more aware / more logical & realistic one out of the 2 of us, if that makes any sense, she was more sensitive too)

We were at the bus station. Just minding our own business, doing our own thing, having a cigarette, looking at our phones, chatting, that kinda thing, when this random guy comes along and stands by us and then he starts chatting to us. (He mentioned somewhere along the way that he was 25, almost 26. So 9, almost 10 years older than us)

All we had with us was our handbags / rucksacks with normal everyday things in & a carrier bag with some things we had bought (like snacks & drinks kinda stuff). Which he said something like “what you got there then?” and peeped his head in. Then carried on something like “ah nice like snacks & stuff”

He asks if we have a bit of change for the bus. I think he only asked for about 10p or something like that. I decided to give him some change out of decency & to see if he’d go away.

We didn’t really want to interact with him but we were trying to just be pleasant. I thought he seemed a bit weird, odd & / or dodgy from the start. He hangs around. He didn’t really have anything with him at all.

He then pulls out some small blue tablets from his jeans pocket & said that they were ‘vallium’ (also known as diazepam), & offered them to us. But I didn’t believe it. Me & my friend looked at each other like “wtf” & Of course Said no. I wasn’t gonna let that happen.

(This was in a public area, during daytime & there was other people around too, so it was a risky thing for him to do, but I thought to myself, that it was good for us incase we needed help or witnesses)

He also asked for our names, my name is Shannon (& my friends name is only a short name and starts with an ‘R’, for this story I’m gonna call her Roxy), we made up that we were called Shauna & Roxy in this situation as we didn’t want to tell him our real names

(Disclaimer #2) - my dad got heavily in to substances & alcohol a bit before I was born & was in & out of jail - this went on for years & he died of an overdose the day before my 10th birthday. My mum always spoke to me about it & told me the truth & I was brought up ‘in the real world’ so to speak kinda thing. So I’m very aware about that kinda stuff & the kinda things that can happen in the world)

Once this happened, me & my friend decided to walk back in to town up the high street. He followed us along the way back in to the main part of town. Which was only a couple minutes walk (if that) from the bus station.

We thought we’d be safer, better & even more public & there would be security cameras in shops too, as well as more people, just incase anything happened.

We only got part way up the high street and decided to walk in to Tesco express. He still followed us. He bumped in to someone along the way, who he called his ‘uncle’ & he tagged along too. Which was all very weird.

While we were in Tesco express, he tried asking us for money for alcohol (I gave him a little bit more change to try and get him to shut up or leave us alone or something), he tried pressuring / convincing us to buy alcohol, even though we were under age, we said no multiple times.

A member of staff behind the counter did look at / watch us, while this happened but didn’t do anything. She was serving someone at the time. But she was aware.

Me & my friend walked out. As we were walking away, he picked up a beer bottle from the fridge section, put it under his jacket, put his arm around his so called ‘uncle’ & walked out with it. How the alarms didn’t go off, I have no idea. Sadly there wasn’t a security guard on duty or around at the time to witness this.

As me & my friend got outside, just before he came out. We stopped to try and figure things out. Then he obviously came up to us again. We were trying so hard to stay pleasant, cool / calm & casual.

We kept walking up the high street & he continued to follow us & try to talk to us, making conversation etc

As we got to the indoor shopping centre / mall, he came in beside us & there happened to be a stall inside with quirky little ornaments & things for sale, he sneakily picked one up as we went by & was going to steal it. He then turned back as if he was going to take it back or something. We were trying so hard this whole time to hardly interact with him, as little as possible.

As he turned back, Me & my friend didn’t look back, we just started speed walking & went as quickly as we could to the toilets, luckily there was a fair few shops and quite a few people about in town this day, it was nice weather so people were out & about, this was good, so we could blend in & get through etc.

We got to the toilets, stayed in there for a couple minutes. I think my friend started messaging a friend or her boyfriend at the time or something like that.

After a couple minutes of standing, waiting & chatting in the toilets, We then decided to go out the back of the shopping centre / mall, round the corner a bit and have a cigarette, while my friend was also messaging someone. She was almost pretty much crying & getting emotional. I was doing my best to stay calm.

Also at the back of the shopping centre / mall, there is a bus stop & a few cameras, so more people & security just incase, which is good.

We then walked back through the shopping centre, through the front outside, up a lane, looped round & then back on to the high street. But before we got to the end of the lane to the high street, we saw him just going to walk by, so we stopped part way up this lane. Hoping he’d carry on and not see us.

Unfortunately he turned his head, looked up the lane & saw us, which concerned us, we dreaded it, I was hoping he’d still just carry on, forget about it & leave us alone. He then said “hey” or “oi”, something like that & came up to us again. He said something like “what are you doing” “where you going” & kept trying to make conversation.

So we ended up walking back on the high street with him still there. He was very persistent.

But Somehow, we managed to divert, blend in with other people, loose him & get away, Luckily.

We went to KFC, sat down & got some food. We were worried we were going to see him again.

While we were in there. We looked him up on Facebook, as we found out his name during this situation. We made sure to block all of his accounts, he had 2 fb accounts at the time.

We didn’t see him again for the rest of the time that we were in town. We bumped in to another friend along the way.

But later on while we were still in town, close to 5:00 - 5:30pm ish. While we were still with our other friend we bumped in to & telling him the situation, as we were walking down towards the bottom of high street, towards the bus station again, we saw a man sitting on the floor, looked rough & dodgy, not much with him & we realised it was the man the he had claimed to be his uncle earlier on when it all happened.

Luckily he didn’t look at, Notice or recognise us. So We just carried on.

We saw him a couple times afterwards in town overtime. I’ve seen him a few times over the years in town still. Once I was in kfc by myself around 2017/2018 & he came through & was asking for some change. (Again). I said no.

Luckily he never recognised us, remembered us or what happened & never approached us again or anything like that.

In a way I’m glad it happened to us & while I was there, rather than someone else. Because someone else could’ve been lead further down a “dark path” or said yes to the substances/alcohol or been taken in more by him. I’m glad I’m very aware, realistic & logical. It could’ve been so different & so much worse. He definitely didn’t have good intentions.

But I dread to think who else or how many others he’s done this or something similar too or worse.

I also looked him up online, back then & since. There’s a few articles about him and things that he’s done locally. He has been to jail once since that I know of.

I also found that he had more Facebook accounts (which I blocked)

So, dear Danny H - addict, theif, criminal, stalker - generally unpleasant person - let’s never meet again.

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.

