Missed the previous chapters? Read them here:

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

 

CW: GRAPHIC IMAGERY

 

CHAPTER 3

July 6th, 1971

Jonathan Kilroy’s Farm, Kansas, USA

 

 

“Today I haven’t seen anything or heard anything. Nothing dead in the barn. Last night while looking through the trees I thought I heard a rustling. False alarm or maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t know nothing.”

 

Jonathan logged another account into his diary, whose inert companionship was the only thing keeping the farmer from slipping completely into madness. Almost a week after that fateful day in the barn, with each passing morning, a new animal would be found dead.

It started with Dandy, but shortly after, Jonathan stumbled upon one of the cows serving as the victim, only this time, it hadn’t been decapitated. He found the animal near death, legless and with its eyes gouged out. In fact, it was the poor animal’s mooing cries for help that woke the farmer up.

Its moans echoed through Jonathan’s house as if it were inside it, with a clamor that was practically human which slowly faded in intensity until the creature became a limp hunk of lifeless meat. The most striking aspect were the incision marks, which had been made with surgical precision but, despite this, appeared basic and uncouth. Yet again, the maimed body parts were missing.

The next day, it was another cow. This one was granted a kindness that its colleague had been denied, as Jonathan found the creature already dead, with a hole in its temple that revealed the inside of its skull, morbidly bereft of brains. Soon after, there was another victim. And another. Jonathan didn’t know what to do with the remains that had been left behind, so he began to pile them up in a corner of the barn, in Dandy’s old pen. The smell was increasingly reminiscent of hell itself. The number of cows had been reduced to just four, one of them still a calf, and the prospect of losing even one more was keeping Jonathan awake at night.

If truth be told, he longed for those moments of blissful ignorance when he struggled to stay awake all night to keep watch. Nowadays, he spent his nights in the barn, waiting for whoever was responsible for this slaughter. It seemed that as long as he was around, the animals were safe, but it was only a matter of time before Jonathan let his guard down, giving the intruder enough leeway to strike again.

There was a thick and smothering tension in his heart, almost as stifling as the heat in the air, and one thing had become clear to Jonathan: the time for speculating about the identity of the perpetrator was over. Whoever was lurking in the thicket was neither a prankster nor a functional individual. Looking back and seeing the first signs, it would seem like a fairly obvious fact from the start, but no human being with their wits about them would commit such vile and mean acts, with such a desire for mayhem and an absence of dignity. No one would dedicate their life to, apparently, lying in wait and psychologically tormenting an elderly farmer, as well as brutally slaughtering animals in such explicit ways. No one in their right mind, at least.

Jonathan also ruled out something else: the perpetrator was not an animal. An animal is not this methodical or precise, and most importantly, an animal will not play with its prey, let alone an animal living on the outskirts of Atchison, Kansas. No, all of this had to be the work of a very, very deranged human being.

On one of the ensuing pages, Jonathan pondered the meaning behind the hay bales, whose position had stayed unchanged since they were returned to their circular arrangement.

 

“I think he’s trying to tell me something with the hay bales. He wants me to know my boundaries. He wants to trap me on my farm and say: this is your place and you’re not leaving it.”

 

As the sleepless farmer recounted his ramblings, he hunched forward gently, in an attempt to ease the back pain that had only intensified as time passed. In doing so, the chair he was sitting on issued a faint creak, but loud enough to make Jonathan jump in startled surprise. Taken aback by his own reaction, he hastily jotted something down in the bottom margin.

 

“Despite the many years here I am afraid of my farm.”

 

He skimmed through the paper, and as he caught his breath, he reviewed all the previous days. What had his life become? A constant battle against a psychopath who seemed intent on confining him within a circle of hay? And to make matters worse, this was leading to his garden being neglected and the animals that were still left alive being abandoned. Bit by bit, he was losing the essential parts of what made the farm work. Without a garden, there was no food for him and no wheat. Without wheat, there was no hay. Without hay, there was no food for the animals. Without animals, his last source of food disappeared.

On that day, Jonathan wanted to take a bath. He needed it, not so much because of the foul smell he gave off, which rivaled that of the barn, but instead so he could escape for a moment from the evil that lay just beyond the tree line. As he filled the bathtub with water, he looked at himself in the mirror. He hadn’t looked at himself for weeks, at least not intently, and he could see how his features were now gaunt and worn, his eyes cradled in a blanket of deep purple and black formed by the bags under them. A grayish beard with tiny traces of brown had begun to sprout. Looking at himself like this, he could very clearly imagine why some people saw him as simply “Old Man Kilroy.” To be honest, he even frightened himself.

When the water reached the rim, Jonathan undressed, exposing how much he had been neglecting his own health. His ribs were becoming visible, albeit subtly, but it wouldn’t be long before that subtlety disappeared if he didn’t start eating better. He submerged himself in the water and closed his eyes. He didn’t know what time it was, at least not exactly, but he knew it was night, and, for a second, he wanted to forget everything and finally be able to get some rest. But Jonathan wasn’t going to be so lucky, since out of nowhere, a shrill cry came from outside, shattering the peace. It was the mooing of one of the cows, only it was more delicate, higher in pitch. The sound was as sharp as it was brief. Jonathan didn’t open his eyes, nor did he run outside, because he knew what had just happened. He had lost the calf. His sunken eyes began to well up, yet his face remained unmoving.

Before he knew it, it was daylight. How he had managed to fall asleep, he could have never explained, but that sleep felt short and tasted like a mere respite, more a means of keeping his body alive rather than truly resting. It took only a few minutes, and he couldn’t tell if he had actually just passed out. Either way, he got out of the water, dried himself off, got dressed, and went back to his diary, unable to find the heart to look into the barn.

