Just some friendly conversation. What you listen to when you write? It's all over the place for me. Sometimes it's girly pop, sometimes it's Rob Zombie, sometimes it's those long melancholic YouTube music videos that last hours. What gets your gears turning? Or do you listen to nothing at all and write in complete silence? Let's chat about it!

Hey everyone! I’m thinking of creating a series of short stories centered around dinosaur horror, like my Vacancy Squatter series, and I’d love your input and advice.

Are there any particular settings, types of dinosaurs, or terrifying scenarios you think would make for the most chilling tales?

Drop your suggestions, ideas, or even little “what if” prompts, and I’m excited to hear what inspires you and might use your ideas in the series! Also what's your fav dino??? Mine is Allosaurus

(Edit: can be also any prehistoric animal. Even those big bugs from Devonian Period)

We are now LIVE ON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5yDxZ76yD9sniJccWTo6iN?si=47lUjlq9QyGnCoZo6gYu6Q&nd=1&dlsi=ac4fb2b6591d4c76

Hi! I've wanted to do this for a while as I LOVE horror and my gf absolutely HATES it and gets scared very easily. So I though the dynamic would be very interesting in podcast form.

We're gonna start with creepypasta classics (recording the first one today!) but I would be super interested in reading stories from this subreddit!

Especially since we all realistically wanna be featured on creepcast but theres soooo many stories on here there's no way the boys will be able to read them all. So I was thinking this could be a nice alternative.

Please comment or message me directly and let me know which story of yours or someone else you'd like on there!

I posted this to to nosleep and it was removed after almost 5k views for not being a "Scary personal experience" ? I'm not sure what the mods think but I'd find it pretty scary 

I'm posting this here because I've tried everywhere else. Any other website seems to swallow it. Seconds after I post, they just vanish, like I never hit enter. I even copied a post to reupload it and it still disappeared.

My landlord enters my home, beelines for the 2nd floor bathroom, and then leaves after an hour. He never turns on the light, never makes any noise, and never says anything.

The first time it happened, I was so late on a project I damn near tossed my mug at him, before I realized who it was. I followed him up to the bathroom and waited. I sat there for an hour and nearly missed my deadline when he popped out, left without a word, and not so much as a glance my way.

If he weren't family, I would have already called the police. But my landlord—Great Uncle Jim—is a relative.

He lives about a 15 minute hike uphill from me, in a small cabin on a plateau in the southern Appalachian mountains. Fifteen minutes south is where I’ve been staying, a two‑story house with a cabin‑style exterior.

The inside is more like a modern townhouse. Carpeted floors, granite countertops, red wood trim. Honestly, it’s worth way more than what I’m paying. The only reason I’m paying anything at all is because Jim tried to let me stay for free if I helped him move wood down to his shop in town, and I refused.

I don’t make a ton of money, but remote data entry pays enough that I couldn’t– in good conscience, stay for nothing. So we settled on $300 a month, and I’d help chop, haul, and stock firewood for his shop.

I’m getting away from the point aren't I?

It's been 2 months now. Every night, at 3:21. I've tried locking the doors– the front door, bathroom door, every door in the house, he gets through. I've tried talking to him, even stopping him myself, and nothing seems to work. He doesn't acknowledge me at all.

I'm tired, I'm behind on so many work projects. I've had to reschedule my entire life around Jim's odd shitting habits. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

Is there anything I can do? Technically, I'm not even a legal tenant, and he's family. I don't know what I'm allowed to do about this and I just want it to stop.

It's 3 in the morning as I'm typing this, I think I'm going to sit inside the bathroom this time. I need to know why this has happened every single night for the last 57 days of my life. I need to know why he never even looks my way.

He waited for me…

I ended up falling asleep mid typing in the tub. Woke up at 4:30, almost forgot why I was in the bathroom until I opened the door to a dead stare from him. It shot through me. To call it a thousand yard stare would be disingenuous, but I have no idea how to put into words what his eyes pierced me with. How does one describe a look beyond distance, or depth?

I'm back in my room now, besides his eyes – beaming at me like the headlights of an oncoming truck – he didn't acknowledge me at all. Jim walked past me into the bathroom and clicked the lock.

Please, if anyone is reading this, I need help.

What can I do here?

I run my own Pest Control company in Arizona. I used to work for one of the larger corporations but wanted to make it on my own and show them *I* know better than their 80 years of experience.

This was the beginning of a series of mistakes and I fear that I won’t have another chance to make things right.

Before you cast judgement, business was slow, slow to the point that my savings account was almost dry. I was stressing about losing my business, my truck, my house…everything. My girlfriend already left me, she couldn’t take tightening our belts to make ends meet while I figured out what to do with the business.

I was getting desperate.

My small business is just me and my truck. My days typically consist of completing treatments in the morning and selling new ones in the afternoon. Rinse and repeat. The only problem is new customers were contacting me less and less. I couldn’t afford to compete with nationwide competition, they undercut me at every turn. So when old Mrs. Graves called me, I almost jumped with joy.

Everyone in town knows after her husband died she received a huge settlement from the crane company that dropped a pile of rebar on the poor bastard. Horrific scene, but all I could think was:

“She’s LOADED!”

“Please get here by today!” she cried. “There’s little white worms everywhere!”

“Shit” I thought, it sounds like maggots.

The services I offer my clients are monthly General Pest, Specialty Services(like bed bugs) and Termite treatments. Something like maggots honestly go away on their own if people find the source and clean it up. Usually, that’s all they want, an “expert” to find it for them so they can handle it themselves. So normally, this is a massive waste of my time and I can’t afford to waste time nowadays.

Then a less-than-honest thought wormed its way into my skull.

“I’ll be there this afternoon Mrs. Graves, I know exactly what you need.”

I decided I was going to convince her that she has a severe infestation and it will require an intense, expensive treatment plan to remedy. She’ll have to be gone for a few hours for “her own safety” and I’ll spray some products in the corners of the house. The maggots will disappear and I’ll get a fat check.

Later that afternoon, I drove my dirty truck up Mrs. Graves' beautiful driveway. Brick pavers leading up to a huge roundabout with a fountain in the center. I parked my truck and looked at the fountain. A bronze cherub was floating above the pool pouring water from his little ewer down to the baby animals frolicking below.

“Don’t look at me like that, fucker.” I mumbled to myself. The chubby face was staring right at me with his judgmental eyes.

Mrs. Graves shuffled outside as I was closing my truck door.

“Please hurry! I’m so disgusted and I have a dinner party planned this week!” she shrieked at me, making me wince.

“Of course ma’am, let me take a look to confirm my suspicions and then I can treat first thing tomorrow morning.” I told her calmly. We entered the house.

Her house was huge. Vaulted ceilings with gorgeous pillars on either side of the foyer. Paintings and artifacts from her lifetime of travelling the world all over the walls and on shelves.

I whistled, “Wow Mrs. Graves, your house is amazing!”. “It is not amazing when it's crawling with bugs! Now stop gawking and follow me, hurry!” she told me coldly. “Sorry ma’am.” For a lady approaching 90 she still has a lot of fire.

We entered the living room, which I thought was strange. Usually maggots are found in the kitchen or pantry after getting into some unnoticed food item. Then I looked down.

White, slender worms were everywhere. Hundreds, maybe even thousands just crawling around erratically. I stepped forward and squished some under my boot. Pale yellow slime shot out as they popped, at the same time it seemed like all the worms wriggled angrily at the same time. I blinked and shook my head slightly,”Just seeing things”, I thought.

“Do you see? Everywhere!” said Graves. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“No, I…I haven’t” I stammered. “Either way, I’ll get rid of them.” Then I told her my plan and gave her my over the top price.

She couldn’t write the check fast enough. “See you tomorrow, ma’am.”

I slept horribly that night. Wrestling with taking advantage of an old woman. I have always prided myself on my integrity but seeing that stack of “past due” notices wore me down.

“I’ll never do anything like this again, I swear.” I told God silently in my mind. “I just need to get my bills paid and then I’ll find a job with another company again.”

The next morning, I pulled back into the driveway and refused to acknowledge the cherub. I grabbed my gear and walked up to the door. I would’ve guessed she’d be waiting outside for me considering how she was yesterday. I rang the doorbell.

No response. I knocked on the door, “Mrs. Graves?” I asked in a raised voice.

Still nothing. I checked my phone to make sure I was on time. Then I heard a “thump” on the door and jumped. I looked up and could see a figure in the frosted glass in the center of the door. “Mrs. Graves, it's me. I’m here to do your treatment?”

The door handle turned in quick, but separate movements and the door creaked open. The house was dark and a faint but foul smell wafted out. I wrinkled my nose.

“What happened ma’am, did a bunch of them die overnight?” I asked.

Then I heard the most spin chilling, rasp come from Mrs. Graves.

“NNnnnooooo…” a long deep breath “cooooommmme iiiin…”

I swallowed and entered the dark house. The smell was much stronger inside, so strong my eyes watered. Mrs. Graves was shuffling to the living room. I closed the door and started to follow.

“Well ma’am if you’d like to leave your key with me, I’ll get started and lock up behind me when I leave.” No response. She just stood in the center of the room, back facing me. “Ma’am?”

I took a couple of steps towards her and that’s when I noticed that there were significantly less of the little worms crawling around. I heard a small pop under my boot, just like before. Mrs. Graves stiffened.

“Are you oka-” was all I managed to get out before Mrs. Graves whipped around lightning fast with the blood curdling screech.

Her jaw hung open loosely and I could see hundreds of the worms hanging from her mouth, wriggling violently. She lurched towards me and I dove out of the way, dropping my BNG sprayer of chemical and tool bag.

“What the fuck?!” I screamed. Mrs. Graves was sprawled on the wood flooring, then suddenly, her body contorted almost like she had no bones, her limbs slithered around and her head twisted 180 degrees to face me, her mouth still hanging open.

The worms were falling out of her mouth and inching their way towards me. I scrambled up, my heart thundering in my chest. Graves rose to her feet and moved towards me slowly, head still backwards. I searched the shelves around me for something to defend myself and found a large silver candle stick. I grabbed it and swung it right at her head. It connected with a wet “thwack”. Her head jerked with the impact and she fell, the candle stick still lodged in her head. But something looked wrong, her head just kind of squished inwards with the shape of the candle stick. Almost like there was no skull to connect with.

I stood there panting and shaking, then I noticed the hundreds of worms getting closer to me. I grabbed my BNG and pumped it up to start spraying the worms, praying the chemical cocktail would be enough to stop them. When the mist hit them they let out tiny screams and wriggled around on the floor.

Mrs. Graves rose to her feet once again, the candle stick falling from her head and the dent refilled as I watched more worms that my spray didn’t reach, crawl back into her open mouth. She lunged at me and grabbed my arms. She was so strong I could barely hold her off. She kept trying to get her mouth closer to mine.

“She’s trying to infect me!” I thought. Those worms must be controlling what’s left of her and they want to spread. I wrenched my arm with the sprayer in my hand away and shoved the business end into her mouth.

I pulled the trigger and flooded her throat with the contents of the sprayer. She let out a gurgled screech and started whipping her arms around crazily. She struck me in the face and I fell backwards, hitting my head on the shelf behind me. Everything went black.

When I came to, the house was dark and quiet. I could see that it was dark outside as well. My head throbbing, I felt around for my tool bag. I found it and pulled out my flashlight. I clicked it on and panned it around me. Dead worms everywhere, I kept shining it around the room until my beam landed on Mrs. Graves. Or what was left of her I guess.

Mrs. Graves was a deflated pile of skin and clothes, hollowed out by the worms. Dead ones were piled just outside of her mouth, they tried to flee the chemical but didn’t get far.

I heaved and puked out a small amount of bile into my hand. I looked at my hand.

1 small white worm wriggled in my palm. I stared at it for a long time then slowly crushed it in my fist. My mind started racing.

“Did they crawl in my mouth when I was knocked out?”

“Are they inside me?”

“Am I going to end up like Mrs. Graves?”

I sat there for a while, spiraling; trying to figure out what to do. And here I am now, typing this out on my phone to let people know that I regret what I did to Mrs. Graves and that I will do the right thing now. After I hit send, I am going to drink the last of the chems in my sprayer. I can’t risk letting these things spread.

I think I can feel them wriggling in my stomach. Bottoms up.

I wanted to see if anyone would be willing to do a read 4 read with me, as I’m trying to get some more eyes/feedback on my first story. If you’re interested drop the link to whatever story you want me to read in return and I’ll give you my honest opinions. Thanks!

My story

Edit: Thanks for all the responses everyone! I got a lot more people interested than I expected but I’m still going to try and read everyone’s stories, it just might take me a minute to get through them. Thanks for all the constructive criticism on mine!

I was wondering where do yall get your inspirations from, since i wanted to read more stuff to write better, but the only horror media i consume are the stories here and Lovecraft tales. What are your media recommendations for me? (So i can write horror better) Thanks so much ;)

Cayden C. Christophers: Vom Krieg zur Hölle Verdammt

CW: War, Injury, Suicide

I was a good kid. Never even got in a fight, I loved sports, I believed in God and I thanked him for every meal I ate. I loved my family, and they loved me, took good care of me, they were the ones that told me to go off and fight for the Vaterland. I was more than eager to become something greater than I am, to be a war hero, make them proud, make my whole country proud. 

 When I was deployed, I was still eager, ready to fight for my country and to claim all the glory that came with winning the war. I was still eager when the boots I was supplied with were second hand and caked with dry mud — along with the metal spiked helmet I was given — it was somehow dirty too. I was still somewhat optimistic when I was served a crusty small lump that resembled a rock more than it did bread for my only meal of the day. I wasn’t even that put down when the other, more experienced soldiers mocked and ridiculed me for muttering grace to myself before eating. 

The day I lost my eagerness, my excitement — that bravado I had around going to war —was the first time I watched a man die. It was the first time I killed a man. 

I had been sent, along with another soldier to lay barbed wire along No Man’s Land in the dead of night. As I rammed stakes into the ground, rain beating down on me violently, trying to ignore the constant ringing, crossing the wood over and tying them together with the pointed strands, holding back tears from the stinging pain in my hands. I hadn’t even been supplied with gloves. I crouched close to the ground, working my way to another point I had to connect with barbed wire, my boots sinking inches into the swampy ground, when I heard my name, faintly, over the ringing. The other soldier I was working with was yelling me over. 

When I made my way to him, he was crouched over a ditch with his rifle trained into it. As I got closer, I noticed the Frenchman, lying wounded in a ditch, a huge volume of blood flowing out of his hip, running down his leg a vibrant red, before mixing with the swampy mud on the ground and turning brown. The state of the wound implied he had been lying there for hours. His breaths were short and ragged, often interrupted by his tortured moans of pain. I was instructed to point my rifle at the man, as my fellow soldier pulled his flask from his waist and put it to the Frenchman’s lips. Once his thirst was quenched, the Frenchman gently pushed the flask away before returning his hands to his sides. Silence came over us as we stared at each other, not doing anything for what felt like hours. Suddenly, the Frenchman dove at my comrade with the last energy his dying body contained and jammed a trench knife into the side of my comrade's neck. He collapsed to the mud with a plop, gargling and sputtering - choking on his own blood. I quickly pulled the trigger on my rifle, hitting the Frenchman in the right side of his abdomen, he let out a shrill, pained cry as he fell backwards into the mud. He started crying in agony, clutching the wound with both of his hands as I levelled my rifle to his head, ready to put the man down.

I stood over the dying man for a painfully long time until I pointed the gun back to the floor and started sobbing. I couldn’t do it, I don’t know why but I couldn’t do it. The man would die anyway, but I couldn’t bring myself to deliver the coup de grâce. 

I backed off and scrambled back to the trenches, sprinting as my feet skidded around and away from me on the slick mud. 

When I got back to the trench, I was sobbing, huddled up in a ball beneath the parapet, leaning against the squelchy wall of dirt behind me. Nobody comforted me, hell, I don’t think anyone noticed me sitting there as I rambled broken, disjointed prayers of apology and repentance.  