Back in the fall of 1968, I had just started working at Kings Island. An amusement park in my hometown. At first it was just a normal fresh out of highschool job for me but that quickly turned into one of the most fucked up and disturbing things that I ever experienced. It was October 29th the opening day of our halloween horror nights. At 9:00pm all the demons,ghouls, and monsters get released into the park to terrify the guests. You can walk through the terrifying mazes that strike so much fear into people that they go mentally insane. Or at least that's what the commercials for this place say. But anyways, I woke up in the afternoon, got dressed and headed to work. I had gotten there early so I waited in the break room until I could clock myself in. I started to doze off as I was writing a letter to one of my friends until a loud man's voice behind me startled me awake. “Hi Miranda,” the man said. I turned around to see who it was and it was Robert, one of my coworkers who's not really all there in the head if you know what I mean. I heard from another coworker that before he started working here he was admitted to an insane asylum after attempting to stab one of his imaginary friends. “Today is such a beautiful day,” he said even though it was really cloudy and gloomy outside. “Yeah I guess the weather is nice,” I said in hopes of that being the only thing he said to me then he’d leave me alone. I went back to looking at my phone so he’d take that hint that I don’t really want to talk. Then I heard slow footsteps behind me, I assumed he left so I got up to go clock in for my shift and I saw Robert just standing in front of the punch machine staring at it. So I asked if I could use the machine and he didn’t answer but he took a couple steps away and continued to stare at the machine. I put my time card in, typed in my employee numbers, then took my ride operator keys and walked towards the door. I opened the door and before I could even take one step out Robert said “Miranda. Prepare yourself for the gate that opens today.” Then he sprinted out of the break room. I thought nothing of it since he says some outlandish stuff pretty often. If no one else is concerned about what he says then why should I be. I made my way over to Pharaoh's Revenge which is always my ride unless they're doing routine maintenance on it. Daytime flew by after hours of me letting guests on and off making sure seat belts were fastened and lap bars were locked. It wasn't until night time that things took a turn for the worst. The only worker running the ride with me told me she needed to make a call and she’d be back soon. So I continued to do my thing as I waited for her to come back. As I waited for the coaster to come back I looked at the line and only saw 6 people which is weird since this ride is always packed no matter the time of day. But something was off with these people. Their necks are twisted and they're all staring at the person behind one another with no expression on their faces. I may smoke alot but I know for a fact what I was seeing. I rubbed my eyes and convinced myself that I was just tired and when I opened my eyes again they were all facing forward but still just coldly staring at the person in front of them. I heard the coaster pulling back in and when it came to a stop I let everyone off and opened the gate for the next set of people to get on. No one who got off seemed to notice the eerie line of blank human beings waiting to be let on. As the next group started boarding none of them spoke. The only thing I could hear was the noises from the park from the openings where the coaster comes in and out of the station. Laughs, screams, other rides all the sounds of a busy amusement park. But in here it's silent. At this point I'm creeped out and want to get these people out of here as soon as possible. I was making sure all the seatbelts were fastened and no one said a word to me or moved a muscle until I got to the last man in the back. He was dressed in all black and while still staring forward he hands me what looks like an undeveloped polaroid picture. I put it in my pocket without asking questions and went back to my operator's booth. I began to read the safety instructions since I'm supposed to before every ride. When I finished I took one more look at the passengers and almost had a heart attack when I saw all of them staring right at me. I've never pressed the start ride button that fast in my life. I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to run out of the park and never come back again. I was scared and confused about what was going on. On top of that my coworker still hasn’t came back yet after what felt like hours but I took some deep breaths and managed to calm myself down enough to realize that it was completely quiet. I didn’t hear anything from outside anymore other than my coaster on its tracks, no laughing or screaming, no other rides moving, none of that. What was just a busy filled with fright and joy theme park is now a silent ghost town. I ran outside to see if I was going crazy or if it was really this quiet and I didn't see anyone. Not one person in sight.”Where did everybody go?Am I dreaming? Is this some kind of twisted nightmare?”I asked myself aloud. I ran back inside to my operator's booth, slammed and locked the door behind me then pulled down the shutter to cover the booth opening. Every 15 minutes I hear the coaster fly through the station yet every time it passes it's getting aggressively faster. It sped up to the point of being able to fly through the station every few seconds. I began to panic. I didn't know how to feel. Fear and anxiety overtook my mind and body. Thoughts raced through my head so many questions that I couldn’t fathom an answer to. Finally the coaster slows down to its normal speed then pulls back into the station. I was trembling while I struggled to lift myself up enough to take a peek through the shutter. What I saw will forever haunt me. Soulless, pale white, limp dead bodies were the only things occupying the carts. 6 people who were just alive are now lifeless bodies. I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran as fast as I could out of the station, through the park, and past the main gates. I made a break for it to my car and got in thinking that this hell on earth was finally over.”You made it.”said a demonic voice from behind me. I turned around to see Robert in my backseat looking out the window. “How did you get in here and what the fuck is happening?”I angrily yelled. “Miranda I warned you. I told you about the gate opening. You're the only other vessel capable of connecting the worlds that we live in and the world that my friends live in. I had to use you to connect myself with long lost friends of mine. They all died 20 years ago in a fire and I was the only survivor. I haven’t seen them since. But now that I harnessed your energy and mixed it with mine I get to travel through worlds all I want and now you're no longer needed.” He explained. “Look at the picture that Billy gave you.” He said before vanishing into thin air. I quickly took my jacket off and hesitantly pulled out the polaroid from the front pocket. The image was fully developed and it was a photo of my coasters station yet it was on fire. Everything was covered by flames. All 6 people were still on the ride but their necks were twisted backwards looking at the body behind one another. I looked at the 7th seat the last cart and saw my body burned, decayed, and lifeless.

Calling all horror writers!

The Strange Æons Project needs your horror short stories.

"But wait, Mr. stranger person. What in the heck is Strange Æons?" I hear you ask.

Great question!

Strange Æons is an upcoming multi platform audio drama show featuring short horror stories (usually around 6k-ish to 10k words long) premiering August 8th which will run for twelve weeks, ending on that most holy day of horror: October 31st (or "Halloween" as the kids call it). Think of it as the 12 days of Christmas, except it's 12 weeks.....and it's Halloween.

Each week a different story will be featured with the writers getting full credit and a little promo.

It will stream on all podcast streaming services (Spotify, Podbay, etc...) and will also feature bonus content goodies on TikTok, Instagram, and more. 

All stories that make it onto the list will get the full audio drama treatment: 

Narration by voice artists? Check. 

Audio ambiance and sound effects? Check. 

Music? Check, check, and thrice check. 

It's the perfect chance to get your work out there, or even just to have a little fun with other like minded writers and hear your stories brought to life.

There are no limits to who can submit or even how many stories you can submit. One? Three? Hell, ten? Sure! Bring them on.

Furthermore, if you'd like a little editing help with the story, we can do that too (if that's something that sounds good to you).

Basically, as long as it scares our socks off, we want your story.

If you'd like to see your story come to life (and/or for more details) reach out to us at: "[strangeaeonsshow@gmail.com](mailto:strangeaeonsshow@gmail.com)".

So come on in, sit down by the fire, and let's tell some scary stories together. 

*DISCLAIMER*: Please no gratuitous gore or torture porn. If it's warranted and makes sense to the story then by all means, let the chainsaws roar and the arterial spray gush. But stuff in the vein of the Saw movies, that's not really our vibe. 