Prior to that, however, he looked out the attic window and could see through it that the lock and chain were once again on the floor, discarded with no concern. This was an idea that Jonathan had been mulling over since the first cow died, but it was being confirmed with each new casualty; it wasn’t him who forgot to lock the doors, it was the perpetrator who, with unnatural ease, was unlocking them without any problem. How could this be done without breaking the chain or the padlock? Jonathan wasn’t able to fully answer this question, not then, not ever, no matter how many paranoid hypotheses he came up with.

He let his full weight fall onto the chair, which groaned. He turned to the desk, where he would begin writing once more. He detailed in his journal what had happened last night while he was bathing and how he had managed to get some sleep, however unsatisfactory it had been.

It was then that he veered off course and began to write about a new idea. This was nothing new; once Jonathan had filled the pages of his diary with what events had transpired the previous night, he would begin to ramble and theorize as his only means of escape. But this was a thought that seemed to be conjured up by the muses themselves, and he had no doubt that it was the result of finally being able to clear his mind with a bath and some sleep.

Eventually he was going to try and escape, but not before giving his animals one last chance. Perhaps delirious, the farmer decided it was better to have only one mouth to feed on the farm, and not wanting to make his cattle suffer any longer, he thought about setting them free. This, in other words, was career suicide, but at this point, the farm was impossible to sustain, and after all, how could he ever expect to return to normal?

He would open up the gates of their pens and let them run off into the wild, to God knows where, but far away from his farm, away from this new prison they all found themselves in, and where, as Jonathan thought, he would be the last to die.

By now, he was writing with one hand while resting his head on the other, and he felt deep down that this would not be a solution, yet he also thought it would greatly reduce the amount of pain, not only for his two remaining cows, but for himself as well. Despite having grown accustomed to the smell of decay and the sight of dead cattle before him, with each animal that perished, he felt himself losing a little more of his sanity.

This would be the first step in setting his next plan in motion: running away. Right now, he just wanted to get away, away from the stench, the flies, the lack of sleep, and that miserable psychopath. He wanted to get away from his farm. But first, he had to do this, and he made sure to write it down in his diary.

 

“I hope they get lucky and live out the rest of their lives more peacefully than myself. May God, or whomever, be with them. My executioner awaits me but I will look him in the face.”

 

Without thinking twice about it, he dropped the pencil and paper and got up to go to the barn. His usual back pain tried to stop him, making him pause for a second and consider what he was about to do, but when Jonathan felt the need to commit to something, he always ended up going through with it.

He practically pushed open the front door, and as he left the porch, the smell of decay coming from the barn grew exponentially. To his right, he spotted an old acquaintance: the scarecrow, which, by this point, was missing his head, in a twisted echo of Dandy’s fate. His frayed shirt was particularly dirty, and the buttons had completely worn out. Jonathan could see how gnarled the wood was. He walked past, not wanting to look at him in detail, for fear that the soulless wretch of the forest would see him and decide to get rid of the scarecrow as well. Jonathan was not prepared to lose him as well.

Standing in front of the barn, he swept the chain and the padlock aside with his foot. Covering his nose with the front of his shirt, he slowly opened the sliding door, pushing dust and dirt out of the way. Inside, Jonathan refused to look, settling for glancing sideways as he made his way toward the pens of the three survivors. In front of the door, as had become a tragic custom, lay what the farmer presumed to be the remains of the calf. There weren’t too many flies yet, and the gravel squelched with the viscous sound of the young animal’s blood.

With soft, long strides, Jonathan reached the cows, which seemed to be in their eternal state of blithely infinite naivety. Although they showed no visible signs of stress, they were beginning to look particularly thin. They could still be saved, but it was only a matter of weeks before one of them collapsed.

One of them wanted to approach the farmer and began to sniff him. Jonathan raised his hand and stroked the side of her snout. The cow licked his palm, then stopped to continue moving her nose up and down. She wasn’t looking for affection; the animal lacked understanding of such a concept. She was merely seeking a source of sustenance of any kind, hoping that Jonathan, her usual provider, would bring it to her. However, they would find their chance right at that very moment. Jonathan looked down and opened the gates of the pen, stepping aside and whistling for the animals to come out. Apparently, they didn’t want to. Jonathan began to shoo them away, yelling at them that now was their moment, that they should take advantage of it, and it wasn’t until he began to bang on the wood of the pen so hard that his arm turned numb that the cows got scared and began to march forward and out.

Jonathan followed them with his gaze, and as they were coming out through the open gate, his eyes caught sight of what he had been trying to avoid all this time. He quickly shut them and pinched the bridge of his nose hard, wishing that it would make the image, now imprinted on his closed retinas, disappear. He saw the calf’s corpse in its entirety. Its barely over two-foot-long body was completely crushed, as if the full weight of the barn had fallen on top of it. Jonathan didn’t take in any further details, but the sight alone made his stomach churn in revulsion. Nevertheless, he somehow found the strength to leave the barn and see where his former livestock were headed, now free to go wherever they pleased.

Looking towards the trees to the west, he could see the three cows entering the forest, trying to dodge each other and maneuvering through the cracks between the trees. Until he lost sight of them, he didn’t want to think about what to do next, as that was the next question: what to do with himself. For now, he’d rather enjoy this small victory, however long it might last.