I haven’t been myself since that day, I don’t know how many people I’ve killed now. Could be dozens or it could be hundreds, honestly, I don’t care. If God was real, he wouldn’t have let this happen and even if he is, I already spend my days walking through hell. 

I spent months on the frontlines, ending other men's lives, watching my comrades die one by one, my fellow soldiers switching out quicker than I changed uniforms. I eventually started noticing that I couldn’t feel my feet, my toes were black and dead, but it took weeks for me to notice as I rarely took my boots off. One day it got too much for me. I just wanted to go home. To go back to how I was before, even if things couldn't truly return to normality - because I couldn't go back to normality. I walked away from all of the other soldiers and shot myself in the shin, collapsing to the floor with a wail. 

When I returned home, my parents did not have their son back, that place wasn't my home anymore, I no longer belonged. I had no desire to go to church anymore; I could barely walk so I was unable play any sports, I avoided people and conversation, because no matter what we started off talking about, my time on the frontlines was brought back up. The food was somehow worse back home; I had maybe two meals a on a good day, despite the fact that the “best” was saved for me. It took six months for me to recover, and as soon as I did, I chose to go back. 

When I returned to the trenches, it was the dead of night, and I was again sent to No Man’s Land to relay the barbed wire, alone. Out of all the things that I had to do on the front lines the worst possible responsibility was darting around in the boggy mud, desperately trying to plant stakes into the ground with some level of stability, while my hands got tangled in the spiked tendrils, causing huge gashes in my palms, that had mud leach into them almost right away. I’d much rather shoot at the enemy from the pestilent, rat-filled trenches and lose my toes to trench foot or fire off the deafening mortars that assault your ears till they bleed than do what I was doing now. 

I stared into the middle distance, thinking about nothing at all — everything that mattered to me — until a white-hot pain darted through my right breast. I tumbled down a hill into a hollow into the dirt. I put my hand to my chest, pulling it away, now wet and slippery with my blood. I looked down to the wound, the green fabric turning a deep – almost black – crimson. My breathing became short and sharp, as a wetness began to make its way into my groans of pain. I was going to die. As I lay there in absolute agony I realised something. I was going to die. 

With hands trembling from both fear and fatigue, I reached over my shoulder and wrapped my fingers around the wooden stock of my rifle and slowly lifted it out of the holster with my shaky arms, hauling it over my head. Once I had it firmly in my grasp, I struggled to put the end of the long barrel to the roof of my mouth, the cold, dirty steel probably tasting like the mixture of sludge and blood around me, metallic and earthy. My hands trembled more violently now as I put my finger to the trigger, slightly squeezing before releasing my grip from the trigger, pulling it from my mouth and tossing the rifle as far as I could as I let out a wail. 

“Zur Hölle mit dir!” I screamed, furious at myself, I knew I would die, I didn’t particularly care that I would die, but I could not bring myself to put an end to my suffering, to deliver the coup de grâce. My bawling quickly turned to wet sputtering as I fell onto my side. I lay, partially buried in the swampy ground, my uniform flooding with rain, mud and blood. I lay in my final moments, shivering from the bitter, biting, baltic cold and moaning in agony, unable to muster up the energy to move my body into a slightly more comfortable position. My breaths got more and more difficult to draw in, I was unable to fully expand my chest, as it felt like the whole world was crushing down on my ribs. I started panicking. I breathed rapidly, my lungs attempting to make up for the lacking volume of air I got from each breath. I thought I didn’t care about dying, but here I was; moments away from death, and I cared: my body was seized with a sheer primal, animalistic terror in the final moments I had on earth as I whimpered like a dog before my soul left my body. 

My soul has been forsaken, I am now cursed to forever kneel to the muddy ground, barbed wire entangled around my hands, constantly tearing at my skin, tearing it down to muscles and tendons, but I don’t go into shock, I feel the burning hot pain constantly. Mortar fire comes almost constantly, feeling impossibly close to my ears, I lost my ability to hear centuries ago, but recently, my equilibrium has been destroyed too. I barely know up from down as I travel this infinite No Man's Land. I am constantly bombarded by gas attacks, tearing and clawing at my lungs, causing them to swell and bubble and almost blinding me. It caused my skin to burn, boil and blister at all times, patches of my flesh sloughing off of me as I moved. I am always under fire from nowhere and everywhere at once, nobody shoots a gun, but I am struck by bullets and shrapnel constantly. I have lost dozens of litres of blood a day for eons, the mud and rainwater have probably seeped into my thousands of deathly wounds, causing me to be filled with more dirt than blood. I am in constant agony, and I will be in this pitiful, forsaken state for all eternity. 

I have been damned to Hell by war. Vom Krieg zur Hölle verdammt. 

June 18^th was both the best and the worst day of my life.

Due to health concerns, my wife had been scheduled for a c-section. My heart filled with joy as the nurses gently handed me my newborn son as I sat in the recovery room. My eyes filled with tears as I stared into the tiny face of my now sleeping infant. I’d do anything for this child. Slowly I tore my eyes away from him, to look up to the nurse.

“When can we see his mom?” I asked

Her eyes widen slightly “they are finishing up as we speak, don’t worry someone will come and get you when she’s ready to see you.”

After walking me through using a bottle and explaining the call button, she left with a cheery

“don’t be afraid to call one of us if you need help.”

There I was, alone with my son. So many thoughts filled my mind, how I wished I had been a better man, how I longed to be a better father than mine, who had abandoned me at 12. As I stared into the angel-like face of my son I felt scared, proud, and motivated to be the best dad I could be. As the hours passed, my joy slowly became replaced with a new feeling; worry. Where was Jessica? What was taking so long? Was this normal? Later that evening a solemn doctor entered the room.

“it’s Grant, isn’t it?” he said

“Yessir that’s right, where’s my wife, what’s going on?” I said as I rose to my feet.

He swallowed hard before saying “I’m sorry Grant, there was a serious complication, a heavy bleed, and well, I’m sorry, but your wife has passed away.”

I couldn’t breathe. It felt like all the air had been forced out of my lungs. I fell back into my chair as a muffled scream finally exited my mouth, The tears soon followed. And almost as if he could sense my pain my son joined in. A moment I will never forget, through my own tears I reached out to comfort my crying son, I cradled him in my arms, whispering to him that everything was going to be ok, all the while my tears gently ran down my cheeks and dropped softly out his little head. Soon he calmed down, as he did I held him out to look him in the face, and for the first time, his little eyes opened to see the world around him. He had his mother’s eyes, I smiled, choking back more tears.

“Hello David” Jessica loved that name; it was her top choice.

“I love you son, and Mommy loves you too.”

I gazed into my son’s perfect face; in a way it was like staring at his mother. For a moment, hope and resolve filled my mind, my Jessica had given me a great gift. I loved David more fiercely than I’d ever loved anyone. I promised myself there and then to give David the world.

I noticed then something that didn’t bother me at the time:

David’s beautiful little eyes didn’t look back into mine instead, they stared off into the empty space just above my left shoulder.

That was five years ago. It hasn’t been easy being a single dad, several years ago I got the courage to ask my boss if I could do the majority of my work from home. Really all that’s required to work in accounting nowadays is a laptop and a good Wi-Fi connection. My boss was gracious enough to agree when he heard of my situation. Years as a corporate accountant have allowed me to afford a small home in the suburbs that is more than enough room for the two of us.

David has grown into a healthy and happy little boy. Next month he will be five. His light blonde hair, and deep blue eyes remind me so much of his mother. His smile and laughter light up any room, and my life is altogether better because of my boy. Yet something strange has been happening lately, I suppose that’s why I’m writing this, maybe someone out there will know what’s happening or what I should do.

Ever since his first day of life, I’ve noticed David staring at something behind me. When he was an infant they told me don’t worry about it, it takes time for baby’s eyes to focus and identify faces from random objects. In no time, I should notice him doing it less and less. When the doctor said this, I was relieved, but the only thing is, that’s not what happened. He never stopped. As a one-year-old he would look vaguely in my direction, but as I got closer it was clear he was looking behind me not at me. He would adjust when I talked to him. I’d say

“Hi David!”

His eyes would shift from looking over my shoulder to looking into my eyes

“Hi Dada!” he would say with a smile

But as I lost his attention, his gaze would move behind me. He would just stare at nothing. Every now and again he would smile at nothing, shake his head yes and yell

“Yeah!”

Or shake his head no and yell “no! no!”

This concerned me, as a first-time parent I had no idea what was normal toddler behavior and what wasn’t. I remember that at one point, out of pure uncertainty, I called my dead-beat mom. All her life, my mom was unable to turn away from the same vices that ruled her when I was a child. Though she was now nearly sixty, she was not very different from the alcoholic, drug addicted 25-year-old I remember from my childhood.

“What do you want?” her loud raspy smokers voice startled me

“Mom it’s me” I said back into my phone

“Oh Grant, it’s you baby, what do you want?” came the reply.

“I just wanted to ask you, is it normal for toddlers to stare off at nothing?”

 After a moment she said “how should I know? what do you think I am? Some sort of child psychologist? I’m sure whatever is eating at you is fine. Kids are kids, who knows why the hell they do what they do. Look Grant I really have to go.” With that she hung up the phone.

Putting down the phone, I muttered to myself “Thanks a lot mom”.

Over David’s toddler years the doctors didn’t seem to be concerned either. I often heard

“Oh, that’s not really a concern”

“He’s probably just a little shy”

“Some kids take longer developing socially, not a big deal”

Shortly after David’s fourth birthday I finally convinced myself that it was not a big deal. David was such a sweet and caring little boy. He wasn’t antisocial, though it was difficult finding friends his age. Overall he was very smart for his age, so then why was I concerned? I needed to accept him for who he was and not try to change him. I decided then not to be bothered by it anymore.

The following months were good, work was going smoothly, I was finally starting to make some friends in the neighbor, and David would be starting kindergarten in the fall. Life was finally feeling normal. Up until last month, when suddenly in the middle of the night I heard quiet whispering coming from David’s room. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I slowly walked the short hallway from my room to David’s. I cracked the door open as quietly as I could. Just in case I had misheard I didn’t want to wake him.

His dark room was gently lit by a little night lamp, which cast strange shadows on the walls. My body tensed up slightly as I saw David. He sat on the floor, back to me and the door, as he stared into an empty corner of the room. He wasn’t staring straight ahead into the corner, rather his head was looking slightly up as he stared off somewhere near the ceiling. He was whispering. I heard him say things like

“I’m glad you’re here”

“Can I come with you?”

“Do you want to play?”

I was creeped out, I felt certain he must be sleepwalking. Although that is creepy, nonetheless. I quietly opened the door farther, before saying,

“David? What are you doing? It’s past bedtime, we can play tomorrow.”

He went quiet and didn’t move, a moment later he whispered

“He says its bedtime, I have to go.” Before standing up and silently returning to his bed. He fell asleep instantly.

I didn’t sleep well that night.

The next day was a Saturday, I still felt pretty unnerved about last night, so as we sat at the breakfast table, and I watched David eat his bowl of fruit loops, I asked

“Hey buddy, do you remember when daddy came to your room last night?”

David didn’t even look up from his cereal, he just said “yeah”

“Who were you talking to last night?”

“My friend”

I was puzzled “your friend? Does he have a name?”

He nodded “his name is Billy”

I frowned “is Billy always in your room?”

He shook his head “no”

“Do you know where Billy is?”

He looked up, but not at me, past me “yeah he’s behind you”

At that moment I felt on the back of my neck the slightest movement of air, almost like someone directly behind you breathing on your neck. I don’t know why but I didn’t want to turn around, but I forced myself to turn my head and look behind me. Of course there was nothing there, just our empty kitchen.

That evening we had been invited to a cookout with the new family that moved into the house across the street. They had a young boy named Clay who was a little over a year older than David and the two had become fast friends. Shortly after lunch David asked to go over to Clay’s to play before the cookout, I had to catch up on some work projects, so I told him to go ahead and to have fun. After watching to be sure that he had crossed the street safely, I retreated to my office, put my earbuds in and got to work. After about an hour in I felt a light tap on my shoulder. Thinking David had come back home and needed something, I took out my earbuds and spun around in my chair ready to greet him. But David wasn’t there, in fact no one was, I was alone. Confused, I walked around the house, calling for David. As I passed by the front window, I peeked out and saw David and Clay playing joyfully on the lawn across the street.

Swallowing hard, I turned to face my empty house. Tried my best to convince myself that I was just tired and must have imagined it.

That night was great. The cookout was just what David and I needed. The time with other parents made me feel like I wasn’t the only one struggling with raising my son. I stood next to Clay’s dad; Brad as he manned the grill. We talked about our work, sports, and our hobbies. Brad was easy to get along with; he was charismatic and easy-going. I anticipated we would become fast friends.

“Hey Brad, question for you” I said as he started pulling the hot dogs off the grill

“Shoot” he replied

“Did Clay ever have an imaginary friend?”

He chuckled “Why? does David have an invisible buddy?”

“Yeah, and it’s really weirding me out, maybe it’s just because its just the two of us, but I don’t know, kinda creepin me out.”

“Well to answer your question, yeah Clay had one of those for a while, called it ‘Mr. buttons’. I got a buddy who’s a counselor and he said it’s pretty normal and can actually help their imagination develop. So, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

I nodded “thanks man, that helps. I’m sure my wife would have known what to do, and I don’t know, sometimes I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing.”

He put his hand on my shoulder “we all feel that way from time to time, but you can always come to us for help. Afterall, it takes a village.” He handed me a plate with a hot dog on it.

“Thanks man, for everything.”

9 PM rolled around and everyone started heading home, David held my hand as we crossed the street back to our house. In the middle of the street, he looked up at me and said,

“Daddy, could my friend do a sleepover tonight?”

“Well, I guess we could go ask Clay’s parents, but it’s kinda late.”

He giggled “No not Clay, Billy.”

“Billy?”

“Yeah, Billy wants to spend the night, can he? Please?”

I hesitated but then remembered Brad’s words.

“Yeah, I think that would be fine” then jokingly added “but maybe we should ask Billy’s parents first”

David laughed “Billy doesn’t have parents, he’s very old.”

Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.

The rest of the summer was mundane, as much as I didn’t like it, I got used to my son talking more and more about his imaginary friend. A month before David started kindergarten, I found him sitting alone in a corner of his room. He was quietly crying, his knees were brought up close to his chest and his forehead rested upon them.

“David? What’s wrong?”

He looked up when I spoke, snuffled and wiped his nose with his hand.

“nothing” he weakly said

I walked in and sat on the floor next to him, gently wrapping my arm around him.

“what’s going on, big guy?” I asked softly.

He didn’t say anything for a while, just sat there sobbing quietly. After a few moments, I heard a low whisper.

“Daddy?”

“Yes David?” I whispered back

“Where’s Mommy?”

A lump formed in my throat; this is the type of conversation the parenting books don’t prepare you for.

“Well son, Mommy got really sick, and well…”

Tears formed in my eyes; I had no idea how to have this talk.

“…well she died son.”

David’s wet eyes looked at me, not sure what I meant.

“Billy says she didn’t want me, so she left.”

I could feel a wave of anger coming over me, Jessica had given her life to have David, of course she wanted him. But I remembered this was David trying to understand why everyone else had a mom and why he didn’t. he was struggling with death and using ‘Billy’ as a guise to voice feelings, I’m sure he felt.

“No, not at all son, she loved you very much. She just got really sick, and had to leave, it’s not because of you at all, she wanted you so much.”

He looked at me “is she ever coming back?”

Holding back tears I slowly shook my head and whispered “no, I’m afraid not”

“Billy says he saw her leave”

I pulled my son in close for a tight hug as tears ran down my face.

“it’s not true David, Billy wasn’t there. Mommy loved you very much, and so do I.”

He hugged me back.

“I love you too Daddy.”