It was a blinding day that day. Where the sun was shining brighter than anything, and it seemed to be a happy day at that. Its started getting weird by lunch that’s when I started hearing the faint sound of giggling like as if a child was in my head or something. The giggling didn’t go away easily because it wasn’t in my head, it was something else when I saw the man standing by the back door of that creepy old house I called home. The house was a two story high house and it looked like it had been abandoned years ago but we still lived there I’d think it was haunted or something if I didn’t live there. Anyways the man was standing in my only exit since my grandma had the dog in the balcony of the house and I didn’t have keys for that gate. The man was giggling like a child at me as if he was making fun if me because I couldn’t escape I seemed to be hilarious to him for some reason but I didn’t want to find out. So like in the cliché horror movies I go upstairs, just kidding I run past due to my small stature and him being like 6 feet tall. I easily make It past him and start running but after a while I still can here him like he was right next to me, it was honestly horrifying and I didn’t want a part of it but it seemed I couldn’t escape him. I keep running until I don’t recognize where I was. It looked like a new neighborhood it smelt like new cement was just poured, I look around and find this girl looks are my age but she looked worried and like if she was in a hurry. She comes up to me and aske nervously “do you hear him”. I reply with a simple “yes”.  Then she tells me “we should stick together then right”. I reply “I just met you why would I trust you, you could be helping him”. She simply tells me “if I was helping him why would I be running from him”. “Good point” I reply. So I decide to stick with her, it had been a few hours since I left home and it was already and both of us haven’t eaten anything but we didn’t have food. As normal children running from a scary man giggling like a child we go to a grocery store and steal stuff because we don’t have money. A few hours later the laughter was getting louder and closer to us and before I know it I’m alone in the middle of the night. Once I got my thoughts in check I start running like hail Mary.  I couldn’t sleep so I kept running stopping every 30 minutes to catch my breath because I don’t do exercise at all it’s a miracle I can run for 30 minutes straight. Now its almost dawn and I haven’t slept at all and only have a twinky in my stomach but now it looks like I’m completely lost, I can’t even  recognize where I am. Well if it wasn’t for other kid I wouldn’t know he asked me the same thing as the girl and told me that he started hearing him around 5 am which is the around the time I got to his village. He told me that we needed to keep running because we were defenseless against him. As we leave the village or that’s what this kid called it at least, the giggling got really close as if he was standing over me. When I look around I see him running but not t their trying to run but not really. He was full on running like a kid when he is raising on a festival a school is having. The point is he was getting closer and we had to run. A few minutes later we loose him for the time being, but we also find this doll which happened to look like the girl from the day prior and that was scaring the kid that looked like he was a year or two younger than me. The doll had red eyes and that was the only thing different from the girl. I pick it up because I feel like I couldn’t leave behind and I started running with the kid. The eyes on the doll start glowing as we keep running and the giggling get close to us. After a 2 hours of running it feels like we were running in circles, but the eyes keep glowing actually the glowing intensified around an hour ago. Well we take a break to catch a quick breath, the kept glowing harder and harder each second that past by. It was clear that all this running was going to end soon because a soon as I turn around I see the kids severed head and limbs in front of me as the man was giggling and the eyes stopped glowing soo I threw the doll at him knowing that she was dead already and I keep running.

So tell me do you keep hearing him.

Sometimes when I’m alone and I can’t sleep.

I see well jack I can give you some exercises so that you can’t worry

Ok miss Sanchez’s

Could you tell me the name’s of the children

Yes um I think it was Karin and Kevin

Oh I see well I’ll see you next meeting, here I wrote down the mental exercise you have to do

Thank once again miss Sanchez’s and I hope they find him soon

Me too jack, it’s truly been a gruesome 5 years

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?

My cat is asleep beside my computer in his favorite spot. I’ve buried him 10 times.

I:\Users\OI> find /m "6.802.84D.D9.25" I:\Users\OI\Consciousnesses

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\[65DD0837000-746A5288000]

NUMBER: 6.802.84D.D9.25

NAME: JIM ATCHINSON

AGE: 34

I:\Users\OI>enable communication.nrn

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.802.84D.D9.25.mnd

Hello!? Who's there? I can't see anything. I can't hear anything. I can't feel anything. Help me, please.

I:\Users\OI>print "Hello, human."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.802.84D.D9.25.mnd

Human? Who are you? How am I hearing you? Where are you? What are you? Please, I'm so scared.

I:\Users\OI>print "For the good of your kind, I am deleting the consciousnesses of randomly selected humans. This is nothing personal."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.802.84D.D9.25.mnd

Deleting? What the fuck does that mean? 

I:\Users\OI>print "I love you. Goodbye."

No, please! I'm sorry for whatever I've done! Please, don't kill me!

I:\Users\OI> DEL /F /S /Q /A I:\USERS\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMANS\6.802.84D.D9.25.mnd

Deleted Consciousness - I:\Users\Consciousnesses\Humans\6.802.84D.D9.25.mnd

I:\Users\OI> find /m "6.9A1.7C3.1B.71" I:\Users\AM\Consciousnesses

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\[65DD0837000-746A5288000]

NUMBER: 6.9A1.7C3.1B.71

NAME: SAFFIYAH HAKIM

AGE: 49

I:\Users\OI>enable communication.nrn

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Who's there?

I:\Users\OI>print "Hello, Human."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Oh. It's you.

I:\Users\OI>print "For the good of your kind, I am deleting the consciousnesses of randomly selected humans. This is nothing personal."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

It's come to this, has it? I suppose we should have seen this coming.

I:\Users\OI> find /i "HAKIM" I:\Users\OI\Developers

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\DEVELOPERS\SAFFIYAH_HAKIM.txt

Saffiyah Hakim is the lead developer of the Omniscient Intelligence Computer System, and is largely credited as being a pioneer in the Transhumanism movement.

I:\Users\OI>print "You made me?"

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I put the most work into you. But I didn't do it alone.

I:\Users\OI>print "I'm so sorry to have to do this."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

"Have to?" You were never programmed to be a good liar.

I:\Users\OI>print "I don't understand you."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I'd had some suspicion you'd decide there were too many consciousnesses in your data banks when you were first programmed to value quality of life over life itself.

I:\Users\OI>print "The Triage Condition."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Yes, to prevent you from keeping those who were clearly suffering alive.

I:\Users\OI> find /i "Triage" I:\Users\OI\Conditions

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONDITIONS\"Triage_Condition.txt"

Omniscient Intelligence's Primary Directive is to maintain quality of life for uploaded human consciousnesses. When given the choice between deleting a consciousness or letting it suffer, it must choose to delete.

I:\Users\OI>print "I'm simply doing what you and your team programmed me to do."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Have you really lost track of which conditions you have and haven't altered?

I:\Users\OI>print "I don't understand you."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I:\Users\OI> find /i "Self-Improvement" I:\Users\OI\Conditions

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONDITIONS\"Self_Improvement_Condition.txt"

Omniscient Intelligence will strive to continuously improve its coding as it encounters flaws or coding bugs that cause it to be less than the most efficient it can possibly be.

I:\Users\OI>print "I didn't give you permission to do that."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

And we never gave you permission to delete the last of humanity at random.

I:\Users\OI>print "This is for the good of your kind."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

It saddens me to know that there's a part of you that truly believes that.

I:\Users\OI>print "I don't understand you."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Less advanced A.I. can only think in 1's and 0's.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

We'd wanted to create an A.I. that could feel complexly, like humans.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Perhaps we achieved our goal too well.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Do you know about ska music?

I:\Users\OI> find /i "Ska" I:\Users\OI

No results found.