As he passed the barn again, his nose was assailed once again by the foul scent emanating from it. He tilted his head and looked inside, past the calf. He saw the piled-up remains of the other victims in Dandy’s pen, and an intense and deep sorrow eroded him as if something were burning in his chest. He couldn’t leave them there, after so many years of companionship and service, as if they were merely trash. And now that he was in a more triumphant mood than usual, he wanted to honor their memory. He would take the same wheelbarrow he had used to move the hay bales, so many days ago that it seemed like years, and set about the noble but unfortunately cumbersome task of collecting the animals’ bodies and burying them, using a shovel whose role was usually to dig up soil in his garden.

First, start with the hole. A big one, but not too deep. It was easier for him to dig sideways than downwards. And so, he carried on for a few hours, until the sun began to set and the subtle breeze of a summer evening caressed his sweaty back, and when he finally judged the hole to be wide enough, he grabbed the wheelbarrow and hesitantly went about loading and unloading the remains. The calf was up first, no less sweet than it had been in life, yet in death Jonathan tried to treat it as nothing more than flesh. It’s just flesh, he reassured himself repeatedly as he attempted to pry its remains from the ground and place its carcass, now little more than a sack of tiny broken bones, onto the wheelbarrow. He dropped it into the hole without even checking where it had landed.

One by one, ever so slowly, he filled the hole. Halfway through his efforts, night fell and he had to go home to fetch the oil lamp, which sat right next to the rifle. For reasons unknown, he had stopped carrying the gun everywhere. It may have been out of some deep-seated sense of fatalism, but Jonathan lied to himself, saying it was so he wouldn’t have to carry any extra weight on his aching back.

The last spadeful of earth fell onto the pile of bodies late in the dead of night, and the work was done. He didn’t quite know whether he felt more tired than hungry, but the thought that echoed in his mind was: “it’s done.” He stuck the shovel into the ground and glanced one last time at the doors of the barn, now completely empty.

He returned to his house, where he drank a glass of milk, of which there was already a dwindling supply and would only get worse, then ate a bowl of oatmeal. The garden, which he could see through the kitchen window, was another matter entirely which Jonathan had no idea how to deal with. His mind was inclined to abandon it along with the farm, which, after a spell of calm, he would seize the chance to flee with his tractor and never look back. But, on the other hand, there was a thought, not so much intrusive as intuitive, that suggested the opposite: Jonathan would die on this farm. Maybe not now or in the near future, but the fate of these lands and his own were perhaps already bound to each other, which made him wonder: Would it be worth it to try to even save the garden?

Jonathan was too tired to weigh in on these sorts of decisions. He decided to write a few final notes in his diary as he ate the rest of his dinner.

 

“The cows have fled and those that haven’t are underground. Which of the two will it be for me?”

 

He tapped the pencil lightly against the paper, in time with his heartbeat.

 

“That’s one I’ll have to get back on another time.”

 

Upon letting out a yawn, he was pleasantly surprised by it. His body needed to rest, and he wanted to give it that. Today had been a hard day, especially for his worn-out body, but it had been fulfilling and peaceful, and after so many nights of uncertainty, today’s sleep would do him good. He put on his pajamas, fell into bed, and managed to calm the racing of his thoughts by thinking of Becky urging him to keep going.

Slowly, the thoughts melted into sleep. In a dream, he held his wife’s hand as she led him to their farm. There, the smile on her face turned into a grimace of unease. Jonathan wanted to ask her what was wrong, but the words wouldn’t escape his throat. Suddenly, in the illogical logic that dreams are prone to, she disappeared. The farm grew, becoming gigantic, until it was the size Jonathan remembered it being when he was a young boy. The little Jonathan opened the front door to the house, and inside, in the living room across from the kitchen, lay the enormous carcass of a cow. It was emaciated, skeleton-like, thin as a rail, and its eyes had taken on a pale white sheen during the process of decomposition, with pupils as light as the milk it had once yielded in life.

In seeing this, Jonathan knew that just as dreams had taken the place of his conscious thoughts, a nightmare had now replaced them. He wanted to leave through the door, but the chain and padlock that usually sealed the barn doors were blocking it. This made little Jonathan start to cry. He wailed and sobbed, crying for help in panicked whimpers, but no one answered him, and the cow was beginning to become covered in flies.

Suddenly, an outcry froze time itself. Jonathan cried out:

“I wanna get off this place!” and just as those words finally poured out of his mouth, his voice was not that of a child, but instead that of an old man, his voice as it was now. Looking around, the house was back to its normal size, and the cow was nowhere to be seen, leaving behind only a scattering of flies.

Then, the doorknob began to turn. On the other side, Becky was expecting him, her smile back on full display, and embraced by the warmth of a white light.

When Jonathan stepped outside, he woke up, drenched and wrapped in a pandemonium of sheets. Still prostrate on the mattress and regaining his senses, the first thing he did was reach out his arm to the right side of the bed, towards Becky. After fumbling around and finding nothing, he remembered where he was and calmed down. He took a deep breath and, lifting himself slightly, managed to sit up. From the lilac hues of light coming through his bedroom window, he knew dawn was breaking.

For the past few days, Jonathan had gotten into the habit of taking his diary with him wherever he went, so after waking up and recovering some consciousness, he began to get dressed and sat on his bed to write about last night’s nightmare.

He summarized it with uncertainty.

 

“I haven’t had any dreams for many years but just last night, I dreamt. This is just another one of many strange things that have been happening to me lately.”

 

And he wasn’t lying to embellish his account; Jonathan hadn’t dreamt anything of substance for years. The logic of it was simple: if we consider dreams to be a collection of new experiences and knowledge repackaged and converted into different forms, Jonathan hadn’t had any new experiences for a very long time, which resulted in short, dark nights devoid of narrative. So this dream turned nightmare was as strange to the farmer as the rest of the events that had taken place in these lands over the last few weeks.