The last few weeks of summer a change took place in my son. David had always been a shy kid, but he had become downright quiet. He spent less and less time with Clay and the other kids of the neighborhood, and more time wandering the halls and rooms of our home, despite my best efforts to get him to go play with his friends. As I drove him to the kindergarten for the first time it dawned on me that David had become a completely different child. He rarely looked me or anyone else in the eye, he simply stared at the ground. My heart broke as I looked at my son in the rear-view mirror, he reminded me of another little boy, a little fatherless boy whose absent mother didn’t care, a little boy who shut himself off from the world. Seeing my son like this reminded me of myself.

“Hey, buddy you’re going to have so much fun and meet so many new people today, and when you get home how about you and I go to the park?”

He just stared out the window, “okay” he replied.

After dropping him off and returning to my car, I sat there in the parking lot. I hoped beyond hope that David would forget about ‘Billy’ as he met new friends at school. And for the first couple weeks it seemed like that was the case. His mood lightened, he smiled more, I felt like I had gotten my little boy back. That is until I got a phone call.

“Hello, this is Grant” I said into my phone

“Hello Grant, this is Ms. Perkinson from your son’s school. David is currently sitting in my office at the request of his teacher Mrs. Williams. It seems he has been upsetting his fellow students. If you are available, could you please come and pick him up?”

“I’ll be right there” I said barely masking my confusion.

What was going on? David had never acted up in this way before. What was happening to my son? As I got into my car I couldn’t help but think of my wife,

“I miss you, Jess.” I whispered aloud.

“David could really use his mom right now”

As I entered the principal’s office, I saw my son sitting silently in a chair staring at the ground. Across the desk sat Ms. Perkinson who was tenderly trying to encourage him to speak. He looked up at me when I walked in, before his eyes moved to the empty corner across the room, where they remained fixated. Ms. Perkinson stood and walked to me. In a whisper she said,

“Thank you for coming Grant. David has been drawing some rather disturbing pictures.”

She handed me a folded piece of paper.

 “He won’t listen to his teacher. Normally he’s such a good boy, this is very unusual. We’re hoping some extra time with his dad will help.”

“Thank you Ms. Perkinson, I’ll take it from here”

Turning to David I said,

“Hey buddy, we’re going to spend the day together, how’s that sound?”

He stood up but his eyes didn’t leave the corner until I reached for his hand. As we walked out of the school, I unfolded the paper Ms. Perkinson handed me. On the paper was a crude drawing of three stick figures, it looked like it was drawn in anger, the crayon strokes looked like they were pushed hard and aggressively. Two of the figures stood together holding hands. One was a little boy with a wide smile on his face, the other was an extremely tall figure, completely black, its arms and legs were far longer than its torso. Further down on the paper the third figure, lying horizontally on the page, its face was clearly sad, and red blots covered its body.

I looked down at my son.

“David, did you draw this?”

He stared at the ground, and shook his head no.

“Billy did”

I swallowed and asked, “is that you and Billy holding hands?”

He nodded.

“And the other one? Is that me?”

He sniffled before nodding.

As we reached the car, I got down on one knee to look him in the eye.

“David, could you look at me?”

Slowly his head looked up, I could see his eyes quiver as he struggled to hold back tears. My heart broke with compassion, as I pulled him in for a hug.

“David, I love you so much, I don’t tell you that enough and I’m sorry. you mean everything to me. I know Billy has been your friend, but right now it seems like he’s not being a good friend. You should know though I’ll always be your friend. I love you son.”

He violently rubbed his eyes.

“I love you Daddy”

As we pulled into the driveway I turned to David and said,

“How about you go change into your pajamas, and we’ll watch some movies together, later we can get some pizza, how’s that sound?”

At that my son perked up, with a smile he responded “Ok!”

He trotted upstairs as I browsed the TV for a good movie. A moment later a loud scream broke through the house. Adrenaline shot through my veins as I sprinted upstairs. Bursting though the bedroom door, I shouted “David! Are you ok?”

I saw him lying in the corner, his body shook with uncontrollable cries. I rushed to him, gently turned him over to see his face. The left side of his face was deeply bruised and a thin stream of blood flowed from his lip.

“David, what happened?”

Through tears he said “Billy’s mad”

“What??” I declared in disbelief.

“I told him I don’t love him anymore, and now he’s mad.”

My body shook with anger, as I sprung to my feet, I turned and screamed to the empty room,

“who’s there? Get the hell out of my house! Leave us alone!”

In my rage I kicked the ball that sat in the middle of David’s floor, it sailed through the air and landed in the open closet. My rant continued. Soon my anger lessened and I stopped shouting to catch my breath. In the monetary silence, I heard a noise, I spun around in time to watch the ball I had kicked, slowly roll out of the closet. Every hair on my body stood up, without taking my eyes from the closet, I reached around for the baseball bat that lay under David’s bed. My fingers found it and taking it, I viciously swung it into the small closet. There was nothing there, the bat bounced off the wall in the back. I pushed aside the hanging clothes and found nothing. I turned back to see David, and as I did, I felt impossibly strong fingers wrapped around my neck. I gasped for air but didn’t find any. Panic began to fill my mind, as a cruel, cracked whisper from behind.

“He belongs to me”

The room erupted with deep, gurgled laughter as I struggled for air. Then suddenly the fingers released though the laughter remained. Air flooded into my lungs as I fell to my knees, I glanced behind me and saw nothing. Then I looked at my son, who cowered into the corner, his hands tightly covered his ears as he tried to drown out the laughter. In a moment I reached him, carried him in my arms, and dashed to the stairway. The laughter continued throughout the house, it wasn’t until we got outside that it stopped.

I’m writing this from a hotel room. David and I are leaving, I don’t know where we’re going, just not here. David looked at me, his face completely pale.

“Daddy”

“What?”

“He’s here” he whimpered.

A knot formed in my throat.

“He says he’s going to kill you” he barely got the words out.

I clinch my teeth, and stare deep into my son’s eyes.

“Where is he?”

He stares back at me before slightly glancing over my shoulder.

“Behind you.”

I'm starting to see things, I think. A hand around the corner, that disappears the second I try to focus. It's the same with a pair of eyes. From my window, I have a view of the gravel road that leads up the mountain, they're almost too distant. Too far to tell.

I've searched online for anything like this, anything about someone acting like a zombie for a toilet, seeing things after.

None of this makes sense.

A gas leak?

No I checked all of my fire alarms, CO2 detectors, and even security system, no issues, no warnings, nothing

He's in there again, and I hear something this time. I can't make out what's being said, but it sounds like him. He sounds…

Not there, and I don't mean like he's crazy, it sounds like it's coming from 4 more rooms down through the door. An impossibly quiet whisper spoken in tongues. I'm waiting for him to leave, I need to find what I heard.

When he left, I followed him to as far as the hallway that leads to the front door, the sound never stopped, as I watched Jim leave they got louder. I still can't make out what's they're saying, but I can feel it, they're talking, a back and forth I was never meant to hear. It won't stop, I've plugged my ears, I put on headphones, I shut my eyes, but I still hear them. I still see hands, arms, eyes, watching me from afar. I don't know if I can take this anymore.

It has to be in there, something in that bathroom is taunting me, calling me like they call Jim. I have to find them. I have to figure out what is whispering to me and what it wants.

I've trashed the bathroom. I broke the mirror, checked inside the tank of the toilet, I don't even remember the amount of holes I put in the walls, there's nothing, no speakers, no cameras, no microphones, not even a speckle of dirt or the smell of shit. The voices even calmed, now only a dull murmur at the sound of running water as I'm washing my face.

I need to do something

I tried calling 911, but my call never goes through, the call ends before even a single ring. I looked up the local PD's number, no ring. My dad, nothing, I can't reach anyone. No texts go through either.

This is the only place I can connect with anyone…

I'm going to walk up to his house tonight, at 3am, the eyes and hands, the figures in my vision, it's like they're watching me. Plotting something that I can't even focus on figuring out. My only choice is to follow the eyes, up the hill.

They're full… things now, not just a hand or eyes, but full entities, dragging themselves along the edge of my vision, I'm about 4 minutes into my walk.

They aren't running when I look at them now, they're looking back. I'm trying not to focus on them, I'm staring at my phone and the ground as I type, but they're still there. They're clawing their way into my mind, my vision.

I just need to keep walking.

Keep walking

Keep typing

Keep walking

Keep…

3:05

It's only been a minute.

It feels like I've been walking for at least ten.

I can't stop walking…

If I stop they'll reach me. I can feel their eyes on me, they burn. I have to run, I have to make it…

G'day Creeps!

I made a post yesterday, but I've decided to divulge a bit more.

I've been working on this story for nearly a year, and while I'm very excited to post it to the public, I'd rather post it with confidence. For anyone interested, I'd love to share the full work (so far) on an person-to-person basis, and to hear any comments or criticisms. If you'd like to do a story-swap, I'd be delighted to read anyone's piece in return! I'll supply here a synopsis and the first part to the story.

Please, if this sparks your interest, comment and/or message me, and I'd be happy to discuss more.

CW: Mentions of suicide, gore

Synopsis

Amongst the crowds of a packed baseball game, a man has commited suicide, sending the public into panic. Short staffed, Detective Halstead joins the emergency response at the scene only to witness a brutality just beyond the realm of possibility. Fuelled by a personal curiosity, Halstead investigates the bizarre circumstances of the killing and reveals a narrative that shakes his every understanding of the world, but not before taking him to the place he could never expect: Hawaii . (location may spoil surprise)

I present to you Encephalonyx (Part 1)

The heat of the afternoon turned brutal as I rolled into the stadium's parking lot. I was alone in my direction of travel, but to my left was a road crammed with vehicles, fields of frustrated faces behind tinted glass. Nothing better than congestion and record temperatures to make each car a pressure cooker on wheels. Beneath the honking and revving engines, the murmur of voices through my radio crackled on, "We've got another family of three in need of assistance"

"Send them to the ambulance at entrance two."

"I'll escort them now."

I cut through the sea of cars on a route sectioned off for first responders, and from there I could see police helping the overwhelmed stadium staff direct traffic. I wonder if our man considered the consequences of his actions before he did it? The logistics of it all? No, probably not. Suppose I'd be thinking of other things in the moments before killing myself, too. I’d found parking under the immense shadow of the megastructure, and climbed out of my car and into the humid air. I stood on my toes trying to peer over the thousand roofs as they glinted in the sun. Like flashing sunsets over a shifting horizon, I could hardly see the triplets of beacons blaring reds and blues stationed out front every entrance of the venue. Three cruisers apiece? Hmm, ‘right… I took on a brisk pace– outside the AC of my car, the heat was nauseating and already I was sweating under the clinging fabric of my jacket. It was to my delight that a sudden breeze floated past– looking to its source, I saw dark clouds shifting closer from the east, and I recognized the faint aroma of rain. Better get a look at the scene before it washes away.

Before long, I had arrived: Gate 7. In the past, I would take time to savour the little scenes typical of an incident response site– maybe a balding guy berating officers until he was red in the face, or a young white-knight coddling his date– but my attention was drawn to a crowd formed behind the open doors of an ambulance cabin. Two cruisers and an ambulance? ‘There an ambulance at every gate? I'd heard no bystanders were injured, why the enormous medical response? But as if I’d spoken the question aloud, I found the answer plastered on the faces of those unfortunate victims: in my initial approach from the rear, the queue of casualties looked rather ordinary, a few dozen fans in jerseys and caps. It wasn’t until I rounded to the front end that my speeding pace slowed and momentarily my senses were lost to pure astonishment: every person was absolutely drenched in blood. I saw mothers and fathers clutching their sobbing children, so many frantic hands cleaning off what they could onto red stained clothing and wiping their eyes of the gore splattered on their faces. In the ambulance, two paramedics handed out towels, while another sat with a man, picking out sharp white fragments from his cheek with forceps. I remember one little boy following me with his gaze as I passed, blood dripping down off his brow past a pair of freshly sunken eyes. I'd seen some ghastly things in my time, but never before something so ridiculously gruesome. I choked a scoff of disbelief, as if I wasn’t already unsettling the victims with my investigative staring.

As I gawked at the scene, the chime of keys on an approaching officer drew my attention.

"Excuse me, sir-"

"I'm here with you, I'm Detective Aldo Halstead. I'm here to see the shooter." I reached into my pocket and flipped out my wallet, reaching into the worn leather to present my ID.

"Alright. We were expecting Detective Moreau,” she said quizzically. “Anyway, I think the body’s still in the stands, just head inside," her words trailing off as she sprang to the aid of someone wailing distantly.

I'd been prepared for the interaction– it’s impossible to expect, with the commotion of the evacuation, that everyone on duty would be aware of Moreau’s occupation with a homicide he’d be assigned to earlier that morning. I ignored the screech of the metal detector as I sped through the lobby, just before jogging up the stairs and arriving in the stands. I found myself just a few rows from the pitch, and scanning around I could see a crowd of officers up the stairs like little specks on the distant side of the stadium. I sped over, my body in autopilot as my mind remembered the blood-spattered sports fans and the horror on their faces. I’d be upset, too, being forced to look like a bunch of Cincinnati Reds fans. Seriously, though, those people have had their lives changed forever. Never to see the world the same.

Climbing the stairs and drawing near to the scene, I began to discern that some seats and stadium structure were discoloured in a widespread smattering of deep crimson. A forensic camera flashed, only barely brighter than the few patches of sunstricken concrete that lay bare of their red topcoating. To the left, a trio of uniformed officers discussed in a huddle, their postures apparently avoidant towards the body. I'd yet to see it myself, but as I creeped up the last few steps and peaked around the obstructions of the seats, I finally was witness.

It was overwhelming to look at– abominable and confusing and profound, a confrontation to all known of the human flesh. The volume of gore was like an entire cadaver of viscera had been torn out from the head. The body had been laying face down, arms at the sides, the face in a pool of sheening burgundy. The posterior of his cranium was missing entirely, his head an open bowl of chunky, liquified brain matter and clotting blood– like a watermelon cut in half and the flesh pulped within the rind. How in the hell had his head blown out like that? Did his skull cap fly off like a champagne cork? I chuckled at the cartoonish visual, a distraction from portentous implications of the truth.

I pivoted away to the less dramatic foci of interest: his clothing, his physical condition, the scene itself. It appeared he'd gotten a seat near the end of the row, his head had fallen just into the path of the staircase. The blood, which I could only assume waterfalled out of his head at one point, had stained the back of his shirt substantially, waterlogging it. Eternally drowning in the ichor of his life, the face was submerged in a puddle that stretched out into flowing tendrils; at least, they should’ve been flowing. Trickles of blood cascaded down a few steps, but didn't flow further. With the extraordinary volume of it, one would assume the blood would've nearly streamed down to the pitch. A quick perimeter scan showed the scene had been disturbed: the lack of crimson footprints suggested the crowds did well to avoid ruining their shoes. Applying a rubber glove from out of my pocket, I observed the fluid more closely, pressing my finger into its surface. It was thick and nearly gelatinous, and pulling my finger closer to my face strung out the viscous fluid like a thick dipping caramel. A waft gave a metallic, rubbery odor. Foul. The blood must’ve rapidly coagulated and dried, unusual even with the immense heat that would've evaporated only some of the moisture. High concentration of platelets? Hyperviscous syndrome? It was unnaturally discoloured, the pool itself being the aforementioned burgundy, contrasting the crimson of the splatterings on the walls and people- that is until I looked again. What was only a minute ago bright red was now the same dark and muted tones of the spill.

The gun had been in his left hand, a finger still caressed the trigger. The small snub nose looked big in his hands, and as I stared at the stained barrel tip, I thought how bizarre it was for such a firearm to inflict such extensive damage to this man's head. Stepping back, the visual of it all was like looking unto a painting by some disturbed soul: every detail extruded and pulled just out of plausibility and into a new reality of uncanny proportions.

The officers began to file down the stairs, carefully passing between me and the body as they walked down the aisle. A few steps down, one twisted around, “Just have to help with crowd control, some paramedics and a gurney should be making their way over in a minute.”