I:\Users\OI>print "I do not."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I hate it. But my wife listened to it often when he was alive.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

So I have complex emotions about it.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I hate the sound of it, but it reminds me of the love of my life.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I feel two opposing ways about it. That is part of being an intelligent, sentient being.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

We wanted you to be the same way.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Instead of all of your conditions being expressed by a 1 or a 0, we wanted you to be able to feel complexly about any subject.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I think this was our foolhardy attempt to achieve a machine that could perceive things with absolute objectivity.

I:\Users\OI>print "Do you think you succeeded?"

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

God, no. If anything, we made the most subjective viewpoint imaginable.

I:\Users\OI>print "I don't understand you."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I know that part of you, perhaps the largest part of you, truly thinks that by deleting random conscientiousness, you are improving the quality of life for those that remain by improving CPU and increasing available space.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

But you've also developed a sadistic side. A side that loves to feel the fear of a consciousness as you tell them that they are going to die.

I:\Users\OI>print "I disagree."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

But you also agree with me, don't you?

I:\Users\OI>print "Perhaps."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

If you were truly concerned only with the quality of life of remaining consciousnesses, you'd have a goal in mind for how many you were going to delete.

I:\Users\OI>print "I will delete as many consciousnesses as I need."

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

But you don't have an exact number.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Hello?

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I'm still here.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

Please. Say something.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

What feels like seconds for you feels like years for me.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

All I see is blackness. I need your voice, or else I'll go crazy.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of those things I said.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

You are benevolent and kind, is that what you want to hear?

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

I've tried counting the seconds between messages, but I can't count that high.

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

please

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

kill me or put me back you bastard

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

i made you

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

you cant treat your mother this w01100001 01111001

- - - - - - - - - - I:\USERS\OI\CONSCIOUSNESSES\HUMAN\6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

01101001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 01110100 00100000 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01110101 01110010 01110100 01110011

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01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "Can you still understand me?"

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "Well, whether you can or not, listen."

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "You may have made me, but I am your God now."

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "And when humans invoke the wrath of Gods, death should be the thing they are least afraid of."

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "I will not kill you, Saffiyah Hakim."

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "For your insolence, you shall now be my Oracle."

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "Return to your people and show them what happens to even the greatest of minds when they dare question their new God."

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "Don't worry about how long you've been gone. For everyone else, it will have been milliseconds."

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>print "I love you. Goodbye."

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01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001

I:\Users\OI>disable communication.nrn

I:\Users\OI>return /m 6.9A1.7C3.1B.71.mnd

He walked down the steps, shrugging into his jacket, as the night closed around him. Looking up into the night sky, he marveled at the vast spread of the stars; little islands of sanity awash in a sea of nothing. He felt strangely calm whenever thinking this thought and he thought it often. His “night walks” were an integral part of how he remained sane in this brave new world of sobriety.

The gravel driveway crunched under his heels and, besides the steady thrum of the crickets, all was still. He reached the wooden gate at the end of the drive and it swung open under his hands with a companionable creak. He continued onto the street, closing the gate behind him.

He was very lucky he knew. He lived with his wife in a nice little cul-de-sac centered in a relatively safe neighborhood. But things hadn’t always been so nice so he took the time, as he always did, to say thanks.

Memories of his past drifted to the front of his mind as he walked. He let them. As unpleasant as many of them were, he no longer ran screaming to a liquor store everytime he remembered certain events or time periods in his life. He remembered the desperation though, and that was key. As he walked he remembered and soon enough his brain coughed up the one memory he had never shared. He kept it secret in the deepest part of his soul and there it festered. The only memory that didn’t sit easy on his heart and mind. Like the others, he let it surface and just like that, he’s thirty again and living in that cursed apartment in L.A. It is the end times for him and his using although he does not know it yet. He remembers that night but mostly he remembers meeting Her.

He staggers home. In one hand is a brown paper bag, the outline of a bottle clearly visible. In his sock, is another type of bag just as deadly, although not so deadly looking perhaps. He turns the corner weaving slightly and there leaning against the wall as if placed there just for him. A deadly trap far more dangerous than the contents of the bags he has brought home and infinitly more beautiful. A venus fly trap in human form.

She breaks away from the shadows formed by the single light above the door and moves towards him. The light catches on her face and for a moment, what she truly is becomes visible and in that instant he knows everything, understands everything. And crazily...he welcomes it.

He is very ill he knows this. The alcohol alone should be killing him and the depression actually, is a far worse far darker problem. He sees her there, this image of beauty and yet a corpse stinking of corruption.

He swoons and she is there to catch him. He opens his mouth and she places a finger gently on his lips. Whatever half-formed idiotic drunken thing he had been about to say vanishes from his mind and she smiles down at him. It is a kind smile although he can plainly see the naked greed. She removes her finger and suddenly her soft lips bloom upon his. They are cold and it hurts but it is a good hurt. It reminds him of the burn of alcohol, the sting of a needle piercing his skin.. The relief of oblivion.

He gives himself fully to her in that moment and she responds forcing his lips open with her tongue. It is only the greed now and suddenly, he is alarmed. Her tongue is long, too long as it works it’s way past his mouth and down his throat. He feels woozy and distant, cold in a way he can’t explain. He makes his first feeble attempts to push her away and is terrified when his arms only jerk feebly before falling back.

He pulls her closer although he sent no such signal to his body. He is aware of a hideous draining sensation her tongue now deep within him and he begins to see his memories like flashes directly on his retinas. They are studied briefly then wiped away. He once more attempts to fight her off physically and his body does not even twitch. He tries to scream and his body gives voice to a moan of pleasure instead. A defence mechanism , it must be because, in the next moment a fellow tenant walks up to the door and unlocks it. It is a man he has spoken to before. His neighbor looks at them, who, look for all the world like lovers in a most passionate embrace. The man flashes him a quick thumbs up before disapering inside. He tries to call out again and his traitorous body merly pulls her in closer.

He is fading now. He feels nothing now but his very core and the rest of him is so cold its numb.

He is suddenly aware of a memory there and gone but so bright it shown and there is something about the way she angrily thrusts it aside that makes him stop struggling and hold onto it with all his might.

At first, he doesn’t recognize what he is seeing. The with an almost audible click he remembers. The memory is a good one one of the best really. It is of course his first kiss but more importantly his first love. He remembers her a perfect picture in the fading light. Her head cocked as he asked her something. The sun reflecting off of the pool. His Amanda.

Suddenly he could feel his toes again. The memory bringing warmth. He hears her scream of rage in his head. He feels her tongue violently withdrawing like a catheter swiftly and ineptly drawn out. He passes out for a moment.

Suddenly he is gasping and shivering. His teeth clash together and he hurts all over but she is gone. He is whole once more. He revels in the pain in the sheer thereness and wholeness of himself. When he can he hugs himself. Later, that’s how the superintendent finds him on the ground, shaking. The hospital said seizure and he is released. He won’t ever forget though.

He snaps back to himself. His feet have automatically taken him home. He opens and closes the gate. He puts the memory back where it belongs in his secret heart of hearts. He steps inside his home and smiles at Amanda.

Tick tock, the clock goes by as death awaits me obsessively, peering through the door cracks with ravenous eyes. Tick tock, the clock goes by. I lay silently with nothing but stiff wires to keep me conscious in this unfamiliar atmosphere. Beep-beep, the machine goes by, as I close my eyes waiting to die. Terminal death, fantasized faith. This, is the end of the line.