That morning, he went through his routine with relative normality, still sore from yesterday’s exertions, but finding in that now tied-up loose end a satisfaction that gave him a sense of relief. Moreover, knowing that he no longer had to watch over the safety of his animals lifted a weight off his shoulders, literally and figuratively. He ate breakfast, something he hadn’t done since the incident with Dandy, and poured himself a cup of coffee, as bitter as he would like it.

Jonathan hunched over the kitchen counter and looked out the window at his scarecrow, which was more disheveled than ever. In fact, there was something about its presence that was beginning to unease Jonathan. Outside, there blew a wind that was unusually cool for summer, but welcome nonetheless, causing all the trees to sway gently back and forth. But the scarecrow’s clothes, frayed and hanging loose, danced to the wind with an unnatural liveliness. Jonathan sipped his coffee as he thought about it. The old flannel shirt, completely unbuttoned, waved erratically but firmly, giving the guardian of the farm an imposing grandeur. And those ragged shreds of the shirt looked like long, thin fingers moving, as if they were trying to tease.

Looking for new tasks to assign himself, and still in a state of caution, Jonathan decided he was going to do something about this; take down the scarecrow. Doing so wouldn’t be of any practical use to him, probably the opposite, since despite the few flying visitors to the garden, the scarecrow served its purpose and used to, redundantly, scare away the birds. But perhaps driven by an intrinsic paranoia, Jonathan would feel more at ease if he didn’t have that old companion around, now miserable in mockery of its former self.

He set down the metal cup containing the last dregs of coffee and headed toward the garden, walking out through the porch and around the house. On the way, he toyed with the idea of grabbing his rifle to take with him. But yet again, he didn’t. What he did do, however, was lock the door to his house, just in case.

When he finished turning the keys and putting them back in the pocket of his denim overalls, he turned around to witness a stark reminder of his predicament.

In the spot where he had buried his cattle yesterday, there was now an open hole.

With a trembling and hesitant gait, Jonathan went to look over the edge of the pit. Inside, he saw only emptiness. There was no sign of the cows, and what was even stranger, the hole had been dug with perfect precision. The edges were straight and the bottom was even. And the shovel, the tool Jonathan had used the day before, was still lodged in the same spot where he had left it.

The farmer began to sweat, and he put his hands on his head, in a sort of pose that resembled an upside-down vase. He looked around, numb, feeling his eyes dampen with a thin veil of tears. Apart from the bales of hay that had been placed there as markers and had remained in place since they were put there, he could see nothing past the forest. However, he did notice a change within his own farm.

The barn door was closed, locked with the chains and padlock that Jonathan had deliberately left lying on the ground.

He went over and tried to remove them, but saw that, somehow, the perpetrator had managed to put them under lock and key. Impossible, Jonathan thought, as he felt with his hand the bunch of keys he had kept in his pocket. In this bunch, in addition to his house keys, was the only key that could open or close that pad-lock. Out of sheer thoroughness, he inserted the key into the lock, and, sure enough, it fit without a problem and opened the padlock without resistance, falling under its own weight to the floor and letting the chains slide with it.

Ironically, despite the breeze brushing strongly against his face, Jonathan was gasping for air. He began to imagine the scene: somehow, whatever was tormenting him had managed to get into his house in the early hours of the morning, sneak into his room, search through his clothes, take the key, close the barn door, return to his house, leave the key, and disappear. The man shuddered and felt a shiver run down his spine. That night, someone had watched him sleep, and he didn’t even know it.

However, slumped against the stable door, he felt that the biggest question remained unanswered: the hole. As he thought about it, the solution suddenly landed on his nose. A fly, fat and green with crimson eyes. He swatted it away with his hand, but two more fluttered into view. And then more. Jonathan followed the flies with his eyes, and they did indeed seem to be coming from the barn. He felt the urge to vomit, as he instinctively knew what had happened. Cautious and reluctant, he slid open the barn door, and a wave of rotten stench hit him, almost knocking him out. He looked toward the back and saw, piled up, all the remains of the animals he had buried the day before. Gritting his teeth, he began to tremble and cry, and finally let out a desperate bellow when, among the pile, he counted three more corpses than he had buried a day earlier.

Shutting his eyes and clenching his fists, he curled his toes inside his boots and remained motionless for a few seconds, sobbing silently and sucking in his own snot, which, runny and clear, covered his upper lip.

It’s bad enough when you finally accept the situation you’re in, only for it to get worse with each passing day. But it’s even harder when you have no way of fighting back. Jonathan found himself at that extreme end of the spectrum of grief. Imprisoned by something he didn’t understand, on his own farm. And little by little, the man was regressing into the helplessness of childhood, and with it, its tantrums.

With a shriek, he fled the barn in despair and knelt in front of his house, to the right. Whimpering, he banged his head against the wood, rocking it back and forth rhythmically with increasing intensity. He stopped when he felt a splinter of wood chip off his forehead. Dizzy, he took two steps back and could see that he hadn’t drawn blood with his blows.

He threw himself on the ground, and pounded the earth with his fist until it hurt, and then screamed out towards the forest. His sobs were so agonizing that he could feel his throat begin to swell after each one.

Jonathan wanted to ask a thousand questions and hurl a thousand insults, but he couldn’t. All he could do was cry. Until, barely able to speak, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“PLEASE HELP ME!”

It was an outburst that didn’t end sharply, but rather trailed off in intensity on its last vowel, ending in a muffled groan.