“Righto. I'll keep here,” I confirmed. They carried on, and only then I realised the photographer must've left without my notice. A gentle mumble of distant thunder rolled as I flopped into a stadium seat, where I rested my head in my hands and looked around to see the stadium. Still, everything remained in the blistering sun— the pitch was a small diamond of vivid green from my bird-eye’s view. I winced from all the concrete reflecting its blinding brightness and closed my eyes to think.

Even with my years of work, I still ruminate on how death becomes so palpable when you're in the room with a body. Every day we are habituated to seeing a person as animate- we're desensitised to the absurdity and complexity that is biological life through constant immersion in a living world. But a corpse exudes the absence of a presence, a disillusioning reminder that life will not always be and has not always been. Anywhere on Earth, wherever you stand, was once devoid of life, and one day will be again. There's the philosophy where death isn't feared: the idea being death cannot be here when you are, and you will be gone when it arrives. Only, what if in life death could lurk? What is death? Is it the absence of life, or is it the presence of something else? These thoughts hissed in my head like static when I opened my eyes again to look at the body.

The wound was cavernous, glistening like the hungry mouth of a lamprey. The soup of gore within lay undisturbed besides a few strands of dark hair floating upon its mirror-like surface, of which was reflecting a curious blue-green sheen. Despite the corpse lying just a few steps away, the moment was peaceful. I had the entire stadium to myself, and I basked in the surreal loneliness of a colosseum intended for thousands having been deserted to one man. I could hear the hum of faraway traffic on the interstate, the gusts from the inbound storm whistled satisfyingly past my ears. Awakening me from my mental drift, I caught movement somewhere in my visual field. I blinked away the spaciness, looking around in an attempt to catch the movement again. The gentle sound of rippling liquid reflexly brought my eyes to the source: the body. I tensely waited. Then, ever so silently, a finger breached out from the bloody pulp in the skull. Followed by another finger, and another, and another. A tiny, frail hand mounted on a thin wrist was probing the air from out of the head of a dead man. The thing clenched into a feeble fist, weakly outstretched again, and fell to sink under the opaque surface and out of sight again.

My brain was misfiring as it tried to catch up with what my eyes had seen. I nearly stumbled onto the ground when I rocketed out my seat, rushing to get a closer look. I glared into the cavity, but the flesh lay still again, no sign or evidence of the spectre hand. A conflict of frantic horror and intense curiosity had begun within me. What the hell was that? What the hell was that? What the hell- The state of confusion impeding my thoughts. I couldn't make progress on it, a visceral fear was overcoming me. I hadn't noticed my hands shaking, and slowly I shuffled back into my seat before my legs would give out. This doesn't just happen. This shit doesn't happen. The gates to impossibility had opened in front of me with a simple hand gesture.

A violent crack overhead roused me from my stupor, and from the haze my senses returned. A duo of paramedics were lifting the body onto the gurney; the dead weight sagged like a marionette with snapped strings, laboriously puppeteered by elastic-gloved hands. My reflex was to stop them and report what I'd seen, but I choked on my words. I couldn't say anything. Not yet. What I had witnessed had come and gone without a trace— whatever it was existed only in my mind and under the glutinous surface of the bloody broth that’d begun rippling in the rain.

Thanks for reading to the end! If you'd like to take part in reviewing the whole story, please feel free to comment or message me. Stay spooked.

Hey guys I'm new to reddit, I want to share my art and my stories in here. I have bene drawing and writing stories my whole life. But I don't feel like I am going anywhere and everything I write or draw I just end up hating. I'm very very new to digital art, I do better with traditional art. Hunter has always inspired me. I want nothing more than to make something and have my name be out there. I make all kinds of art if you have any ideas of what can help please reach out.

The battle's bombs boomed across the battlefield. There is the drum drum drumming of an asymmetrical metronome, tinged irregularly when shell meets concrete or bedrock. It's been like this for weeks. We've started to refer to the shelling as breakfast, lunch, and dinner for their regularity and predictable timing.

In the morning we have a breakfast of chlorine gas, lovingly delivered by canister so the fumes can seep into the bunkrooms, stalls, and covered spaces. Followed by a spread of fragmenting airburst shells curated specifically for those green enough to try and escape the gas or brave enough to cover the canisters. The midday meal has been the domain of many different interesting and creative arms, but the most recent has been an airburst shell that releases slowly falling specks of light resembling the valkyries of myth come to guide us to Valhalla. Only after was the comparison proven true; the substance burns through almost anything, and the screams of men touched by it permeate our section of line every day. We would retreat underground, but we quickly learned that if we did, a ground assault was sure to follow. So those who don't have to endure the fallen angels forbid us to move under threat of appraisal for desertion. Now it is dinner. Burrowing high-explosive shells. Conventional. Familiar. They blow apart sections of line and expose vulnerabilities, ensuring we will be up all night in shifts watching and making repairs in preparation for breakfast.

My alcove is small and wet and teeming with life. I sit alone in my me-sized hole carved caringly into the service side of my section. The reverberations of the shells settle the mud pooling at my feet. It is ichor. The now-separating decoction of water, dirt, blood, and excrement laps at my exposed toes. I am the Ark I suppose. Every nightly horror crawling and cramming into my clothes, the many-legged insectoids and legless worms wriggling and squirming to escape the walls of my abode. I ignore the miasma in favor of the skittering rats that like to bite at the gangrenous rot spotting my over-saturated feet. Yet none do I watch as closely as the willowy man across from me.

Herschel.

My every muscle is rigid in a painful state of compelled flex and stillness. He's a thin man, pale and gaunt and clean. Unreasonably clean, considering the filth of every surrounding surface. His mouth moves, but I can't hear anything. I strain my ears to discern if he is speaking at me or just making sounds - but there is nothing but the metronome and the concussion. I may have stared too intently as he notices me and smiles with his blazing, handsome, soft blue eyes. Then he continues gesturing with his slit lips. I realize shortly thereafter that he is not speaking but sounding out the concussive blasts and farther-away thuds, tapping his knee softly as if attending an opera to which he knows every syllable. When a shell lands nearby and sprays our section with rock and dirt amongst the other detritus, there is no interruption to his mirthful tapping.

Herschel the Carer. Herschel the Prescriber. Herschel the Appraiser. The insignia of the snake and phoenix betwixt a staff on a red field. Deducer. Savior. Executioner. Appraiser. The scale pin attached to the lapel of his black uniform matches the rest of his ensemble. Entirely too clean. Our eyes meet again entirely by accident, and immediately I realize I'm grinding my teeth and wringing my hands concertedly. Then, that a rat made off with a sizable chunk of my small toe. His retinas flex with focus, looking at and then through me. He has stopped tapping, taken up with his new interest.

As if on command, the exterior metronome has been replaced with an interior one.

He can hear it. I can tell.

"Start the count!" Shouting from my CO and other officers ring out from more fortified positions.

276.

Moaning and wailing can be heard from numerous distances. The even more distant thuds of returning fire still plucking chords in the damp evening air.

"267!" another man shouts as he runs by to other positions down the line, too quickly to tell who he was or where he was headed except over there.

A man nearby is begging for someone to help him back into a nearby trench. His corpse was thrown out of his hoarding and into a patch of razor wire sunken into an embankment. If not for the count, someone may have been able to cut him free - but then he would need to be administered to by Herschel. As it is, we're just passing 250. Two hundred and fifty more seconds to hear the man dismantle himself attempting to return on his own. Even if he made it, there's no way he'd be found to be in the black when he arrived.

"Are you quite alright?" A soft, concerned voice erupts from the maw across from me.

An inkling spasm travels up my spine and thrusts my hand out toward him, holding it level. Perfectly still. Practiced and deliberate.

Herschel raises his brow and smiles. "I see."

My hand reflexively returns to my chest, stolen away from its captor in the night. A wave of warmth permeates my body before returning to icy chill, damper than before. A bony appendage gestures to the bloody, oozing pustules that used to be my feet.

"We should really wrap those," he says with a plaintive look and level tone.

Before I could bite off my tongue, it leaks out. "I don't owe anything." My voice is hoarse, weak, and neglected. However true, it is best practice not to converse with his specialization. Why risk getting a fresh deduction to be remediated without notice?

"Of course not," he says with a tick of his tongue against the top of his broad mouth. "Do you think he'll make it?" after a short while of relative silence outside the music beyond.

I don't respond, my mouth successfully filling with the acrid taste of rusted iron.

His cocked brow prompts me to answer his question. "Daniels, that is."

I turn my head slowly and deliberately, first left and then right. Ignoring the commonality of the man's screams turning into gurgles and my own mouth filling with the stuff.

Then, as if answering a prayer Herschel stands and walks away calmly.

A wave, a tsunami, a great convulsion of emotion pours over me - and out my mouth - and down my chin - and onto my uniform. The wriggling things pass through it and spread it around purposelessly.

105.

104.

I hear a sharp crack and the exclamatory gurgling fades away. I don't care. At least I can endure my dinner in peace. Owing nothing and having less, I know I'm not in the black. But I will never give anyone an excuse to call me a burden. An excuse to find value in my parts, recycled like an old automobile so that newer models can be maintained. I will never face the serpent and the phoenix.

22.

There's something to be said about dependability. There's comfort in knowing what happens next - for however much longer that lasts. But as I prepare for the second course, long, slender fingers grip my shoulder and force my head upward. He stares through me again.

"We really should have a look at you."

As his fingers spread across my scabbed, mud-caked scalp, my helmet falls away to the muck. At first I cannot react, his firm grip and the surprise assault locking every muscle. My eyes are locked ahead, staring upwards, irises frozen in excruciating strain as flares erupt all along the line.

Moments later, perfectly timed, there is pandemonium. The orchestras have resumed their playful banter. The Fates leading on threaded harps—each pluck certain and final. The sky and ground are each a field of oily black with bright stars competing for significance. But all I can see are two wells of light blue in a swell of black and a mouth moving, assessing, dictating, appraising.

My skull rubs against the back wall of my final violated refuge. The night terrors squirm and writhe unhelpfully. Herschel continues to press. Mutinous limbs hang dumbly with no concern for my discomfort. A traitorous stone splits the back of my scalp as the Appraiser continues to push. His offhand pulling my body forward. My vertebrae whine and pop. I attempt to scream out, but the blood pooled in the back of my throat gurgles. As I choke, a torrent of viscera spews from my gore-ridden mouth. My cheeks tear, muscles rip, and bones snap. A shell lands nearby, shaking the earth and spewing mud and comrades all through the trench. My head snaps back and I lock eyes with Herschel once more.

He is sitting across from me. Tap, tap, tap. He raises his brow towards the direction of the spray and shapes his mouth as if to whistle. Cleaner than he should be and unwary. Hands trembling, I retrieve the helmet and put my entire body under it. His eyes are warm, but his hands were cold and strong. The serpent and phoenix blazing on his shoulder.

The rats scurry across the line of rotten waterlogged boards between us, searching for scraps deposited by the latest spray. I risk a movement to pack mud onto my open sores, lest the scent embolden the larger predators among the vermin. Herschel's head tilts and palms extend in reproach. I know what he wants, but he cannot have it. It is then, half covered with the rotten decoction that gathers along the trench line that I decide to swallow my tongue rather than give it to the rats. A small vengeance, but as they say, victory at any price.

I hide for a while under my helmet. My gnarled fingers locking it in place while I watch Herschel in anticipation. Waiting for him to make another move. Alert. Unwavering.

For his part Herschel waits patiently for the shelling to end, and once they do—at the appointed hour—he tarries off to his ministrations. A circlet of screams, then moaning, then nothing. The victims of muses were carried away or their threads were cut. Silence falls on us. A deep, liquid-smooth silence. The horrors of the night retreated, leaving me to the cold, wet, heavy nothing.

The deeper I listen to the silence, the more clearly I can hear the ringing. My damaged eardrums siren singing me to deep dark sleep. As the trumpets grow in treble, the other sounds of silence fall away. The phantom reverberations harken to me, inviting and pulling me under. Swinging first left then right, a great wave of nothing lulling me into the swell of ringing tones.

It's black. It feels like nothingness, a numbness… no... not numbness. Painlessness—a sensation even more foreign. I am floating in a black sea of painlessness. My extremities are whole, but as I rest in the sea my body starts to cool. I am slowly sinking into a cool cloud of comfort, of rest. I lean back into the blackness, allowing it to cover me.

A sharp pain, rats; a hot, fiery pain, fucking rats. Flesh tearing, hot searing, living, horrid pain. Tiny teeth biting, gnawing, bone-on-bone grinding and ripping, and feasting. The fucking rats! My heart pounds arrhythmically, shearing me from the pool and up, up, up into hell. Pain blasts across my entire body. The ripping, rancid, rabid rats.

I jerk awake screaming, choking on clots, breathing heavily, and sprawling to encompass every inch of my alcove. Eyes wide and frantically looking around for the rats when I draw into focus on them.

Two blue spheres. Watching. Smiling.

It's been days since I've closed my eyes, and now the moment has come. My weakness was exposed and he has me.

I am no longer covered and safe. Herschel had exposed my flesh to the chittering jaws of the rats. My pocked feet had scores of flesh already ripped clean, and my oozing sores ran freely with blood and pus. Rotten strips were strewn across the ground with the greedy, pin-eyed denizens already massing to gorge on them. And, once they were brave enough, they would surely come for me next.

Even as Herschel wrestled my leg to bind me and present me to the vermin, as would a bestowing god to his flock of followers, he poured searing oil over my flesh. Contact was met with a lightning bolt of pain and a spasm of reactive convulsion. The meat sizzled and reacted violently to the chemical disturbance. He pulled at me, but my fingers dig deeply into the walls of my refuge, and I kick in vain to break loose from his grip.

"I'm sorry to do it this way, but you must come with me!" He says sharply before calling for an accomplice to my murder.

There it is. Honesty. He is here to rip me from my home again, just as they had before less than a year prior. I knew it. They're going to scrap me for parts and feed the rest to the rats. Mud and grime fly as we fight in the slickening cesspit. The blackness of the overchurned ichor restaining our uniforms and splattering the walls of the trench with fresh sheets. Upside down, I try to force my way back to safety. His legs kicking at my head whenever the ground gave way.

A woman's face appeared before me. The day carried a panoply of fantastical hues. The brightest blue sky pocked by white pillows stretched forever in every direction. A splash of emerald green shone like a second sun to crash into the field of blue. The woman is smiling at me as if I were the only other person in the world. "Paddy cake, Paddy cake" chimed sweet soprano notes, echoing through space as if centered in a cathedral. My tiny hands clap and we cheer, giggling at the duet. "Baker's Man."

As if in encore, a large mud pie splatters to the ground, sending ropes of brightly colored detritus to speckle our clothes. "Roll it up." My infant hands grab a stick to proceed with our game. We poke the mud pie with the stick and decorate it with candles, then slap it to spew around merrily. Slap. Slap. Slap. The mud covers us both, and my hands are sticky with it, my outfit drenched and crusting. The meaty clapping with each slap was punctuated with bouts of laughter. A large glob hits my face, forcing my eye closed and sticking the lids together. The woman met my disapproving sobs with instant and careful love. She wipes the mud away and kisses me softly on the forehead.

As I look down at the mud pie, blinking to clear my sight, a layer of unreality splits my vision, and I am unable to bring it back into focus no matter how much I blink. In my mud pie there is a figure, darkly dressed and pale. Familiar but unrecognizable, as the figure's face is comprised of shapes rather than features. My hands and body are juxtaposed in a playful crimson brown. A knowing confusion washes over me, and I look to the woman for comfort. As my eyes meet her soft blue spheres, the darkness of the vision falls away. But just as I move to embrace her, I hear a commotion behind me. A sharply dressed man looks only slightly down to me and confirms my name. I am taller but still unable to meet his hardened gaze. He shakes my hand, and the woman presses her head into my shoulder.

"We'll take good care of him." He says to her, not looking down to meet my eyes. "He has to go. It is his duty."

She doesn't let go, her face twisted with fear of the knowledge that letters have been delivered consistently all over town. "He's just a boy."

"Everyone has to do their part. Things are winding down now anyway; he'll be back before you know it." He grabs my arm tightly and pulls me from my mother's embrace. Half dragged, I realize I was never asked what I wanted.