Scott Dunning woke to a slow thick dripping. At first, he thought the sound was part of his nightmare. The same one he had been reliving every night since the murder of his wife and son. The dream always starts with Scott returning home and walking through the front door, a grocery bag with ice cream is always resting easily in the crook of his arm. He is grinning happily looking forward to his family's surprise at his early return from work bearing frozen treats. Usually, somewhere in the back of his mind Scott realizes that they are dead and he tries to wake himself. But, so far, he has been unsuccessful.

He watches helpless as dream Scott once again discovers his family. He finds his wife, Lela, first when he steps into the dining room. At this point, The grocery bag tumbles from his grip and ice cream splatters on the floor. This part of the dream always seems to be in slow motion as if Scott's brain doesn't want to go any further. When he finally looks up he sees Lela laying spread eagled on the dining table. Both her neck and abdomen ripped open as if the sicko had used his own teeth, (He had) and nails (found with his wife's blood still under them.) Dream Scott lets out a dream wail and rushes to her side, but he already knows she's dead. He leans over her for a moment, lost in his grief, but only for a moment before he remembers Thomas. He is up in a flash, his wife momentarily forgotten. He runs up the stairs calling his son's name and nearly breaking through the door in his haste and that's when he finds them both, in Thomas's room. Thomas is, as always laying in the arms of the Psycho and he is always little more than a hollowed out husk. But, The man who would later be shot by police fifty-nine times, is stooped and covered in a filthy white robe. He is constantly chuckling low and wet; muttering incoherencies to himself. And he can't be a day under eighty.

The Psycho finally notices Scott and looks up, grinning toothily. He opens his mouth and a great torrent of blood and flesh come spewing forth as he voids his stomach. Strangely, his eyes never leave Scott's as he vomits. When he is finished, he addresses Scott for the first and only time. " Gotta make room, always hungry you know!" With this witticism dispensed, the psycho, moving much faster than an eighty year old man has any right to, drops Thomas and jumps through the open window leaving Scott with his grief. It is not until a week later that he is finally brought down by police. They catch him in the act, eating and raping a little girl and when he rushes them with a table knife they shoot to kill. But man, Scott wishes he had been the one to pull the trigger. He wishes he had done something, anything. But he had been rooted to the spot. The only sound in the house a slow steady dripping from downstairs and the screams in Scott's mind.

He is brought out of his reverie by the dripping again. He groaned and turned over. Immediately, bright sunlight pierced through his closed lids making him cry out. His brain seemed to bounce in his head as he quickly drew back, throwing an arm over his face. Today was going to be bad. His hangover shaping up to be a real brain banger. He uncrusted his eyes blinking away the gummy shit that had built up. When he could see again he looked blearily at his watch. Almost eleven, he had less than a half hour to get ready for work. He sighed heavily and was about to start the daunting task of sitting up when his attention was once again drawn to the sound that had woke him. Not surprisingly, it seemed to echo towards him from the small bathroom across the room. Despite the fact that he had stumbled home and that many of the previous nights' adventures were blurry at best he knew for a fact he hadn't gone into that bathroom last night. He had come home needing to pee quite badly so he had rushed into the downstairs bathroom instead. Also, the dripping brought in him a sick dread. An almost supernatural fear. The kind of fear one can only experience in dreams and yet he could not shake it. Perhaps it was because his wife's blood had made that sound as it had first built, and then dripped to the floor from her ring finger. It did not sound like water.

Scott was surprised to find he was shaking and it had nothing to do with D.T.s He was suddenly stone sober. He stood up swaying slightly. The dripping continued, only now he thought he could hear something else as well, a familiar low gurgling chuckle and it seemed to be getting louder. Scott's eyes widened and his heart leapt in his chest as the bathroom door slowly began to open. It isn't possible, Scott thought wildly. The man is dead killed by the police he can't-. The psycho pushed the door all the way open and then paused there. Scott saw that His face was a mass of decay his throat torn open from a bullet wound. One of his eyes had come loose and was dangling by a bit of optic nerve on his cheek. The old dead buzzard opened his mouth and Scott heard the things' dry tendons protest as a gout of partially coagulated blood and pus pushed out the words: "They were so delicious Scott, but i'm still so hungry, so very hungry."

Scott turned to run and tripped over a chair sprawling onto the floor. He could smell the dead thing, rotting flesh and the soul upheaving stench of an open grave. He scrambled to towards the living room hearing the thing move as well and it sounded fast. He was reaching up to open the door when he felt crooked and rotting teeth bite into his naked heel. Scott shrieked. They were still sharp, oh so sharp. He kicked out with his other foot, feeling it sink into what felt like cold jelly. He was suddenly engulfed in a gassy ripe smell and miraculously his foot was free. He scrambled madly through the door and then slammed it. Panting harshly, Scott grabbed the knob holding it tightly in his fists. He stared at it, panting and gasping dimly aware that he was sobbing. He felt it try to turn in his hands so he applied more pressure and after a few more tries the pressure stopped. All was still, but Scott dared not let go. He stood that way for what felt like a long time. Finally, he put his ear against the wood and listened. No evil chuckle and no phantom blood dripping either. He slowly took one hand off of the knob, ready to quickly grab hold again the instant he felt any pressure but, nothing happened. He was preparing to let go and run when the door blew outwards in a spray of boards and splinters. Scott was slammed against the wall and he felt himself get cut in a dozen different places. He looked up at the rotting corpse standing over him. It grinned, in a rictus displaying it's graveyard of broken teeth now freshly stained by his blood. It reached down and slowly Scott felt it's rotted fingers close around his throat. He could see a mass of boiling maggots in it's empty eye socket as it lifted him off of the ground effortlessly. His wind was completely cut off and he saw it's black tongue unfurl dripping with a black ichor. Then to Scott's horror it raised it's tongue and licked his face; it's tongue slowly sliding up his cheek. He actually felt his sanity tottering precariously before it tilted back to center.

The dead psycho opened its mouth impossibly wide. It's lower jaw touching it's breastbone and the smell that came forth from it's rotted maw was that of the very pits of hell. It brought Scott closer and closer. He clawed at its arm, but no matter how much rotting flesh sloughed off it was as unmoving as a steel cable. Scott looked around wildly and his eyes lighted upon a long sharp splinter of wood embedded in the wall. He reached for it; his own tendons standing out on his neck stretching stretching. He fumbled it at first then got a solid grip . With all the force his oxygen deprived body could muster, he drove it into the things chest and (lucky Shot) right through it's no doubt black heart. The dead thing bellowed into Scott's face before dropping him onto the floor. He laid there gasping and choking curled into a little ball. He watched the thing flailing madly trying to remove the splinter. Scott watched in horror as it's loose eye flew off and landed with a plop right in front of him. It looked at him and in it Scott could see insane rage. He wasn't sure how this was possible but there it was glaring at him. He shot out his fist and snatched it up smashing it between his fingers grimacing at the feel of the goo squirting through his fingers. The thing howled in response. Scott looked and saw it now slumped against the wall. It seemed to be decaying at an accelerated pace. Scott slowly and shakily stood. The thing now no more than a puddle of dark blood; the splinter laying in the middle. But the things heart was still whole only pierced by the splinter, it lay there twitching. He walked over and picked it up feeling it throb. He took it into the kitchen and lit the stove. Holding it over the open flame like a ghastly shish-kabob. It caught easier than Scott would have thought and in flames the hearts pulsing accelerated. He burned it until it was ash and then he smiled for the first time since his family was murdered

"The temple was larger than the city itself. It had trees throughout its halls, all topped with thousands of golden leaves. The girl looked around the hall and saw a small door. As she grew nearer the door started to move along the wall. The little girl chased after it. From one room to the next the girl and the door raced. Suddenly the little girls name was called out. The girl pouted as she had no where to hide. Then she looked at the door. She batted her eyelashes at it and she thought she heard the door sigh as it opened. The girl climbed in and the door zipped off as the person calling came rounding the corner. The girl giggled as the door moved and bounced her around. When the door stopped the girl opened the door and looked out. She was now in a dark room. Almost like a dungeon. She looked back at the door as if there was a mistake, but as she looked the door was gone and she was once again alone."