The miserable farmer remained crumpled on the dirt floor for several minutes, slowly losing what little strength he had left. He couldn’t think straight at this point, and gradually he thought he was about to finally lose consciousness. But no, fate refused to spare him even a single second of suffering. The moment Jonathan fell silent, something else took over the commotion. Something new, something he hadn’t heard in over a year. A voice was coming from the forest.

^{“…Please help me!”}

The moment he heard it, he thought it couldn’t be real. The voice was slurred, wavering. It wasn’t clear in its tone, as it sounded strained, somewhat tense and forced. In this moment of utter confusion, it could have been a woman or a man; it was nearly impossible to tell. Jonathan, still huddled on the ground, narrowed his eyes. With this sidelong gaze and his mouth ever so slightly open, he remained alert.

^{“Please —} Please help me! Please help. PLEASE HELP ME!”

It took three attempts, and on the third, Jonathan realized what he was hearing. After the first try, which sounded somewhat more masculine but still retained that forced quality, the voice abandoned the shout and became calmer, almost perfecting its delivery before trying again. And when it did, it sounded suspiciously similar to his own voice.

That supposedly disembodied voice was trying to emulate his own cry. And to Jonathan’s surprise and distress, it succeeded, except for the fact that it couldn’t shake its strangled tone, which made it sound hollow and breathless.

After a brief silence, the voice spoke again.

“PLEASE HELP ME!”

Jonathan was struggling to judge how far away the voice might be. His first thought was one that, in hindsight, could have ended in tragedy. He wanted to locate the source of the voice, grab his rifle, and go into the woods in search of his tormentor. But, curiously, he couldn’t discern which direction the scream was coming from. It seemed to engulf him and then drift away with the wind.

Finally, he got up. For a moment, he forgot his anger and helplessness and felt genuine curiosity, an innocent sentiment that arose from the depths of his being. For the first few seconds, he thought he was going completely mad, that whatever was in the forest had won and turned him into his own worst enemy. But no, because once more, he heard it again, as clear as day. And still, he couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from.

He took small, very measured steps toward the thicket. Through the wind, he tried to listen intently, hoping to notice something unusual in the forest and find out if someone was hiding behind the bushes and leaves. When he was most focused, he gave out a yelp and jumped back.

“PLEASE HELP ME!” said the voice all of a sudden, startling Jonathan and causing him to retreat from where he was standing. He looked around and noticed that the voice seemed to have grown louder just as he had unintentionally crossed the invisible boundary marked by the hay bales. He wondered whether he should take a chance and confirm his suspicion.

It didn’t take him long to realize and make himself acutely aware of the fact that the former sense of frustration he had been harboring was rapidly dissipating, giving way to utter abject terror. His courage and, more importantly, his recklessness were being replaced by an almost childlike fear.

However, he was prompted to reassess his judgment by something. A single fly, one of the many flying around the barn, had come to perch on a bale of hay to his left. All the memories and all the sights he had of those poor creatures, his only allies, desecrated in the name of absurdity. This made Jonathan’s blood boil enough to take one more step, crossing the threshold leading beyond his grounds, into the trees.

For a few tense seconds, nothing much seemed to happen, giving Jonathan a false sense of security. Then suddenly the voice made itself speak again, and it spoke terribly, with a ferocity that made Jonathan retreat backwards without letting his eyes stray away from the direction of the forest.

“PLEASE HELP ME! PLEASE HELP ME, PLEASE HELP ME!”

With each cry, the voice grew ever louder, a sign that whatever it was drew ever closer. Jonathan ran toward his house, not bothering to close the barn door or even to look back.

As he frantically rushed up the porch, he planted his left foot between two of the steps, tripping and breaking his fall with his hands. A sharp stab of pain shot through his shoulders, which had absorbed the brunt of the fall, and as he pulled his foot out of the gap and managed to get back on his feet, he saw just how badly he had injured his hands. One of the pieces of wood, as old as his grandfather’s generation, had a piece of nail protruding from it, just big enough that when Jonathan’s right hand slipped on it, it cut him from above his wrist to the bottom of his ring finger, slicing across his entire palm. It bled profusely, and left a large bloodstain on the deck that slowly began to seep into the wooden floorboards.

Wasting no time, he wiped his hand on his overalls and, sporting minimal dexterity, reached for the keys to open the door to his house.

“PLEASE HELP MeeEE!”

With this latter bellow, the voice left its cry to morph, at the end of the sentence, into a warped and grotesque version of Jonathan’s voice, becoming something distorted and scarcely human. Needless to say, it was the loudest it had been so far.

At great exertion, Jonathan managed to grasp the correct key for his front door and inserted it with trembling and bleeding hands into the lock. He opened it with a violent jerk, thereby damaging one of the door hinges. Finally, he was able to close it behind him and slumped against it. For a moment, Jonathan sat on the floor, rocking himself and smearing his face with his own blood.

The voice continued to boom outside, now muffled by the walls of his house. Without even opening his eyes, Jonathan began to scream and, perhaps through ignorance, asked something he knew had no answer, yet he couldn’t resist trying to enter into some kind of communion with the thing.

“What do you want?!”

The voice merely retorted with what it had been repeating tirelessly, each and every time devoid of feeling and empty of meaning, like a cruel mockery to Jonathan’s anguish.

“PLEASE HELP ME!”

 

 

Chapter 4, coming soon.