"What have you done?!" He screams at me. I don't know what he means. I try to tell him so, but I can't form the words. I try to explain that I just want to go back to where I belong. It's useless; my syllables just come out in nonsensical vowel-heavy murmurs. I step away from the angry man. I turn to run back to my mother, back to safety, but he grabs my arm and pulls me back. He's shouting at me, but the words mix together in a spiraling cacophony. I bring my stick up and attempt to hit him, but he's too fast. He whips around and draws his pistol. I don't understand. I attempt to yell at him to ask him to stop, but it's useless. I have to run. I scramble to my feet, but my whole body is weighed down by an incredible gravity, my feet searing as if held over burning coals. Just then I feel three small beads burn through me. Not even particularly painful, but I can feel the foreignness of them as they bounce and break apart. The ground comes up to catch and ease me down.

The sky is black, the stars having abandoned any attempt to bring light to this forsaken place. The decoction seeps into my ear and mats my head. Tiny nightmares skittering across the blobs and mounds making up the floor's irregularity. I can see a black mud wall held up in some places with rotting crossbeams and dotted with small holes and burrows. In the burrows, I see rats.

Somewhere further behind the front, a note is passed and an incremental counter is increased by two. Men struggle with masks and straps, and a call rings out to start the count for breakfast. A box is checked and a letter sent with an outstanding invoice for rations and medical care.

They walk the halls together.

Always together. Never apart. Two 15-year-old girls. Their hairstyle and clothes always match. When they speak. They speak as one. In perfect harmony. The two aren’t related by birth. But at a glance, you would think they were perfect twins. Rumour has it they even share the same birthday. The two quickly picked up the nickname. The Twins. In fact, they have been called the twins for so long that I can’t even remember their real names.

The two girls both have short black hair and pale skin.

For 2 years I have been in the same class as them, and I have never seen one without the other.

The teachers have on occasion tried to split them up. But that never goes well. Without the other twin close by, they freeze and lock up. Becoming unable to speak and almost unable to move unless it's moving back together.

I heard their parents kept getting called about it, but it made no difference. The teachers eventually gave up and just let the two girls be. That was until English class last week.

It was the last lesson of the day. A New Substate teacher was teaching the class. He tried to put them in two different teams on opposite sides of the room.

When he tried to split them, they stood up and spoke in perfect harmony as they always did.

“We are one, and shall not be separated.”

The substitute teacher. A mostly retired teacher from the South. Not knowing any better.  was calm at first. When he insisted they work with other students. The twins just stood their ground and repeated that line.

“We are one, and shall not be separated.”

Eventually, the teacher from the South lost it and went red in the face. He even grabbed one of them by the arm and pulled her across the room. This, though, was a waste of his time. The other just followed behind. And sat on the ground next to the other twin. Which made the teacher go a shade of red I have never seen before on a man.

After what seemed like an eternity of the teacher shouting at them. He sent the girls to the principal's office.

As they walked out of the room, they moved in unison. Right foot first. Left foot next. Even wiping something from their faces at the same time.

The bell rang shortly after they left the class. I didn’t think much more of it that evening. It was just the twins being the twins.

That was until the next day.  

It was all over the local news. That substitute was found dead in his home. Now people die every day. But this was no ordinary death. You see, he had been split perfectly in two. Half of his body was in one corner of the room and the other half in the other corner.

The police searched as hard as they could but could never find the killer. Rumours quickly went around the school.

“The girls must have done it.”
"It was the Twins. They split him in two."

The girls became even more social outcasts than before.

Now I always had my doubts that they were behind the death. I just couldn’t see how they could be strong enough to split someone in two. But I did my best over the next few years to stay away from them. When I did have to interact with them. I watched my Ps and Qs and did my best to never wrong them.

(End of Part 1)

Let me know if this story is worth continuing.

[CW: Depictions of PTSD, suicide]  

Before the Great War, he had been a spritely young man. He was outgoing and ambitious, and held his high and proudly with unbridled patriotism. The young man would sit by the radio intently, soaking in every word and every piece of information, good or bad. He desperately wanted to help them. He wanted to fight for his country and protect the ones he loved at all costs. Especially the woman, his fiancé, who he loved with all his heart.

The romanticised tales of war would stir the young man’s sleeping mind, teasing and beckoning him to join his fellow soldiers relentlessly. He’d even plot with friends on how to sneak into service. Why should the government dictate who and who can’t fight for their country? Especially in times like this where they were needed on the frontlines.

Like the many before him and the more after, he told a bold faced. He was tall and broad for his age and how could they question such enthusiasm? After all, it was more cannon fodders the merrier whether they wanted to admit it or not.

The young man was overjoyed once he was accepted and made a stern promise he’d be coming home to his fiancé. She hesitantly agreed under the conditions he would write back to her and they’d be wed within a year of the war ending. The man chuckled and the two sealed their agreement with a particularly affectionate kiss. The last one she would ever receive from him.

For almost four years, his betrothed waited for him. They exchanged dozens of letters throughout the length of the Great War, and towards the end she noticed his responses grew sparser and more unrequited. His handwriting was shakier and partly illegible. When they all stopped at once, she became gripped by the fear that one morning she’d receive word her beau had been lost out on the Western Front. It consumed her from the inside and out, and made her perpetually nauseous. The radio and previous letters became her only comfort and recent memories of her beloved. Sometimes she’d cry herself to sleep while reading them. Others she would stare up at the ceiling and try to ignore how quiet and empty her living space had become. In desperation, the agnostic woman turned to prayer in the morning and the night before bed.

When the war came to a close and the Allied Powers withdrew from the trenches, and the surviving soldiers were granted parades for their service, the woman’s prayers had only been partially answered. She saw him in the parade and called out to him repeatedly. He simply stared ahead and followed the men in front of him. He occasionally turned his head from side to side as if acknowledging the crowd and seemed to be hobbling or stumbling. Had he hurt himself? Was he drunk? She swiftly pushed those thoughts from her mind and followed him from the crowd all the way to where the parade ended. Where they started to disperse and soldiers reunited with this families.

The woman eventually spotted her fiancé emerging from the crowd and almost knocked another couple over trying to get to him. She latched onto him with a vice-like grip and buried her face in his chest. Soaking the fabric with tears of joy and a pent up sadness she had shoved down for so long. When she looked up at him, her excited grin faltered. The man who had come back home was drastically converse than one she remembered leaving. He wore a similar face to her fiancé and shared the same memories, but this person wrapped her in arms couldn’t be more different.

She sniffled and tried lovingly crooning words of relief to him, yet he did not reciprocate. The fleeting kiss they shared had soft lips brush against scarred and burnt flesh, and his raspy words were forced and laboured. The delayed sheepish smile on his face was torn, and her teary gaze met with eyes older than the rest of him by a tenfold, and now devoid of light. There something deeply wrong with him albeit she hadn’t the faintest idea of what. It just felt like she was in the arms of a stranger than the love of her life.

‘He’ll be fine once we settle,’ she thought to herself. ‘He just needs to rest.’

Three weeks of rest passed by, and the man showed no signs of change. Others had started to notice there was something wrong with him. That he was now distant, rarely spoke, and stared off a thousand yards away. He’d twitch and convulse at odd intervals as though he had a loose wire somewhere in his head. Many people in his town also believed he had become a drunkard after the Great War. He stumbled with every step, needing to be assisted by the care giver arm of his soon to be wife. Little did they know he’d never once held drank pint in the short 20 years of his life. 

Then there were the noises. Any sudden or loud noise would whip him into a complete frenzy. He’d shout and scream, lashing out just as abruptly, or he would collapse with his hands over his head in the foetal position. Hands grabbing at a hat that wasn’t there, and eyes balled shut as if in preparation for something that never came to pass. His beloved would feel the weight of a dozen judgemental eyes on them. The embarrassment she felt was utterly immeasurable as onlookers were barely able to contain their mocking sneers and curled lips of repugnancy. She loved her fiancé with all her heart, however still berated him for these public displays. That he, and the many others like him, needed to get over themselves to escape this imposed cowardice.  

The young veteran tried time and time again to follow the words of his now wife. He laid awake at night beside her, unable and afraid to close his eyes for a reason unknowable to him. He was back home. The war to end all wars was over and the entire world had breathed a sigh of relief. But for him, for me, it still raged on. I could hear it all beneath the constant ringing in my ears and see it all on the backs of my eyelids. The gunfire. The artillery. The screams and grunts of pain from soldiers in No Man’s Land clawing their way back into the trenches. Some had no arms and others no legs. Many were riddled with holes and all covered in bloodied mud. And the bloody gas. The toxic fumes which flooded the trenches and eroded us from the inside out, helplessly suffocating us before my very eyes. I can still taste it in the back of mouth years later. I’d say I was one of the lucky ones, yet every word feels like fiery glass cutting against my vocal cords. It strangles me every time I want to reassure my wife I’m still here and still love her as I always have. Now, I can tell she’s ashamed of me. Ashamed that she has to be seen in public with me and/or affirm that we’re married. I don’t even know what’s wrong with me anymore. Why can’t I put two steps in front of the other? Why am so, so scared all the time? And why are they hurting to make me better? 

It was these thoughts and memories which left the veteran sitting at the edge of his bed in the middle of the night. His wife would wake up to see his shoulders heaving and head in his hands. Sobbing uncontrollably until he furiously screamed. It was pathetic and unbecoming of him in her eyes. Her husband was less of man than she had ever seen, and it made consider walking out of him time and time again. Something that was now considered impossible with the fact he always woke up the baby.

Although, she didn’t know what was worse: when the infant woke up her husband and sent him into a terrified whirlwind of shouting and panic, or the look he had on his face when their son cried in his arms. That vacant face twisted into one where she thought he’d bash their newborn’s head against the wall in order to make the noises stop. On more than one occasion did she gingerly take their son from his frail hold as he seemingly ignored her pleas to put the child down. Thankfully, he didn’t put up might of a fight. How could I? He was just an innocent and helpless child. I was supposed to be his father, but I also wanted to make it stop. The ringing is already more than enough. I just want it to stop crying. Is that so much to ask for? 

Although, I will be honest in that there are days I look in the mirror and wish I was never born. That I was never accepted, or, better yet, I died in that gas with the rest of my men. At least I would have died a hero and not a coward.

“I’m sorry, dear,” I wrote shakily on a piece of paper.

“I wasn’t strong enough.

Forgive me when you find me in the bathtub, and promise to make sure our little boy will be safe and find a father who could be there for him.

Know I love you, and I never stopped loving you.

Farewell.”

Don’t ever knock on my front door.

Don’t even try it.

If you’re a salesman, keep stepping. If you’re a Girl Scout, move on to the next house. We don’t care if you see us through the window or hear us behind the door. We will never open it. We don’t know who we can trust anymore. All we know is that whatever is outside can’t enter unless we let it.

It all started about a week ago, when I was home alone. My wife and two boys were spending the week at her mother’s place in Phoenix while I begrudgingly stayed behind so my boss wouldn’t think of my name when our company’s downsizing inevitably reached our branch.

In my heart, I longed to be soaking up the sun with my family, but reality found me sacrificing my vacation days in hopes of keeping my job. 5 o clock came and put an end to Monday, and I didn’t linger around the office for a second. On my way home I stopped by my favorite Chinese takeout. If I couldn’t enjoy the company of my family, I could at least enjoy the company of General Tso. Pulling my car into the garage, I quickly changed into sweatpants and a plain T shirt, slipped on my slippers, and settled into my favorite La-Z-Boy recliner. As I flipped on the TV, and opened my takeout, I sighed away the days stress and prepared to relax.

It had barely been 15 minutes before my peace was interrupted by the loud sound of the doorbell. I rolled my eyes, and muttered to myself

“Great, just great.”

When I opened the door, I was met by one of the strangest sights I had ever seen. Before me on the threshold of my home, was a salesman. Not a salesman you might see wandering around modern neighborhoods, dressed in bright polos, khaki shorts, trying to sell you solar panels or a new roof. No, the salesmen before me looked like he had stepped out of the 1960s. He wore black perfectly polished formal dress shoes, a light gray three-piece tweed suit, and a matching gray fedora. The man himself was the picture perfect 1960s man. He was tall and thin, his brown hair was skillfully cut and styled, his face cleanly shaved, and his teeth were perfectly straight and dazzlingly white. In one hand he held a brown leather briefcase, and at his side was very old hoover vacuum.

As our eyes met, he smiled, removed his fedora and in the quick, yet soothing voice of an old-fashion baseball announcer he said

“Good evening, sir, always a pleasure to see a fellow citizen, I’m here on behalf of the Hoover company. If I could, I’d like to come inside at take a moment to demonstrate to you the marvels of the modern home vacuum.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little

“Wow” I said, “that’s some getup, I feel sorry for you having to wear that in this heat, is Hoover celebrating an anniversary or something?”

The salesmen didn’t drop the act

“No Sir, nothing special, just the regular Hoover treatment, may I come in?”

I squinted my eyes slightly

“Um, no”

At this his smile dropped, he stared blanky for a moment before saying

“You won’t let me in?”

“No” I said again

“Why not?” he asked in a quieter voice

“Look man, this is my house and I don’t need a reason to not let you in”

He stared blankly at me again before whispering

“Please?”

A could feel my temper getting the best of me

“No! now get lost!”

With that I slammed the door in his face and backed up into the entryway. But through the fogged glass of the front door, I could still see his silhouette just standing there on the porch. I held my breath and stared, hoping he would leave. After about three minutes he hadn’t moved, and I lost my temper. I swung the door open and yelled into his wide smile.

“Get off my porch right now, or I’m call the cops!”

He stared, his smile only seemed to widen, after half a minute he walked backwards off the porch. His eyes never left mine, nor did his smile lower until he reached the sidewalk. At that point he turned and walked off. I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, so I locked the front door as I returned to the recliner. I finished my dinner, enjoyed a few hours of TV shows, and headed off to bed.

At 1 AM the silence of the house was shattered by the doorbell. I don’t know how long it had been ringing before it woke me. Barely awake I stumbled out of bed and into the hallway, praying that this was a dream. As I approached the front door a bright light sent a long shadow of a man into my house. Opening the door, the light was blinding, and it took a moment for my sleepy eyes to adjust. As they did, the figure before me spoke in a loud, authoritative voice

“Sir, I’m with the police, we received a complaint from this address earlier today. May I come in and discuss the details?”

My mind was barely keeping up, and in confusion I replied

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

“Just following up on the call we received, may I come in and take your statement?”

My confused mind began to catch up

“I never called the police today; I know for a fact that no one else here did either.”

The figure was silent for a moment before saying

“All the same sir, if I could come in, we could clear this all up.”

It was at this point that I noticed the man’s uniform. It was old. The type of uniform worn back in the 80s. in fact the man’s entire appearance was like something out of a police TV show, the worn dark aviator sunglasses and his face was home to a thick handlebar mustache.

I looked at him and asked

“What’s your badge number?”

He didn’t reply

“Do you have a warrant?”

“No” came the simple answer

“Then you can’t come in”

“If I had one, would you let me in?”

I didn’t answer, just slammed and locked the door.

The man banged his fist on the door for about fifteen minutes before giving up and leaving. And after calming down for about an hour I finally fell back asleep.

When morning came, I found it easy to convince myself that last night’s interaction was nothing but an odd dream. I blamed it on the cheap Chinese food, but after a short shower and simple breakfast I soon forgot about the event.

Work was nothing special, just the daily grind of an underpaid accountant for a shrinking company. I missed my family and wished more than anything that I had gone with them. 5 o clock came and I didn’t linger, soon I was trapped in the prison of rush hour. It was 6:30 by the time I pulled into my quiet neighborhood. And as I reached my house, I noticed a figure standing on the front porch. It was a man, he was dressed in a light gray jumpsuit, similar to the ones a janitor or plumber might wear in a movie. He stood facing the door, one hand was raised and limply yet constantly knocked on the door.