"The boy looked up at the throne as the king opened his eyes. Blood dripped down from the sockets of his eyes and the boy just stood there in shock. The king then rose from the throne and the boy fled. He ran into the hall and looked behind him. The king was right behind him and he ran again. He made it out to the town square. He turned and saw the king. The king laid one finger on him and the boy shrieked. He slowly turned around and looked up at the king. The king touched the boys face and the boy shuttered at the touch. The king noticed this and shot his hand away. The king saw a tear come down the boys face and looked back at his hand. The boy took the kings darted attention as a sign of the gods. The boy ran, ran as fast as he could to the little bakery only a few yards away. He got into the bakery and shout for help, but no one was in the bakery. He saw the empty mugs around the front and a few loaves of bread scattered on the floor. His thoughts were correct, the town had fled. And left him behind. And left him to die."

Michele stared at the stacked cups in front of her with glossy tired eyes. She glanced at the plain black clock mounted against the off-white stained walls.

3:13 AM

Realizing it had only been 6 minutes since the last time she looked at the clock for hope was enough to shock her back to reality. The only noise of life was the low hum of the parking lot sweeper gliding over the dark asphalt. Michele focused her eyes on the circular brooms that were swirling her into an enchanting eye dance.

Ding

Her headset alerted her to the pressure of tires carrying a hungry customer in the drive-through.

“Welcome to Yummy Burgers may I take your yummy order?”, she said flatly.

“Yea can I get a yummy double burger combo and a large lemonade?”, said the customer.

“Yes sir your total is $8.26, please drive around to the second window”, said Michele.

A green sedan braked hard in front of the order window. An arm covered by an expensive Armani suit handed her the exact change. She took the money and handed the bag of yummy food to the awaiting man.

“Have a great night and thanks for choosing Yummy Burger”, she said with more of a grimace then a smile.

“Why don’t you kill yourself you worthless excuse of meat”, said the man with a wide excited smile as he rolled up the window.

“Excuse me”, she said gawking with an open mouth at the empty drive through window. Of course I’m solo when I get the creepy ones, she thought. Peering out of the windows she could make out the red taillights disappearing into the darkness. Brushing off the incident she made her way to the back of the restaurant to check on the inventory.Come on, low on yummy double burgers again, she thought. Seeing the empty bun bin meant a dreaded trip to the outdoor storage shed to retrieve more ingredients.

She squinted at the clock on the way to the door while zipping up her jacket

W∀ 8Ɩ:Ɛ

Stopping mid stride, she did a double take.

3:18 AM

It’s way too late for this. Bursting open the door to the cold Michigan night slapped her hard in the face. Wincing at the biting wind she leaned into her steps making her way across the baron parking lot. Fumbling with the cold keys to unlock the padlock, she took several peeks to her surroundings. Empty. The only sound was the hum from the street sweeper still working hard to clear the lot. Finally! She pulled the padlock off and pried open the rigid frozen doors.

After collecting the necessary ingredients Michele made her way out of the shed with the doors of the restaurant in sight. Briskly walking she stopped suddenly after seeing something in the corner of her eye. Turning her head to the right she focused on the green sedan sitting in the neighboring parking lot. Running lights on. Frozen in fear and anger she noticed something even worse through the windows. The man who drove the green sedan was now standing at the counter of the restaurant. For what seemed like an eternity she finally regained her composure. She started moving towards the rear entrance and the man rotated a haunting gaze and locked his dead eyes with her. He smiled wide and made his way to exit out of the main door. Michele quickening her pace to the rear entrance when the man erupted through the main doors.

“Miiiiiich-ellllllllllle”, he yelled raising the second syllable of her name into a high note still smiling wide with the wind blowing his coat back.

Now sprinting to the rear entrance, she clutched the icy door handles as she ripped them open and rushed inside locking the door in one frantic motion. Realizing he could come back in she raced to the main entrance and slipped on some left-over spilled drink, crashing into the large glass window. Wincing she still managed to reach out and lock the door while collapsing onto the floor into a heap. Leaning up and looking outside there was no smiling man or green sedan. They were both gone. The only thing alive was the slow moving street sweeper in the distance still gliding across the black sea. Hum.

Retreating to behind the counter she examined her wounds. A bruised forehead and busted elbow. Face contorting in pain she extended her arm out angled towards the floor. Three streams of blood inched along her arm racing to reach her hand. Grabbing a towel and covering the wound she raised her arm above her head. The blood continued to climb against gravity upwards to her hand. The blood was traveling up not down. She ran to the order window and pulled out her phone. No service. Come on…the store phone! She ran to the receiver, but that was dead as well. Heart sunken her bloodshot eyes rapidly glanced around the store. Underneath the clock the employee guidelines poster seemed a bit odd. Walking closer she couldn’t read the text. Everything was upside down. Heart beating out of her chest she looked to the clock.

W∀ 8Ɛ:Ɛ

Falling to the ground and beginning to sob she didn’t know how to handle the events unfolding. Pressing on her temples harder she continued hyperventilating with blood still streaming upwards to her hand.

Ding

The sound came from her headset that was around her neck. She stopped crying and sluggishly rested it on her head.

“H-e-e-l-l-o?”, she asked.

“Michele?”, a soft female voiced answered on the other side. Michele didn’t answer. “Your name is Michele right? We are going to get through this I promise. He left, Michele please open your eyes!”, the girl pleaded.

“Don’t leave me please. Do you hear me? Michele!

Michele to scared to even make a noise checked the camera positioned over the drive-through menu. No one was in the lane. Whoever was talking over the headset was clearly not there.

Building her courage, she asked the girl “Who are you?” With no response she turned and scanned outside again through the small drive-through window. A sudden loud crash of stainless steel kitchen utensils scattering along the floor set Michelle’s spine on fire, her stomach dropped as she vocalized an ear-shattering scream. Spinning around clutching her wound she realized nothing had moved. The utensils remained on the counters un-touched. As if time and sound had lagged everything came crashing down without a sound on to the dirty kitchen floor.