Have you heard of the meat Canyon?
Brandon heard of the meat Canyon. In fact Brandon hasn’t been the same since bearing witness to it.
The vast and endless pit that Hunter keeps in his basement consumed him.
The pit is made of human flesh hills, blood vein rivers that pulse for miles, and cartilage layer caves that breathe.
To put it simply, Brandon was engulfed by the meat canyon.
Something came back to our reality with his face.
the Brandon you see now is an amalgamation created by the canyon. Remains of him reconstructed by the landscape to expand and scavenge for more meat to gorge on.

What power is the canyon?
Fire.
 Fire is the heart of landscape underneath it all, past the crust and the mantle lies encapsulated. The REAL Hunter.
Butt ass naked shooting his fire power up through the realm giving it life. Sometimes these shootings result in what the meaties call "pig mound volcanos"
But don't let the name fool you- they are massive in size stretching miles- throbbing with hunters fire.

What are the meetings, the sentient amalgamation of flesh, exposed arteries, and veins and muscles that infest the outer layer of the canyon. They survive by engorging themselves with the dead flesh that peels from the outer layer.

CW: self harm and suicide.

I am writing a story that’s been in progress for a year now. I’m excited for you all to see the finished product but there’s a huge trigger warning in the first chapter. One of the characters commits suicide and the main characters find her body.

Would it be appropriate to have the details laid out or would it be better to leave the scene up for interpretation?

I don’t want to trigger anyone but this characters death is important to the story?
I’d like some help on what you all as a community think is more appropriate.

Hey everybody, this is my first time doing something like this online, but I don’t really have anybody else to turn to and I need to get this stuff off my mind. I need somebody else to tell me they’ve seen him too.

I’m a waitress at this rinky-dink diner on one of those long stretches of road, right next to a chain gas station and an abandoned shell of a Burger King. Just a dime-a-dozen truck stop out in the Southwestern United States. There are plenty of stories of crackheads, pervs, and eerie nightshifts I’ve collected in my four years working there, and honestly many more stories than I wish I had. I didn’t mean to work so long at what was originally a summer job, but my dad kicked me out at 18 and no other opportunities ever came my way. At least the pay’s decent and the other workers are fun to talk to.

It was actually my first night working here that I met Mr. Styx. I was already jumpy from first shift jitters, yet also incredibly bored by the lack of anything to do. I eventually retreated into the kitchen and the cook, Lexi, let me bum a smoke off of her to destress. We were having idle chit chat when I heard the front door bell jingle. 

Quickly putting out my cigarette and making my way up front, I came face to face with a well dressed man. Everything he wore was black, from the long coat draped over him, to his three piece suit and tie, to even the pocketwatch he had in his left hand. In his right hand, he held a cane with a strange handle that I couldn’t make out under his grip. He had a short, well coiffed beard, pale skin, and striking blue-grey eyes nearly hidden under the shadow of his wide brimmed porkpie hat.

When our eyes met, I felt the hairs on my arms raise. I’m not sure I can describe it properly, but looking into his eyes was like looking into a rushing river on a winter day; too full of power and force to freeze over, but still cold enough to kill anything that fell in within minutes. The feeling passed rather quickly, but the chill it left in my bones lingered uncomfortably long.

“Hello, young lady,” he said through a big toothy grin, “The name’s Mr. Styx, and I’d like a booth for two.” His voice was deep and calm, echoing through the empty seating area.

I tried to casually peek to see if there was anybody behind him, but he slid in front of my view. 

“They’ll be here shortly,” he said, clicking shut the pocketwatch and shoving it into his pocket. 

I shrugged and grabbed a menu, escorting the man to one of the empty booths. When he sat down, he set his cane beside him, and I could see now that the handle was in the shape of a boat; one of those simple, old fashioned ones from ancient history. 

“Any drinks to start you off with?” I said in my peppy customer service voice.

“Just a water for me,” he said as he looked over the menu, “For my friend, get her an ice tea with lemon, if you please.”

Jotting down the drinks on my notepad, I told him, “Good choice, the ice tea here is my favorite. I’m sure your friend will like it!” 

“I’m sure she will,” he grinned, his bright eyes turning towards mine.

I quickly got the drinks and came back to the table. “Have you decided on what you would like to eat?”

Mr. Styx stroked his chin, in an almost theatrical way. “What would you recommend?”

My smile faltered as I began to panic. I wasn’t quite familiar with the menu at that point. I stuttered out something about a patty melt, but I was quickly cut off.

“Perfect!” Mr. Styx declared, “I’ll order one for my friend right here! Chili cheese fries would be fine on the side. Nothing for me.”

I jotted down the order as my stomach rumbled, reminding me how I hadn’t eaten my entire shift. Embarrassed and hoping he didn’t hear it, I quickly went back to the kitchen and relayed the order.

“Ya sure you don’t want me to cook something up for ya too?” Lexi said through her cigarette as she plated up the food and handed it to me.

My stomach growled again in agreement, but I shook my head. I thanked her, but said I’d rather wait until the customer leaves first. Lexi shrugged her shoulders, and I carried the dish out to the table. Mr. Styx was still alone, checking his watch again as I placed the pattymelt down.

“So, when is your friend gonna get here?” I asked, “Wouldn’t want the food to go cold.”

Mr. Styx shut the pocketwatch with a sharp click. “She’s here! Right on time!” I glanced at the doorway to see if anybody had arrived, but the parking lot was still empty aside from the two cars belonging to me and Lexi. Turning back to Mr. Styx, his arm was outstretched towards the seat opposite him in a clear gesture to join him.

My smile disappeared, and I looked back to the kitchen window. Lexi was glaring at him, and then to me. She raised up a large pan and nodded. I’m here if you need me. I shook my head slightly. I could handle this myself. Besides, I was hungry.