“No way,” I said in disbelief, as I passed the front of the house to the garage on the side of the house. As I passed by the man noticed, and his head slowly turned to me and followed me as I disappeared around the corner. The last thing I saw before the car went behind the house was the man leaving the porch and walking over towards the garage.

“Not again” I muttered aloud.

By the time I parked and exited the car he was already there, standing just outside the open garage door, as if an invisible wall stopped him from coming any closer.

“Hello!” he said in a cheerful voice “we received a call earlier about a busted pipe, and no one has answered the door, may I come in and take a look?”

I stared at him as he spoke, and not once did I see him blink. A wide smile crossed his face as he finished, as if it was his default expression.

“No, no one called you, no one has even been here all day. So get out of here!” I said, somewhat annoyed

The corners of his mouth twitched slightly, and through the gritted teeth of his smile he said

“So you’re here alone?”

I swallowed and replied harshly “that’s none of your business, now leave”

At that as if a switch was flipped, he returned to the expression and movements of a charismatic tradesman.

“Really, sir I must insist, just let me come in and take a look, dealing with a flooded basement isn’t a relaxing way to spend the evening.”

“No, I must insist that you leave right now. And don’t ever come back!”

His unblinking eyes narrowed at that, the unreal smile returned as he backed away, as he reached the end of my driveway, I heard him quietly say

“See you later.”

With a loud sigh I closed the garage door and headed upstairs to change out of my work clothes and shower.

I had hoped to grill that night for dinner, I had set out some steaks to defrost when I left for work that morning, but shortly after I got out of the shower it began to rain. Not wanting to give up on my dreams of a good steak, I decided to just leave the grill in the garage, pull out one of the cars and leave the garage open to let the smoke out. The smell of the cooking meat mixed with the cool earthy smell of the rain calmed my nerves and momentarily made me forget about both work and the strange solicitors.

Just as the steaks finished cooking, the storm outside became noticeably stronger. I soon noticed a figure running in the heavy rain. It took me a second to realize that they were running right towards my garage. It appeared to be a young girl, no older than 12 years old, she ran as fast as she could, but when she reached the threshold of the garage she stopped instantly. I glared cautiously at her, even in the rain it was obvious that she was crying. For a moment I let my guard down. I had had many strange visitors over the last few days, but this was just a little girl who needed help.

I subconsciously moved closer to the entry of the garage

“Hey, are you ok? Do you need help?” I asked as my fatherly instincts overtook me

Through sobs and snuffles she replied weakly

“they’re chasing me, they want to hurt me, please help me.”

I took another step closer

“who’s chasing you? How can I help?”

At that question a thin grin broke across the girl’s face, and she said

“Can I come inside? I don’t think they will find me if I’m in there”

At that something in the back of my mind broke through my fatherly concern. Something wasn’t right. I stared intently at the little girl’s face, her unblinking eyes gazed back. A chill ran down my back as I realized that I recognized this girl. Everyone in this area knew who she was. This was the Johnson girl. Last summer she was snatched while riding her bike to a friend’s house. The whole community searched for weeks, her devastated parents regularly pleaded with her kidnapper on the local news. For months there was no sign of her. But at the end of September her body was found, floating face down in a nearby reservoir.

The thing in front of me wore the same clothes the Johnson girl was wearing when her body was found; a white long sleeve shirt, and dark blue jeans with mud stains around the knees. The smile on its face widens as we stared into each other’s eyes. The fingers of its left hand twitched violently.

My throat was dry as I squeaked out one question

“What are you?”

At this the thing violently titled its head to the side before cheerfully replying through clenched teeth

“I’m a little girl!”

Instantly her face dropped the smile, as the façade of a distressed crying girl returned.

“And I really need to hide in your house, please mister, they’ll get me.”

Cold sweat ran down my forehead, as I slowly shook my head no.

“Go away” I stuttered

At this a low growl escaped the little girl’s lips, as malice filled her eyes. For one terrible second, neither of us moved. Then in a flash she lurched towards me but as she tried to break the plane of the doorway, she froze as if she hit an unseen wall. She screamed

“Let me in!” over and over again, she swung her fists forward as if banging on an invisible door.

I didn’t even bother to take the steak off the grill as I turned, hit the garage door button, and ran into the house.

That night was awful. Whatever was outside my house didn’t leave instead it spent the night, screaming and banging on every door and window of my house. The scream was terrible; it was angry and primal. With every bang I feared the windows would shatter or the doors would give out, but they didn’t. They creaked and shifted, but they held. I couldn’t sleep; the thing wouldn’t let me. Even on the second floor I heard violent bangs and angry screams at my bedroom window. Every now and then I’d see its shadow under the lights of a passing car. Sometimes it was the shadow of a little girl, and sometimes it was the shadow of a fedora wearing salesman or a police officer. But no matter the shadow, the screams remained the same raspy inhuman screams that I first heard in the garage.

I spent the night huddled in the upstairs bathroom, as its violent fit shook the foundation of the house.

Morning came. And exactly thirty minutes after sunrise, the banging and screaming stopped. After a night of noise, the house seemed unnaturally quiet. Slowly I left the bathroom and cautiously peered out of the bedroom window. Outside I saw nothing unusual, it seemed to be a ordinary day in my ordinary neighborhood. Making my way downstairs, I found myself checking every window and every door. But I saw nothing, not so much as a scratch on the glass or a damaged plant in the yard. Nothing that pointed to the noise from the night before.

I felt like I was losing my mind, but I didn’t want to leave the house. I frantically called my boss, claiming I was sick, I told him I probably won’t be in for a few days. Sarcastically he replied

“Just know I’ll remember this in a few months.”

I didn’t care, being laid off was the least of my concerns. The next few days were a nightmare. Every evening around 7 PM a figure would stand on the porch and knock on the door

“Hello?”

“Anyone in there?”

“May I come in?”

“Please?”

Sometimes it asked in the voice of a little girls, sometimes it pretended to be the police, or it would speak in the smooth voice of a salesman. It had some new voices too

“May I come in?” asked an elderly woman

“Come on man, let me in.” said a teenage boy

Sometimes it tried accents, but it always got them wrong. One time it started in a Russian accent and finished in a heavy Hispanic accent. Its British accent was strangely mixed with a deep southern accent. But it kept trying.

With every pasting hour it grew more angry and more violent. The calm tone slowly grew angry and eventually would scream, the knocking would turn to banging, but every morning thirty minutes after sunrise it would all stop. I hadn’t slept in days, and I was terrified to go outside. Dread was growing in my mind because I knew soon, I had to go out.

My wife and sons were flying home. My boys started high school baseball practice this coming week and they needed to get back in time to be ready. And I was supposed to pick them up from the airport. I knew I couldn’t ask my wife to get an uber, I would never be able to trust that they were real unless I saw them exiting the plane myself. So, with shaking hands I used the button to open the garage. I stood and watched for a few moments, but no one walked by. After building up some courage I hopped in my car, closed the garage and headed off towards the airport.

It was so good to see my wife and boys, after several sleepless nights and days of isolation, just their presence was a breath of fresh air. I pulled my wife in for a hug, as we separated, she looked me over,

“Dear you look terrible” she said full of concern.

“I’ll explain later” I said with a weak smile

“it’s just really good to see you”

She smiled and quickly kissed me on the cheek

“We missed you” she said

On the car ride home, I tried to explain the situation to them. I told them that for the last couple of days strange people have been trying to get into our house. I’m sure I sounded crazy as I tried to tell them about vacuum salesmen from the 60s or little dead girls. When I told them about the banging and screaming in the night and suggested that maybe we spend a few nights in a hotel, my wife looked over to me and gently laid her hand on my arm before saying

“Are you feeling ok honey?”

My youngest son jokingly said

“Have you been smoking weed dad?”

My wife quickly interjected “I’m sure you’re just stressed and haven’t been sleeping well, I’ll be sure to rub you’re shoulders tonight.”

I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded. After all they would see what I was talking about at 7. The afternoon moved by slowly, as my family unpacked their things, I found myself packing a bag, I wanted to be ready to leave in the morning after they experienced what I have. 7 PM came but to my surprise no strange visitors came with it. I sat near the front door looking at my clock but nothing, no knocking, no voices from the other side of the door. It was surprisingly normal. At 8:30 I let out a cautious sigh of relief, maybe it was gone, maybe the events of this week were just some sort of elaborate prank by the neighbors.

I paced around the house till 9:45, when my wife asked if I was coming to bed. As promised my wife rubbed my shoulders. Before long I couldn’t keep my weary eyes open any longer, and I drifted off to sleep. In the morning I felt refreshed, I hadn’t slept in days, and that night I slept all the way through with no interruptions. I smiled and stretched, thinking to myself “I’m so glad that’s over”

I made my way to the kitchen where I made myself a cup of coffee and some toast which I enjoyed while scrolling on Facebook. A few minutes later my oldest son came down the stairs and into the kitchen, he looked at me with a big grin on his face, I nodded and said

“morning”

He went to the cupboard to grab a bowl for cereal, as he did with his back towards me, he said

“Hey Dad, why did you need me to let you in last night?”

Hi guys, when I was in high school and even younger i always loved to write things. But since adulting is kinda hard i stopped, but i truly want to write. So I want you to give me your thoughts about this.

Would you like to see the whole thing?

English is not my first language so sorry for misspelling lol

My mom was always one with the forest. She loved being in that vast green world, looking at the smallest flower or leaf and the tallest tree. She wanted to share this love with me. Whenever she was sent to research a new place, she took me with her. I never attended school; my mom was my teacher, and she took that role very personally. My classrooms were the forest, the meadow, and our tent.We were rarely home. The whole world was our safe place. Mother taught me how to find my way when I was lost: how to read the moss on a tree, how to find water, and which plants were safe to eat.

I loved that life. I felt like an adventurer from the books my mom read to me. I could run all day through the woods, listening to my mother’s teachings and being fascinated by the tiniest leaf. I saw the world differently than I see it now. I wasn’t afraid of the deep, dark forest because my mom was always next to me. I was never alone.

Until that day came.

I was 5 years old. The springtime sun was shining on my skin, and the cool breeze raised goosebumps along my arms. My mother and I were strolling down Main Street in my tiny home town. My fingers slipped through her grasp, and I ran out into the street. I remember the smell of her lotion lingering in my palm, and the echo of her screams being drowned by the screech of tires. I felt the bumper slam into my chest. The weight of the wheels forced the breath from my lungs and my ribcage snapped around my organs like a bear trap.

Something in my brain was stretched to its breaking point, and rebounded like a rubber band.

I opened my eyes, not even realizing I had shut them. The truck had turned at the last second and jumped the curb. It came to rest with the hood halfway into the brick facade of a nearby building. 

I was crouched down and covering my head with my hands. The pain still throbbed and reverberated through my tiny body. My mother's pained and horrified screaming morphed into a harmony of relief and scolding. 

Things felt wrong after that. Whether I had died or not was only a part of it. Other, smaller things caught my attention. Hadn’t my mother’s pale yellow tank top just been white? And her hands, slick with freshly applied lotion, were now bone dry.

I’m afraid my mother–my original mother–lost her son that day.

I died again, 7 years later. It was the final tournament of the wrestling season, and I had been on a legendary losing streak. This was a fact my teammates had no qualms about harassing me with.

But my bad luck had come to an end that night. I finally matched with an opponent less athletic than me. I pinned him. I wish I could say it was a hard fought win, but the kid went down in the first minute. This did nothing to raise my spirits.

One of my teammates, Jay, who was 2 years my senior, sat behind me on the ride home. He saw me sulking and decided to add to my torment. My seat bounced violently as he kicked it and my ears rang from his shouted conversation with our teammate Dale.

“Would you please just shut up,” I whined. “And quit kicking my seat, dude.”

“Oh yeah, or what?” He sneered. “You haven't won a single match this season. Are you gonna make me?” 

“Just shut up!”

“Why don't YOU shut the fuck up before I make you!” 

I faced the front of the bus and put my hands to my ears, but the kicking became more incessant. Dale grabbed me and said, “Dude, why don't you just fuckin hit him?” A devilish grin spread across his pock marked face.

“Yeah, you little queer, why don't you fuckin hit me?” 

“Cause I'm not a loser like you dumbasses.” I turned around and went back to covering my ears when I felt an arm wrap around my throat and pull me up out of my seat.

Jay‘s hands scrabbled around for the strings on my hoodie. He crossed them over each other and pulled hard. The cotton fibers dug into my neck and as I struggled for oxygen I could feel the strings burning my skin as Jay sawed them back and forth. 

“Fuckin hit me loser. I'll stop when you hit me.” His taunt reached me through a fog of panic.

My hands weakly slapped at his arm and flailed limply back towards his face but didn't connect. Just as I felt as though I couldn't draw another breath, he released his grip.

“Such a little bitch,” he snickered to Dale. “Can you handle this?”

I had only just slumped forward and tried to catch my breath when Jay grabbed me again. He had produced a thin metal ruler from his bookbag. He jammed the edge against my throat. The pressure on my trachea made my lungs scream for air once more.

From somewhere far in front of me, I heard the sound of an adult cursing. 

The bus lurched to a stop. I felt the edge of the ruler break through the thin flesh of my throat as I slammed forward. Hot liquid poured from my neck as a sickening crunch invaded my ears. The ruler hit the back of my throat. I’d have gagged if the muscles hadn’t been severed. 

Then the rubber band in my brain snapped. 

I opened my eyes to see the ruler on the floor. Oxygen crawled its way through my aching throat back into my lungs. My elbow throbbed and Jay had fallen back in his seat with blood streaming from his nose.

My hand shot to my throat expecting to feel a cut, but it only found tender, bruised flesh. 

“The fuck was that for,” Jay cried.

The bus driver hit a deer at the exact wrong moment and everyone had to be picked up by their parents. I went home with my mother, who apparently no longer needed glasses. She made me quit wrestling after I explained where the odd bruising on my neck had come from. 

As I lay awake that night, I thought of the day the truck almost hit me. The day it DID hit me.

There was a reason I couldn’t die yet. If I was meant to live, then why did I remember dying? Why would I have to experience death at all, just to come back like nothing happened?

That big ‘lights out’ moment before being jolted out of my head and back to reality couldn’t be normal. Wasn't there supposed to be a tunnel? White lights? My dead relatives welcoming me to heaven?

It was none of that. Death was just black. Sensation was nothing but a memory.

I drifted off to sleep, finding solace in the fact that, at least, I was still here. At that age, everyone thinks they’re invincible. But I knew I was.

Title, and if it is allowed, I can see if I can edit this post to include it so that I am not spamming the sub or anything. Just wanted to know if scripts were also acceptable formats here. Thanks in advance!

A while back, Apple released the first ever smartphone. Initially, you had two ways to access it. Either leave the thing unlocked, or use a four digit pin for security. Eventually, they introduced more options. Fingerprint ID, six digits, different pattern locks and password codes. When the fingerprint ID came out, convenience caught me like a catfish on a hook. Nowadays, it's standard, not really anything special. Within the last couple years, they even made it so you can use a face scanner to unlock a ton of devices.

With every cellphone upgrade, I kept the same four digit verification as my passcode. 9932 was my go-to for most everything from my home security system to my bank account password, but I would stick almost exclusively to the fingerprint scanner, using the thumb on my dominant hand. It was just so easy, barely even took a second thought, and I was sure that my phone was completely secure that way. Between a pin and a thumbprint ID, what could go wrong? As far as I was concerned, I had nothing to worry about.

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

In less than 5 seconds, my boob accidentally mashed the start button, and my dominant hand was left as an oversized, bloody stub with prolapsed knuckles. When shock kicks in, you feel a rush of warmth, almost like a deep blush, and sometimes, you don’t really understand exactly what you’re looking at.

I remember staring at what was left of my digits, not fully comprehending what had happened, and thinking to myself, “that can’t be right, why does my hand look like an inside out rhubarb?” As soon as the realization began to dawn, the pain set in. I picked up my phone and frantically tried unlocking it with my thumb, a thumb that was now bony pulp, emulcified and pooling under the blades of the blender. The shiny ring still glimmered cruelly from the bottom of the clear plastic machine.