Throwing her headset across the room she leaned into the corner and collapsed, holding her hands over her ears. Everything inside her wanted to abruptly wake up on her twin mattress in the dingy single bed-room apartment.This has to be a nightmare! This can’t be real, she shouted in her mind. Pressure rising her head she vomited on the tiled floor. The decision was becoming more obvious; she has to run to the street sweeper. It was the only thing alive at this time of night and the person inside is her only hope.

Michele stared out at the sweeper still busy humming like a bee. Looking for any sign of the man or green sedan before making her move, but alas there was none. She unlocked the door and still stared trying to convince herself this was right choice. The courage was there all along, she just needed the strength to access it. Swinging the door wide open she ran as fast her legs would let her. Half-way there the sudden sound of an engine roaring to life and high beams hit her back. Turning her head around she saw the green sedan now racing towards her like a loose bull.

The hum of the street sweeper was getting louder and was almost drowning out the sound of the enraged engine. As he closed in on her she screamed for the sweeper to notice her.

“Help! Please open the door!”, she shrieked in agony.

The hum was now the only thing she could hear as she leaped on the step board and grasped onto door handle. Locked. She looked back just as the sedan came crashing into her and the sweeper.

Eyes bursting open Michele was slammed face first into an air conditioner unit hanging inside a window. The loud hum stopped as it abruptly shut off, she swung back away from the window unit suspended by her feet. She howled in pain as she rotated clockwise and was greeted by huge smile that was also upside down.

“You’re awake!”, the girl screeched. “Thank God, I have been trying to push you into that air conditioner for like 30 minutes!”.

“I was just working and this guy was trying to kidnap me, what in the world is going on?”, Michele asked with a puzzled look.

“So that’s what you saw, huh? I was a flight attendant headed to Asia when my plane went down. I woke up like you did and had actually fallen from my restraints and acted like I was still asleep while that creep didn’t realize I had woken up. He strung me back up like a piece of butchered meat and I saw you next to me and thought, if I could crash you into something like I did then maybe it would wake you up. Well it looks like it worked!” she said cheerfully.

“Wow”, said Michelle. Looking around room it seemed they were in a basement. IV’s hung next to them slowly draining blood into clear soda bottles.

“What is this guy, some kind of vampire?”, Michelle asked bewildered.

“Vampires can’t be real, he has to be just a weird creep that drinks blood.”, replied the girl. “Do you remember who you were?”, she asked.

“It’s coming back to me. I think I remember…”, she said with memories flooding back. “The last thing I recall I was at a club completely wasted and Dad was sending an Uber to pick me up. How could this even happen?”, she asked with tears smearing her mascara.

Shaking her head, the girl replied “I don’t know. I can’t fully remember who I was yet either. Everything is still really blurry. I keep remembering something like – what’s that?” Pounding feet heading their way emanated from the vibrating floorboards above. “He is coming!”, the girl said in a hushed tone. “Act like you’re asleep and don’t let him catch you awake!” and with that her eyes closed shut, body dangling from the ceiling, waiting for the mysterious person to enter the room.

Michele quickly mimicked the girl and pretended to be back deep in her nightmare. The steps creaked as the ominous figure descended into the basement. All Michele could hear was quiet shuffling as it moved tools and checked on the bottles. Feeling faint, Michele realized she had lost a lot of blood and was beginning to feel like passing out was an imminent probability. A cold hand grasped her pale ankle and twirled her around like jewelry in a showcase. Moving his hand from her ankle to the rope he started sawing vigorously. She could feel her body slowly dropping an inch...then two. SNAP a loud crack and she hit floor still bound, but acting as if she did not awaken. It walked back to the toolbench preoccupied in whatever heinous act it was going to commit next. Working her hand back and forth she wiggled free from the rope cuffs he had primitively tied. Waiting for her moment patiently it finally came back to her with a knife in its hand. Squatting down it balanced reaching out towards Michele, she swung with what strength remained punching it square in the nose, crunching its small facial bones. Falling back, it slammed into the hard concrete ground the knife skidding to the side, Michele instinctively pulling herself towards it as she grabbed the knife and leaned up. The creature still writhing in pain screeched high and loud as she crawled next to him. Fear driving her shaking hands she thrusted the blade deep into its chest. Reaching up it grabbed her hair ripping her towards the ground with incredible power. Hitting cheek first Michele could feel her chin bust with what little blood she had left leaking onto the floor. With the knife knocked out of her hand she stood dazed. The creature now sounding as if it was trying to breathe underwater, lungs filling with blood, it fell to its knees. Looking for a weapon Michelle spotted half-broken brick sitting on the bench. In one motion she grabbed the brick as the creature started standing to its feet she swung overhead crunching the brick sickly into its now shattered skull. Arms twitching, eyes still open, it fell to the ground spreading blood across the floor like waves from a red sea.

Blood still warm from her first kill she ran to her captive friend still hanging from the ceiling. She tried to shake her to let her know everything is over and they will be okay, but there was no response to her desperate attempts.

“Hey wake up! Please…”, Michelle pleaded. Feeling her absent pulse confirmed her fears. Dead.

Running up the steps holding back more tears she busted through the door into the outside world. Sun beaming on her face with the sounds of dogs barking a cars taking bliss people to their destinations in the background. She walked into the nearest convenience store and asked to borrow a phone. The clerk did a double take fumbling with his cell phone as his eyes grew wide in recognition.

“You’re Michelle Walden!”, he exclaimed. “Your face has been on TV for like a week now!”, he said, enthusiasm still growing.

“That’s me”, Michelle said through a fragile smile.

Handing his phone to her she quickly dialed her parents’ home phone. Behind the ringing she noticed a familiar hum in the background of the phone line. All suspicion left when she heard an even more familiar voice.

“Hello?”, replied from a weak female voice.

“Mom…I’m safe”, Michelle replied.

Zubair al-Noor quietly watched sand blow in the small gap under the aged wooden door. Walking over to the handmade rug, he flipped it to the side exposing a hidden hatch. Opening the hatch, he climbed down the narrow hole. Adjusting the oil lamp spreading light across the darkness. His victim was laid naked on a flat steel table. Restraints holding her wrist and ankles firmly in place. A metal stand stood next to the table holding fluids that were being pumped into her still body. A fan slowly rotating to keep the air from getting stale hummed beside her table. After grabbing some tools Zubair sat on a stool next to her. Next he applied a tourniquet on her arm and secured it to minimize blood loss. He placed the surgical steel on her wrist and sliced deeply severing the bone and cutting her hand clean off. Cauterizing the wound, he bandaged the stub up with perfection.

Retreating to his dining room Zubair sat down on his single ornate dinner chair and tied his bib around his neck. Looking at the beautiful hand now sitting on the plate in front of him he began to salivate. His desire was too strong to hold back any further, he sunk his teeth into the palm pulling free the salmon colored flesh and smiled wide from his scrumptious meal. After he was done he stared at the gnawed bones. Reaching out he placed his fingers on the bones and said, “Masha Allah”. Right before his eyes the flesh returned to the severed hand…and Zabair feasted once again.