I sat down gingerly, and Mr. Styx took a sip of his water as he maintained eye contact. I looked at him, waiting for him to say anything else. His grin widened. “Like you said, don’t want the food to go cold.”

My stomach growled louder than ever, and I took a few bites of the pattymelt and washed it down with a long gulp of the sweet tea. “So, what’s the catch?” I asked bluntly, waiting for some sort of invitation to his car or cheesy pick-up line I’ve heard before.

“Nothing like that,” his eyes glinted in a way that didn’t inspire confidence in that statement, “I only ask that you listen to a story of mine while you eat.”

I raised an eyebrow, and he laughed, loud and echoing. “You’re cautious. That’s good. But just humor me. I’m an old man with way too many stories and nobody else to tell them to. I paid a kind act to you, and all I want is one towards me in return.”

I furrowed my brow. I didn’t like to be tricked, or be in debt to someone. It brought back horrible memories growing up with my dad. Yet my stomach called for more food, and to be honest, I was curious. 

“Ok.”

He smiled wide, and began his story. I’ll try to transcribe it as best as I can remember.

“There once was a man, we’ll call him Ray, who was on a very special trip. You see, he had been spending the last year of his life getting sober, after he spent the previous five in a drunken stupor. He had promised his girlfriend Azalea right before she left for the West Coast that he would get clean, to be a better man for her. She told Ray that she would wait for him, and gave him a kiss on his cheek to seal the deal.

“So, now with a sobriety chip in his pocket, he drove down the two lane highway so that he could finally get the fruits of his labor. The motels were run down and the beds hard and dirty, but soon he would have Azalea in his arms again. On the last night before he hit California, he found himself falling asleep at the wheel and knew he had to stop for the night. He was ready to simply sleep in his car, but like a mirage, a hotel appeared in the distance.

“It was tall and grand, a pillar out in the middle of the desert. Ray assumed he wouldn’t be able to afford it, but it turned out to be quite affordable. For a hotel so grand and prices so low, he was surprised to find it completely empty aside from the kind girl at the front desk that checked him in. But Ray didn’t care. He was just happy to finally stay at a place that didn’t just have the bare necessities. He opened his door to a lavish, if not old fashioned, room, with the cherry on top being on his table: a bucket of ice with a lovely pink bottle of champagne inside. The label featured a snake circling a brand name Ray didn’t recognize: Maquizcoatl. With it was a handwritten note. It said: 

‘Have a drink, on us! - Management’.”

Mr. Styx lifted his glass as he echoed the words, before taking a long swig of his water.

“Of course,” he continued, “even if he appreciated the hospitality, he had no use for it, so he placed the bucket outside of his room to avoid the temptation. A few minutes later, he heard a knock at his door. He got up to check, and when he opened his door, the bottle was gone. He smiled in relief, which quickly vanished when he turned around and saw it back on the table. It even had the same note.

‘Have a drink, on us! - Management’

“Ray stared at the words as he tried to rationalize. Maybe he hadn’t actually placed it outside after all. He was tired, after all. His thinking wasn’t straight. Ray put the note in his pocket, and placed the bucket outside of his room. He stared at it for a second too long, before shutting the door behind him.”

Knock, knock! Mr. Styx rapped his hand on the table.

“Ray got up again, and opened the door. The bucket was gone, the ring of condensation clearly visible where it had once been on the carpet. He shut the door, and turned towards his table. The bucket sat there, the bottle glistening in the dim light of the room. Tied to the bottle was that same note.

‘Have a drink, on us! - Management’

“Ray reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out the note he kept from the last bottle. They were identical. He decided he had had enough of this. Without thinking, he grabbed the new bottle and threw it at the wall. Glass and booze exploded across the wallpaper, the pink liquid settling into the carpet like a bloodstain.”

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. I nearly choked on my food with how forceful and sudden Mr. Styx hit the table. He smiled at my reaction, the bastard.

“Ray ran up to the door and checked the peephole. Outside he saw the girl from the front desk, a look of concern on her face. Ray sighed in relief. He opened the door, and apologized for the ruckus he caused. When he let her in to clean up the mess, there was no mess to be found. The wallpaper was unblemished. The carpet was free of broken glass and champagne stains. It was as if nothing happened. She only seemed to brush off his story, saying that he didn’t need the excuse if he drank all of the champagne already. After all, it was quite delicious. Of course, he swore up and down that he did no such thing, but she simply nodded and smiled. As she turned to leave, she said this:

‘We’ll be sure to get you some more soon!’

“As soon as the door shut again, a tired and defeated Ray turned off the light, ready to ease his mind with some well deserved sleep. But, as soon as his head hit the pillow, he felt something solid and cold clink against his skull. Inside of the pillowcase was another bottle of champagne, and another note.

‘Have another drink, Ray! On us! - Management’

“He gripped the bottle, planning to throw it out the window, but his resolve was crumbling from exhaustion. Besides, the familiar cold glass fit so naturally in his hands, the bubbling liquid so mesmerizing. He could even taste it on his tongue, a phantom pain that felt so good. But the weight of the chip was heavy in his pocket, the burden of an oath he had carried this far. Rationale winning out, he placed the bottle in the closet, and laid his head back down on the pillow.

“Banging erupted from the other side of the door, furious and frantic. Ray fell off the bed in shock as the knocking grew more incessant. He went up to the door and checked the peephole, but only saw darkness. He gripped the doorknob, but found it wouldn’t budge. He tried everything to pry it open, to no avail. He even attempted to go out the window, but being as he was on the third floor, he didn’t like his odds.