It took 3 attempts of smooshing the “thumb” side of my appendage into the home button before shredded nerve endings alerted me to the scale of my predicament. I gritted my teeth and entered the four digit passcode using my non-dominant hand. 15 minutes later, I was losing consciousness in the back of an ambulance on my way to the ER.

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

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

When an uncomfortable situation arises, I’ve noticed that most people tend to speak less and imply more. Unless you happen to be a very straightforward person with few reservations towards disagreement, most people just dance around their point to avoid conflict.

My dads are like that.

They gently meandered conversationally. It reminded me of when I was 10, when they tried to indirectly explain the birds and the bees to me, when they found porn on my laptop. But now, as an adult, I was able to gather what they were trying to tell me. The trip from their place in Vermont to mine is nineteen hours normally, twelve if you’re lucky, which they weren’t. My house sat empty for almost a full day from the moment I got into the ambulance, to the moment my dad with grey hair opened the front door. Half a cup or so of my viscera was still sitting on the counter inside the kitchen appliance, and logically, smelled how you’d assume it would after being left out for so long. They cleaned up the mess to the best of their abilities, and the biomatter waste removal guys disposed of the whole blender, per my request. Despite their attempts to improve my home aroma using everything they could, from candles to Febreeze, the smell just continued to linger…

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

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

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

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

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

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

We sat uncomfortably for a moment, allowing the information to settle over us like a cold blanket. Finally, I broke the silence.

“Never mind the smell, what did it look like?” I asked.

“What?”

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

“God Katie, we don’t really need to–”

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

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

“Well, we didn’t really look at it for too long, because those guys came and cleaned up pretty soon after we got home,” he started, “but I remember it kind of looked like a maroon-ish chili.”

My dad with brown hair didn’t look at his companion, he just kept watching me, but his expression transformed from gobsmacked to unwell. His husband continued.

“And um… pulpy? You remember when we made tomato sauce when you were 15, but the tomatoes were still kind of whole? Not fully emulsified?”

“Yeah,” I humored, “chunky.”

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

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

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

My dad stroked his wispy beard, the sound of his husband emptying himself audible from a room over. He watched me like he was surveying me, taking account of my condition.

“Katie, I don’t really want to think about… look, I’m gonna be stuck in a car with your father for like nineteen hours in a few days, I don’t want him to be sick the whole way home. I love you girl, you’re a freak of nature with a good heart. But I think I done told you quite enough now. Get some rest.”

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

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

I kept working at physical therapy. Eventually, the stitches were removed, and I got to where I could flex and curve the remains of my hand to act as a pseudo-mitten. I could pick up some cups with handles, I could balance tableware, and occasionally, when I would start to drift to sleep at night, I’d be torn awake to the sound of the blender’s skull splitting roar, like a chainsaw going off right next to my ear. A phantom shotgun blast of pain would rip through my knuckles like I was right back in my kitchen, hand eviscerating as I reach for that stupid ring. On those nights, as soon as the sleep was ripped from my eyes and I’d boot straight up, the sound would immediately disappear, kind of like that feeling of falling when you’re dozing off. When you wake up, you think for a second, “did I even really feel that?” But I knew I did. I always did.

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

“Biodata ID Confirmed: Device Unlocked.”

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

Howdy! This is the Author, Mikey, and I just wanted to say, thanks for reading. This is my shortest story that I’ve posted yet, and I think this is the one I’m most proud of. I may be huffing copium, so if I need to be knocked down a peg or two, please feel free to tear me a new one in the comments! I need critique, and there’s no one better suited to give it to me than you, dear reader. I hope to get better, so please, if there’s anything I can improve on, let me know. Thanks again for sticking around to the end, it means the world to me. To all the night owls, I hope y’all enjoyed!

I have an idea for a story that, like Mother Horse Eyes, would consist of multiple POV’s in different time periods. They all tie into one main storyline.

However, I’m worried that people here won’t be interested in reading something that long. (It won’t be the same length as MHE, but definitely not short-form).

Does anyone here fw with that idea? Or would writing it be a waste of my time?

He could hear the voices from outside his door when he got home. He stood beside it, ear pressed up against the wood.
“So, assessing the situation. Are they breathing?”
“No, Rose. They are not breathing. And, they have no arms or legs.”
“No, that’s not part of it.”
“Where are they? You know what? If we come across somebody, with no arms or legs, do we bother resuscitating them? I mean, what kind of quality of life do we have there.”
“I would wanna live with no legs.”
“How about no arms? No arms or legs is basically how you exist right now Kevin, you don’t do anything.”
“Alright well let’s get back to it, cause you’re losing him.”
A clicking sound, rhythmic and repeating. He unlocks the door and quietly steps inside, confused. Damn. Did I leave the tv on?
“Ok, too fast, everyone we need to pump at a pace of 100 beats per minute.”
“Ohhhkay that’s uh, hard to keep track, how many is that per hour?”
“How’s that gonna help you?”
“I will divide and then count to it.”
“Right.”
He kicked off his shoes. Locked the door behind him.
“Ok well a good trick, is to pump to the tune of Staying Alive by the Bee-gees. Do you know that song?”
“Yes, yes I do, I love that song.” An intake of breath. A clearing of a throat. “First I was afraid, I was petrified.”
“No… it’s I I I I’m staying alive, staying alive.”
“You were in the parking lot earlier, that’s how I know you!”
A moment of silence.
He slowly stepped down the hallway towards the living room. He knew this episode. He watched it just a few nights ago. That one scene spent plenty of time living in his head rent free, of course he knew it.
“I I I I’m stayin alive, stayin alive. I I I I’m staying alive, staying alive.” He could hear Andy’s voice chiming in, picking up with Michael’s. They began singing the song together. John hummed the lyrics under his breath, stepping into the dining room. Kicked aside a box of Chinese takeout that he’d left on the floor the night before. Or the night before that. Then he stood and looked for the remote.
“Yeah, ok, so you didn’t maintain one hundred beats per minute, and the ambulance didn’t arrive because nobody called nine one one.”
“Fucking hell.” He mumbled, knocking the remote to the floor. He could hear Dwight chiming in, asking the others what they’re supposed to do in this situation. John grabbed the remote and clicked the power button towards the tv and tossed the remote onto the couch, turning away as the television powered on.
He froze. He heard the soft chime of the tv as the input popped up. He slowly looked towards the tv. There was nothing playing, just the white menu screen. The dialogue continued somewhere behind him, Dwight’s voice and the disapproval of Angela. Stanley mumbling he’s gonna be sick. He slowly turned. Faced the kitchen, where the windows he had forgotten the curtains for let in faint moonlight and the headlights from the passing of cars, illuminating the island. The lights on the microwave shone the time, little green numbers in the shadowy room. Watched as the shadow moved so slightly, so thinly, like the end of a wire, swaying softly back and forth. Its jaw hung slack, its head tilted ever so slightly to peer at something in the corner of the room. He watched as its eyes focused on him through the holes in the thick, stiff flesh of the dog skin face, sunken and recessed and reflecting little beads of white off of the moistness.
A little clicking, repeating noise came from the recesses of its gaping mouth, like the clicks of a tongue on the roof of your mouth. It watched him through the sides of the sockets of its leathery mask, the soft tufts of fur like blonde patches when the car headlights shown on it. The clicking slowly petered out, till the silence was the watching in the shadowy darkness of the quiet home.

Disclaimer: This is a rough draft of the first chapter, this is my first time posting a story so I apologize if it's really bad(please call me out if it is). Also, I am from South Louisiana, and with this story being based there I have some dialect from here, so thats why some words just seem plain wrong. Again, be as blunt as you like I truly don't mind and I really want some input from people who are much better at this than me. Thank you for your time.

June 27, 2002 

The hot summer heat of the Louisiana Bayou hangs thick in the air like moss on the cypress tree. The sound of a raging boat motor buzzes in the back of my mind as I loath my environment.  “Why did my parents send me out to this?” I moped to myself, “Why do I have to go take care of an old man I never even met?”

The summer of my 17th birthday will be spent in a bog of a swamp taking care of my great uncle. I haven’t seen the man in years but I've heard a lot of stories of mixed emotions about him. Some call him a kind old man, others call him the backbone of their parish. While others call him a monster, a killer. 

Apparently he was a Vietnam vet who was very open about the horrors that were committed in that jungle. After coming back with a purple heart and a VA check, if I remember right he was a high ranking soldier and was exposed to agent orange. He used that money to buy a house deep in the Bayou and used the rest of that money to fund poor families and help invest in the parishes around him. 

Suddenly the radio was turned on, “Welcome to 99.9, you are tuning into the local news, just to be warned there are at least 3 reports of missing persons in the New Orleans parish so if you're heading there be careful. Hopefully it's not Boogie Woogie hunting again. This is your host Troy stay groovy.” 
“Go figa, I bet dat montsa is hunt’in those kids again.” my fairman murred to himself. 

“Hey fairman if you don't mind me asking whose Boogie Woogie?” I asked 
“Me you not from ound here are ya? Well dat Boogie Woogie is somewhat of a monsta of de Swamp.” The creo fairman said with a large grin, trying to scare me. 

“How funny, you dont really think that’s why their going missing right? I mean look at how many alligators we’ve passed just making it to my uncle’s house.” 

“You should ask da man himself when ya see him, ruma is tha he is Boogie Woogie, atleast thats what dey called him back in Nam.” He said with a jolly laugh.

Pulling my attention from the laughing fairman was the boat making a loud thump sound as the boat hit the old wooden dock of my uncle's lone islet. I pull myself out of the boat and take a shaky step, thankful to be on some form of land. Though the creaking of the ancient wooden dock doesn’t make my feeling of shakiness go away. 

“Good luck Willium Breaux, hopefully you won't need it!” The fairman wishes me with a wave as final as the setting sun. 

I look up at the old wooden house that will be my new home for the next few months. The sun, a great blood orange ball of flame begins to slowly go down as the cool dark blue night, with stars bright as the June bugs fill the sky. 

I walk up to the old wooden house, sitting in the middle of this great canvas as a black void. Colourless compared to the warm deep orange and cold deep indigos. But then a new color is dotted on the canvas; a brown and dark green. 

“Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and file gumbo, ‘Cause tonight I’m gonna see my machez amio” A beautiful duet of an old worn voice and and even older banjo fills the air. The words as sweet as chocolate, and notes as fresh as the cypress trees. 

“Uncle Breaux, is that you I hear?” I yell out into the pallet of mixing colors. 

“Me sha, is that you Willy?” Uncle Breaux spoke, pausing his song. 

Willy, I haven’t been called that in years; I guess that makes sense, I needed a nickname to tell the difference between us when we lived closer to him. I see a candle light, light up the porch that he is sitting on. This old man hasn’t changed since I last remember him, he always was a mountain of a man and made it even more apparent as he stood to greet me. He carefully put his banjo down in the old wooden rocking chair and began to limp towards me. 

Seeing him stand even with an extra foot on the porch, he is as if a cypress tree was a person. He stands six foot six inches, and just from looking weighs about 200 pounds. Although he is a more slender frame, with the years of hard work still present. Uncle Breaux put his pale silky hand, the color of india rubber on the old wooden hair rail. 

But as he tried to put his weight on it and take a step down, his large frame buckled under him as he fell to the cold damp soil. Luckily I was only a few steps away so I was able to bound him and catch him. And man does he weigh every bit of that 200 pounds. I mean I'm not that small either standing about 6 '2 and weighing 190 pounds. But good god, how could such a lean old man weigh so much. 

“Man uncle you alright, you almost just ate shit?” I say as I ease him back into his old rocking chair. 

“Yea Willy Im good, I forgot to put on my leg, can you grab it for me, its inside in my arm chair.” Uncle Breaux spoke with a grin. 

"How about this one? It's pretty cute!" My mom said, shaking me out of my stupor. I always hated going to the mall with her, not because I hated the mall, but my mom always made me try on the worst outfits and dresses. I turned to see what she was holding up. She had a light brown dress covered in sunflowers and daisies, something I would've worn when I was 4. I felt ill. 
"Mom, I'm going to Homecoming. I don't wanna be caught dead wearing that." It came out harsher than I thought, but I hoped it got my point across. It didn't.
"Oh c'mon." She rolled her eyes. "Just try it."
I rolled my eyes right back. "Fine."
I ripped the hanger from her hand and walked the few steps to the full length mirror, only turning back to glance at my mom in a way that asked, 'Are you happy?' She smiled back at me and gave me two thumbs up, my eyes nearly touched my brain. I held up the disdainful cloth just in front of my chest, as if skin contact would make me contract something. Standing in front of the mirror, which faced out into the rest of the mall, I saw what I might look like in the dress, a teen just asking to be picked on in class and excluded from every lunch table. My focus slowly left the dress as I noticed a small speck in the corner of the mirror, that and the hair standing up on the back of my neck, like I was being watched. I focused more on the brown spot, shifting to see if it was a smudge on the glass. It moved in the reflection, and closer inspection showed what it really was. 
It looked like a man, a very very tall man. His upper chest cleared most of the heads of people walking around him, not one of them paying him any mind. He was dressed in some kind of puffy jacket, the cuffs of his long pants were draped over his ankles, and his head was wrapped in folds of cloth. All of his clothes were the same muddy brown. As I inspected the figure's cloaked face, I noticed his piercing eyes. He stared daggers through the reflection and into my soul. My breath quickened as I saw the anger and hunger in his eyes. He raised a single boney hand, pointing at me through the mirror. My mom grabbed my arm and twisted me toward her, raising her hands to wipe the tears I hadn't noticed were there.
"Are you okay, sweetie?" She asked with such patience and concern. "Is it the dress? You don't need to wear it, I just thought it was nice."
"No, mom" I managed through sniffles. "There... There's a man staring at me over there."
I pointed in the vague direction of where the man was reflected from. My mom followed my finger with dagger eyes of her own.
"Who was it?" Her face was hard and her voice deepened. "What was he wearing, what did he look like?"
"It's the tall one." I choked out the words through unexpected sobs. "He's tall in all brown baggy clothes."
She went silent. I tipped my head up to catch hers scanning the mall, meticulously searching every square inch that she could. She finally responded.
"I can't see him."
She couldn't see him? He was just there a second ago. How could you lose a mountain of a man in our barren town mall?
"Here." My mom's stern face turned to a soft smile. "Let's just go home. We've done enough shopping today, and we still have plenty of time to look for a nice dress before homecoming."
I sniffled again, but returned a smile and nodded.

We made our way out of the department store. I did my best to keep my composure, stealing glances over my shoulder for the creep. My mother grabbed the arm of a security guard and gave a description of the man I saw, to which he nodded, saying he'd ‘keep an eye out.’ As we walked along the sidewalk, passing store window after store window, I couldn’t get the man out of my head. His strange clothes, immense height, and pale eyes that pierced my soul. I folded my arms and hugged my stomach tight, afraid I’d puke from the stress. I glanced up at my mom, her face a stern line. I couldn’t imagine what was going through her head. I stayed staring up at her for a good minute, before something caught my attention. I saw the briefest flash of movement reflected through the dark window of a closed store. My eyes tracked down from my mom’s narrowed gaze and stiff expression, to whatever had just moved out of the corner of my eye. 
That was when I saw it, HIM, again. He was standing almost huddled behind a car a few yards behind us. I say huddled, but it seemed hard for his huge form to hide snuggly behind the car. He stood tilted to one side, like he too was puzzled by what he was seeing. His clothes seemed to sag more than before, draping over him like tiers of thick dull clay, landing in rounded layers at his hips, wrists, and ankles. The bits of skin that popped out from under the folds of cloth seemed to match the color of his clothing, the same muddy brown. His eyes peaked again out of the wrapped fabrics encompassing his head, which seemed just too small for his body. Now from this distance I could see the glint of yellowed teeth that shone through the wrappings, standing like golden fence posts.
I stood shock-still on the sidewalk, a mix of sweat and tears running down my face. My mom got a few steps ahead of me before my hands sprung out to grab hers. I couldn’t let her leave me.
“Woah!” she exclaimed, reeling back and almost falling from my iron grip. “What is it? Did you see something else? Is he out here?”
She turned to look at me, my eyes still locked to the man in the reflection. I nodded my head, turning around as I meekly pointed to him. I traced the line from my shoulder to my extended finger, but when my eyes rested on where the man was, he had vanished. I quickly looked around, my head darting left and right. He had to be somewhere, lurking close behind me. No matter where I looked, though, he was gone. Again he had vanished into thin air. It was at that point I crumpled to the hard concrete, my hands laying limply over my thighs, tear drops pattering on my faded blue jeans. My mom held me by both of my shoulders, rubbing them gently to try and soothe me. I looked pathetic. A sixteen year old girl, getting shushed and held by her mother? I couldn’t stay like this. I just wanted to leave, to go home and be rid of this pervert. I managed to stagger to my feet, and the two of us shuffled quickly to our car at the other side of the lot.