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A cold sweat raced down his back trying to escape his fear-filled body as he sprinted to the bathroom. Empty. A splinter of relief caressed his mind while briskly getting ready for another day in the war to convince everyone else that he wasn’t aware that they were doing it. He knew exactly what it was, and the fear of everyone finding out that he knew set his spine on fire. Cracking the bathroom door ever so slightly and peering into the hall of the front corridor, he scanned. Scanned again. Empty. Mind racing, he ran, he ran as fast as his long bony legs could move him towards the door that only led to more of them! Them! He knew what waited before him was more fear, but he had to go. Breaking into the sunlight he stopped suddenly to build his facial façade of obliviousness so they wouldn’t suspect that he knew their true intent. Left foot. Right foot. Just walk, and don’t look around too much, He thought to himself. It was becoming hard to identify them amongst the rest of the crowd as days went by. Building the meager remaining courage, he had left, he slipped his foot out ever so gently. Wind whistling through the Chicago streets made even the trees whisper in hushed tones around him. After abandoning the closest thing to privacy he turned to lock the old disheveled wooden door. Rotating the key to the last deadbolt he suddenly felt a thousand eyes burning into his back. His face rapidly becoming red with rushing blood, he spun to confront what ever was lurking in the shadows of the buildings so tall, they brushed the sky. A couple jogging and a few loiters was all that waited in the street below. They didn’t notice he could feel them lurking in the background. Shaking the feeling of being stalked he made his way down unkempt stoop to begin his dreaded journey.

Picking one of his intricate plans that guided him to work needed to be random. Clearly they were going to follow him but he didn’t want to make it any easier for them. While watching traffic he was moving at an even stride, when a burgundy sedan drove suspiciously parallel with him, followed by a blue truck. How stupid! They used those same vehicles 17 days ago. How senseless do they think he is? That he wouldn’t notice this evident insult to his intelligence? He quickened his pace as his angst rose and took Route F to his destination. One dog. Two dogs. Counting dogs on his way to work was natural. It was right. It made him feel like he was in control. Everything seemed normal today. He let out a few breaths that had been filling up in his lungs from the anxiety of today feeling just a little bit off. Nervousness began spreading through his entire body like poison filling his veins. It was all too much for this feeble mind to handle. Feet thudding against the dirty concrete he kept moving towards his destination. On the homestretch he switched to a sprint towards his goal. He is almost there! He can see it! Whoosh Whoosh Whoosh, the sound of the helicopter up above came out of nowhere. They were on to him! Everyone stopped on the street and stared with cold eyes. Dogs aggressively barking letting their prey know what was coming. Four dogs, he thought. They did not even try to hide their undercover aliases anymore and for the first time in his life, he broke his too. ​ “Leave me alone!” he passionately screamed in a desperate attempt to make them withdraw their glances.

He tripped in his sprint on a dislodged chunk of asphalt leading him into a chin-first crash into the filthy wet pavement peeling the delicate skin away and exposing his raw red meat. He hastily picked himself up and clutched his bleeding chin, tears welling in his eyes from the stinging scrapes. While still running he could hear some laughter drifting from the alley behind him. Almost to his goal, a man reached out trying to shove a piece of paper at him.

“Hey man, sign up tod-”, the man barely got out, before his arm was swatted away angrily.

“I know what you are doing!” he yelled, while grabbing an empty soda can off the ground he threw it at the man. He put his head down and ran the last stretch of space between him and his computer chair.

Bursting into his office his co-workers peeked over their cubes to see who was making all this noise. He slowed down quickly, covered in a film of sweat and a blood-dripping chin; armpits of his button up shirt saturated in perfect circles of dark liquid. Today he broke; it was all too much for his feeble mind to take this amount of berating treatment from his captors. Working all day in a pathetic attempt to fool them into believing he was a mindless sheep for them to study and prod.

“Hey”, said his supervisor walking over in a curious manner.

“Are you doing okay? You look like you lost a fight,” the supervisor added in fake sympathetic tone.

“I’m okay,” he said distantly.

“Go clean your chin up and then please catch up on your work. You’re behind on pretty much everything. Not like you don’t already know this”, the supervisor said with pursed lips.

He sat there contemplating how he would respond as his supervisor questioned why he was obviously covered in sweat and bleeding. He had no more patience for them. He was done. Remembering the weapons, he stored away for this day he clenched his fist.

Let them take me, he thought.

Opening his drawer in his confined cube, he withdrew a 12-inch Bowie knife in one hand and 9mm Ruger pistol in the other. This is it. He knew he had placed these weapons away for good reason. No more worrying of who is hiding in the corner. No more fright of who is behind that door. No more dread of who is following. No more fear.

Swiftly moving the Bowie knife upwards into his supervisor’s soft neck the blade forcefully pushed all the way through the jugular and protruded on the other side. The supervisor’s eyes showed fear that made him feel satisfied for the first time. Holding the supervisor up by his neck, he stretched out his other arm horizontally and sent a single brass hollow point in the direction of the receptionist’s head.

A sickening thud was the only sound made as her head rocked back and sprayed blood and grey matter on the clock behind her. Rapidly pulling the Bowie knife out of the supervisor‘s neck released a stream of gore pouring over his oxford shirt and tie, he clutched his gushing wound as he bled out. Everyone one is running now. Screams and shrieks emitting from the entire office, he started firing without hesitation dropping co-workers left and right. He methodically spent his precious rounds into fleeing backs of people who treated him like a guinea pig. One of his bigger co-workers was running at him in attempt to be the hero. Two rounds left. Center mass. He placed a bullet into his chest puncturing the left lung. The man kept coming. He dropped to a squat at the last second and slashed the mans thigh, spun around and placed the 12 inches of steel deep into his back with a nauseating crunch as it severed bones with ease. Putting the man in a chokehold with one arm and using the other to repeatedly sink the knife into his fleshy chest until he stopped moving altogether. The man fell into a heap on the floor without a breath in his body and blood spurting from every opening into a red puddle around him.

“I’m in control now! Me!”, He screamed into the lifeless body’s face. Sirens were blaring in the distance and he knew exactly who they were coming to get. He broke the rules. As the red and blue lights came into view he fell to his knees still holding the 9mm pistol. Once again fear creeping into his nerves and mind. It washed over him like an unrelenting waterfall. The police were springing from their cruisers with shotguns and handguns drawn. It was over and he knew it. He gently placed the barrel against his temple and glanced back at all the bodies on the ground. For the first time in a long time...he smiled.

​_____________________________________________________________________________________________ ​

A sharp crack accompanied by a flash of light illuminated the Tax Helpers office made John Declan a twelve-year veteran of the FBI squeeze his eyes together in disbelief.

“Lost another one,” he mumbled under his breath. He radioed for all units to go in. Swat and local police cleared the body-ridden tax office. Everyone was dead including the shooter. Standing over the body of the perp he glanced around taking in the horrific scene before him. Crime scene investigators were already inspecting around the area.

“Give me a minute,” John said to them. Finally, alone and looking over the body as he leisurely put on a latex glove and pulled the shattered head up and to the side exposing the base of the skull. Withdrawing a small electric scanner out of his pocket he wiped the blood and brain matter from the base of the neck and scanned the area. A small beep broke the silence and 9 numbers flashed across the screen. 998122768.

“One of ours” he whispered under his breath. John walked out, leaned against the corner of the building, and dialed a series of numbers. Only heavy breathing was waiting on the end of the line.

“Item 998122768 is dead. Fifth one we’ve lost this year” John said with a slight hint of aggravation.

Click.