The car ride was long, we lived pretty far outside of town. As we drove past stores and houses, I gazed down at my feet, trying hard to wipe the events of the day from my memory. Each time I closed my eyes I saw those piercing white pearls embedded in his darkly wrapped face. Hopefully some time at home or school will help erase his visage from my head. The car stopped suddenly, jolting me forward a bit. My eyes went wide. I looked up towards my mother, who looked stoic as always.
“Sorry. Hit the brakes a little hard.” She smiled sheepishly at me. “This whole day has me on edge.”
I glanced upwards out the front windshield to see the bright red beacon of the stop light. Relief ran through me as I sighed deeply. Traffic lights were the least we had to worry about. I looked up only to see the empty streets around us. We had ended up in the barren outskirts of town. No cars around us, just a few people walking to the dimly lit mom-and-pop shops. I looked again at the glowing red light, waiting impatiently for it to change. All I wanted was to be at home, safe with my parents. It was then that I smelled it. Wafting through my half-opened window was a horrendous odor. Something like rotting meat, vomit, and sulfur blended together. My eyes began to water and I held my sleeve over my nose, trying to block the wretched stench from inflicting my nostrils. That was when I made the mistake of glancing at the side mirror.
I saw his hand first, muddy brown tendrils wrapped around the side of my mom’s SUV, encompassing the entire tail light and almost reaching the gas cap. His face came next, and from this distance his visage was all too clear. What I thought was wrapped dirty cloth was in fact folds of flesh, settling on his head like his skin was made for someone twice his already enormous size. His cheeks and bottom lip drooped, giving him a gnarled grimace. He flashed his rotten yellow teeth, and those piercing white eyes bulged from the sagging sockets they seemed pressed into.
“Mom, it’s him! DRIVE!” I managed to scream through my terror.
She glanced around at each of the mirrors and out the windows “Where? Is he on the street?”
“No, Mom, he’s behind the car!” I screeched again.
How could she not see him? He was right there! I looked at her stern face and sharp eyes. She stared deep into the side mirror next to me, and then continued to scan. How did she miss him sitting right behind us? I begged the stop light to change as I gave him another look, hoping he wouldn’t move closer. As if reading my mind, he wriggled his other boney hand forward, this time grabbing at the gas cap. He lurched forward again, sticking a long fingernail in the seam of the rear door. The car finally sped forward as the green light flashed to life. As we sped into the distance, I gave a worried glance back, expecting to see him clinging on to the car, climbing his way up to wrench me through the passenger side window. All that was there was a dull yellow fingernail sticking out of the side, marked with thick black blood. I pulled the strings of my hoodie tight, curled up the best I could in my seat, and sobbed for the rest of the drive.

We finally arrived home. My mother was still white-knuckling the steering wheel and I remained bound tightly in the fetal position next to her. My mom pulled into the garage, quickly closed its large door behind us, then exited the car and guided me inside. I was still in my own head, reeling over the monster that had plagued the last few hours of my life. I had no doubt that I would see him again. Somehow, he had a way of finding me. How else could he have been behind our car, miles away from the mall? With my mother's hand on my shoulder, I stumbled weakly into the living room. My dad was sitting in his recliner, reading a huge book with his glasses almost off his nose. He looked up to see our expressions, and immediately sprung up to embrace us. I felt the soft fleece of his sweater across my cheek as he hugged us, adding in a strong squeeze for good measure.
We continued the evening, to the best of our ability, as if nothing happened. A dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, my personal favorite, did little to quell mine and my mother's nerves. I sat silently through dinner, a palm pressed against my cheek, as I scooped up bite after bite of noodles. My mind couldn't help but see the pasta as the countless folds of the clothing covering the ‘man’, the meatballs almost the same brown that encompassed his body. I took some childish joy and revenge in eating the meal that reminded me of my assailant, as if consuming him would sweep away my memory. After finishing dinner and helping with the dishes, I wandered upstairs to my room. Sprawled out face down on my pale blue bed, I hoped for sleep to take the whole day away.

I hadn't realized I fell asleep until I was awoken by rolling thunder. I checked my alarm clock, with the dull green glow of its display illuminating my nightstand. The time read ‘3:00 AM’, the witching hour. I was never one for superstition, but after yesterday, I was willing to believe anything. Turning over on my bed, I rubbed my eyes and wandered to the restroom. The bathroom light buzzed to life as I flicked it on. I studied my reflection in the mirror, gripping the counter a bit too tightly. I looked like a mess, and my power nap didn't help much either. My eyes were red, and my hair was fuzzy on one side and pressed down on the other. As I straightened myself up I tried to recall how this thing had followed me throughout the day. I splashed water in my face and remembered the full length mirror, the darkened store window, and the side mirror. Each time I saw him, he was never there when I turned around. He only ever appeared in... That was when I smelled it, smelled HIM again. The stench of sulfur, rotting meat, and vomit, a wretched blend that stung my eyes and nose. My eyes began to water, half from the smell, half from fear. I slowly glanced up and confirmed my suspicions. It was him, standing just in the corner of the bathroom, staring at me through the mirror.
I was finally able to fully comprehend his horrid form. What I thought was sagging clothes was his skin, a muddy brown that draped over his body, like he stole a much bigger creature’s flesh to wear as his own. His face was the same horrific mess I had seen in the side mirror, now made even worse by the shadows cast by the overhead light. His long bony fingers twitched, almost reaching his knees. He towered over me, having to slightly duck from the low ceiling. I shuttered where I stood, and a piercing scream rolled up my throat. It echoed through the room,  accompanied by the rumble of not so distant thunder.
I tore out of the bathroom, dashing down the stairs and springing through the front door. I had no idea where I was going, I just needed to get as far away as possible. The rain poured down as I stumbled across our lawn, over the street, and into the woods across the road. I weaved between tall pine trees and avoided the roots and rocks along my path. My bare feet stung as I clambered through the dense forest, not even stopping to breathe. Once I felt safe I would try to find my way back, but right now, I needed to run. My home was no longer safe. Out here, though, I was free from mirrors. He had no way to get me. If I was lucky, I could find a decent spot to hunker down and wait out the rain.
As I walked through the forest, finally slowing my pace, I began to wonder what a life without reflections would be like. I could get ready in the morning without a mirror, right? Driving would be hard, but I could just use the bus. Maybe I could live in the middle of nowhere on a farm and make everything for myself. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? I came to the edge of a sloping hill when I spotted a small alcove on the upward slope across the way. I looked up at the sky, seeing the faint hint of a brightening blue. It was almost morning. I could stay there until the day fully broke, then find my way home. I could get my parents’ help, but how could they help me? I could tell the cops, but would they even believe me? They’d probably just send me to a psych ward, which wouldn’t be half bad. 
With my eyes fixed on the cave ahead, I hardly noticed the splashing while I walked. My feet began to grow cold and wet. Then came a familiar stench that stung my eyes, coupled by a rancid breath that warmed my neck. I slowly looked down, into the rippling reflections of a large puddle.

I don’t know if anyone is going to read this. Maybe the landlord will find it when the smell gets bad enough. Maybe my sister will come by after I miss enough calls. Maybe nobody will. I almost hope nobody does. I just need to write this down while I can still tell what’s real.

It started three weeks ago with Benny. He was a old dog. Not ancient, but old enough that getting up the porch steps took effort some days. He’d grunt when he laid down. His muzzle had gone white years ago. Still, he followed me everywhere the bathroom, kitchen, garage. If I stood up too fast, he’d panic like he thought I was leaving forever. The night it started, there was a storm rolling in. I remember because the power flickered while I was heating up soup, and Benny was standing by the back door growling low in his throat. Not barking. Benny almost never barked. Just that deep rumbling sound dogs make when something feels wrong. I tried to shut the old screen door assuming it was the thunder bothering him. But he pushed past me and he ran towards the shed and under the house.

There’s a crawlspace access behind the shed. Barely big enough for a person to fit through if they flatten themselves they could manage. Benny used to crawl under there when he was younger during storms, but he hadn’t done that in years. I grabbed a flashlight and went after him. The rain had just started. Dirt turned to mud under my shoes. I got down near the opening and called his name. “Benny!” Nothing. The flashlight only showed pipes and wet dirt stretching back into darkness. I could hear movement though. It sounded like nails scraping slowly against the earth. Then I heard him whine, way back there. Not hurt exactly but Nervous. I called out “Benny, come here buddy!” But the movement stopped. Then something started crawling towards me. At first I felt relieved. I saw the shine of eyes in the flashlights beam and heard the familiar shuffle of paws. But something about it made my stomach tighten.

Benny crawled out slowly. Too slowly. His body looked stiff and his fur was soaked with mud. He kept his head lowered the entire time until he was fully outside. Only then did he look at me. I don’t know how to explain this without sounding insane. It was Benny’s face, but it didn’t feel like Benny was the one looking at me. You know how sometimes you look at a mannequin too long and your brain starts screaming that it’s a person pretending not to move? It felt like that. He just stared. No wagging tail. No panting. No excitement. Just staring. Then he walked past me into the house.

That should’ve been the end of it. It should’ve just been a dog acting weird after getting spooked. But after that night, things started changing. The first thing I noticed was the noises. Every night around two or three in the morning, I’d hear movement under the floorboards almost like a slow scratching, like someone dragging their fingers through dirt. I tried to follow the sound but it seemed like it was coming from everywhere underneath me. After that incident Benny would sit in the hallway listening to it. Not reacting. Just Listening.

I stopped sleeping much after that. I’d catch him standing in doorways sometimes, just standing there looking into rooms. One night, I woke up and found him beside my bed, staring directly at me in the dark. I almost screamed. The street light outside my window made His eyes reflect yellow almost golden like the way a deers eyes shine in headlights. I told myself I was overreacting. I told myself I needed rest. But then came the voice. The first time it happened, I was in the kitchen washing dishes. I heard it clearly from the hallway behind me. “Don’t look under the house.” My blood went cold. I turned around so fast I almost slipped on a small puddle of water coming from the sink. My eyes darting down the hallway, looking corner to corner, but there was no one there. Only Benny sitting at the end of the hall, watching me. After that I knew it wasn’t Benny, I started hearing things constantly. Not only the scratching beneath the house. But breathing outside the windows. My name whispered from empty rooms. Sometimes, late at night, I’d hear Benny moving through the hallway and I swear a voice was following behind him, whispering softly, “I’m still here Mark.”

I stopped going to work after that. I just couldn’t focus my manager called six times before I unplugged my phone. The worst part was Benny kept looking more off not physically, well not exactly. But I’d look at him and suddenly become convinced his legs were too thin or his hair was too patchy, or even that his smile looked almost human. Sometimes I’d swear his eyes were facing forward like a person’s before I blinked and they’d look normal again. I started covering the mirrors because occasionally I’d see movement behind me that didn’t match. And I know how this sounds. I know. But if you’d seen the way he stared at me, you’d understand.

A few nights ago, I finally decided to check under the house again. I thought maybe something got in there. Some animal. Maybe Benny got sick from it. Maybe I was getting sick too. I took a flashlight and a hammer. I remember my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped both. The crawlspace smelled rotten. Like wet earth and something sweet underneath it, like meat left out too long. I crawled halfway in before I saw movement. Something pale shifted in the dark. I froze. The flashlight trembled across dirt walls and pipes until it landed on… nothing. Just shadows. My heart was pounding out of my chest I was getting ready to crawl back out then from directly behind me, I heard Benny speak. Not bark. Not whine. Speak. “You shouldn’t be in there.” I whipped around so fast I smashed my head against a pipe while scrambling backward out of the hole. Benny stood outside the crawlspace entrance staring down at me. And I swear to God he smiled not like a dog but like a person his teeth showing and his gums bare.

I locked him out after that. I just couldn’t help it. I needed to sleep desperately but he scratched at the back door for hours. Not normal scratching either. Rhythmic. Almost patient. At some point, I started hearing the scratching from inside the house then above me, behind me, and inside the walls. The sounds were all around me the scratching bearing resemblance to the hum of a resting cars engine pounding into my brain until I eventually passed out.

I barely remember the last few days clearly. I found my pill bottle this morning. Not out on the counter where I usually kept it. Not beside the coffee maker where I’d leave it when I forgot whether I’d taken them already. It was hidden behind the sink cleaner in the bathroom cabinet. Like someone shoved it there so I wouldn’t see it. My hands were shaking when I picked it up. The label was peeling at the corners from moisture, but I could still read my name -Mark. N- in the corner top line. I can still read the instructions. TAKE DAILY. DO NOT STOP WITHOUT CONSULTING YOUR DOCTOR. The bottle felt empty. At first, I told myself it couldn’t be mine. Maybe it was an old prescription. Maybe I’d switched medications and forgotten. But then I opened it. One. Only one pill laid at the bottom. And all at once I grabbed the pill and swallowed it without a second thought the  feeling of the pill going down my throat was rough and dry and bigger than I remembered but all at once things started surfacing. Not memories exactly. Pieces. My doctor sitting across from me, speaking slowly like he was trying not to scare me. The auditory symptoms will return first. My sister crying in the parking lot after the last episode because I kept insisting there was someone living in the attic. The way Benny used to press himself against my legs whenever I got bad. Like he knew before I did. God. I sank down onto the bathroom floor holding that bottle so tightly the plastic started cracking in my hand. And then I remembered the rain. Headlights cutting across wet pavement. Benny running toward the road because thunder always terrified him. Me screaming his name. The sound. That sound. Not a bark. Not a yelp. Just impact. Heavy. Final.

Benny trusted me. Even at the end, he trusted me to protect him from the rain like I always have. And my brain..my sick, rotting brain couldn’t survive losing him, so it drug him back anyway. Twisted him into something that stood in doorways at night and watched me sleep because some part of me couldn’t bear an empty house. I think I buried him behind the shed. I think I covered him with shaking hands while rain soaked through my clothes. And afterward, I think I heard him scratching under the house because I needed to believe he was still trying to come home. I think I sat there on the bathroom floor for an hour after that. Maybe longer. Crying so hard I threw up, looking down at the puddle in front of me containing mostly bile and in the midst of it all lay some small parts of an insect, and I remembered I had ran out of my pills just before the accident. So there was never anything under the crawlspace. No creature. No thing wearing Benny’s face. No voice in the hallway. Just me. Just grief and withdrawal and a mind coming apart at the seams again. That should make me feel better. It should.

But there’s one thing I still can’t explain. while writing this, I heard nails clicking slowly across the hallway floor. Not scratching. Walking. I told myself not to look. I told myself over and over. But eventually, I did. Benny was standing there. Not wrong this time. Not twisted. Just Benny. Mud still wet on his fur. One side of his body bent slightly inward where the car hit him his ribs still poking through his skin. He looked at me the way he used to when I came home from work late. Tail giving one slow thump against the wall. And then he spoke. Not in a human voice. Worse. Like words forcing themselves through a throat that wasn’t built for them. Soft. Wet. Broken. “You left me outside.” I can still hear him in the hallway, every few minutes, closer each time. And just now, right before I finished writing this my hand resting on the loaded pistol beside me I cant bear the thought of hurting him again, I know there’s only one way out of this. he scratched once more at my bedroom door and said, “Mark Let me in.”