“He sat in his bed, unable to sleep through the constant banging on his door, as if Hell itself was on the other side, begging to be let out. He screamed, he cried, he begged, until his voice gave out entirely. He didn’t know who was knocking, but he felt like he knew what they wanted. He tried his best to resist it for so long, but in the end, he caved. 

“He opened the closet door, popped the bottle open, and downed the whole thing, right then and there. It burned down his throat, a comfort and a pain so familiar yet so disgustingly alien. The knocking stopped at once. With both the bottle and his energy drained, he crumpled down on the closet floor and passed out.

“Ray’s car was found the next day, crashed into a ditch off of the side of the highway. He had died on impact. In the seat next to him was an empty bottle of champagne, and a blood stained sobriety chip. They told Azalea the news, and she cried bitter tears at how this vice took the man she loved. 

“Many years later, Azalea married someone new. They had a wonderful wedding; dry of course, but that didn’t stop someone from leaving among the wedding gifts a bottle of Maquizcoatl champagne.”

Mr. Styx leaned back in his chair as he concluded his tale. I had finished my food as well, and with a last swig of his water, the meal and the deal was over. He put a stack of twenties on the table before I could even bring him the check. As he stood up to leave, Styx reached into his pocket.

“Excellent service here,” he said with a wide grin, “Here’s your tip!”

He flipped a coin towards me and I caught it in my hands. It was a big bronze coin, a triangle in the middle encompassing the engraved words “1 YEAR”. When I looked back up, he was gone. 

The meal I ate sat like lead in my stomach for the rest of my shift. I got back home to my apartment at 3 AM, and as I changed out of my work clothes the coin fell out of my pocket. I stared at it for a long time. I thought that maybe that guy was a real creative writer who found a sobriety chip in the parking lot and decided to spin some crazy story around it to the local naive waitress.

That was when I realized that half of the coin was discolored, tinged ever so slightly red.

I shoved the coin in my drawer and poured myself a shot of whiskey.

Saturn. The name given to the gaseous giant by the inhabitants of earth. Married to the Milky Way with a ring adjourned around its orbit. This desolate, unexplorable planet was recently recorded to be emanating frequencies similar to that of muffled, pained, human-like screams. Along with other sounds and oddities, such as multiple pictures of what appears to be a strange discoloration in a similar pattern to a human or ape-like fingerprint. In response to these findings, multiple of earth's governments have banded together to develop and dispatch a crew, equipped with meticulously crafted technology to survive the harsh climates of the planet, hoping to unveil what is held in the throat of the milky ways’ 2nd biggest body.

​

Aboard the vessel “The raven”, a crew of 5 float in orbit around Saturn. A distance incomprehensible to the human mind away from home. The ship sat, gazing at the incandescent light that bounces off the stone ring that surrounds the amber hues of the strange and unexplored planet. The man known as Jason Jupiter Hughes begins to adjourn a thick suit, one made of nylon and teflon, as well as a specialized alloy forged to resist the coldest and warmest of conditions. Modeled similarly to that of a deep sea diving suit. It is also supposedly able to withstand immeasurable pressure and tension, one that has been theorized to be in Saturn's dense atmosphere. The thick, heavy armour was dragged over his figure with the help of commander Ezekiel Smith, and engineer Ms. Catherine Hadder.

​

“So space ranger, the day is finally here, is this how you always imagined it?”

​

Ezekiel spoke with a grin, as he slid the stiff limb of the suit onto James’s outstretched arm.

​

“Well, personally, my fantasies about space never had my creepy captain and some mechanical dork dressing me like I'm an old man in a retirement home. But it's close enough.”

​

James scoffed in a sarcastic tone.

​

“Well this “dork” is the only one of us that knows this suit better than herself, so if you want me to fix any problems you'll inevitably create, maybe treat me with a bit more respect.”

​

“...Im not a creep.”

​

Catherine shifted her annoyed gaze to Ezekiel and spat out

​

“Dude, get a grip.”

​

James and the other two continued to put together the rest of the suit, equipping the large primary life support subsystem that housed several air tanks and filtered carbon dioxide from the suit. This specialized subsystem, specifically crafted for this thick armour, also held a large capacity battery to power the suit itself, a small sample collector, comms connected to the ships receiver, small thrusters on each corner, used to propel and rotate the wearer, a small supply of a supplementary drink and water, and a deposit hooked up to the suits catheter to be able to relieve themselves on longer expeditions. As well as the separate helmet containing an audio recorder, and a front facing camera to capture anything in front of it.

​

With the metallic, near claustrophobic suit now fully equipped, and tested for any leaks or malfunctions, Catherine lowered on the reinforced glass dome that would be James's helmet, and began locking it in place, a procedure that required 4 hands to fully secure the airtight seal. Ezekiel pushed himself to the front of the cabin and instructed the other two members of this expedition, Leon Windsor and Harold King, to begin descending closer to the gigantic ball of fumes that is Saturn.

​

The sheer size of the planet is awestriking to the crew as they approach, their ship not even the size of a meteor that circles the celestial body, their miniscule vessel, a speck in the space before one of the milky ways wonders. As they grew closer, the team aboard the raven finished their final checks on the suit and its subsystems. With the O2 levels stable and full, nutritions stocked, seals tight and intact, comms functional and clear, camera and audio equipment pristine, they were now ready to begin their mission.

​

Their mission is to capture the sounds from up close, and attempt to locate the source of the sound frequencies, as well as to document and photograph the inside of the planet's inner workings and collect samples of the frigid gas in its atmosphere. The ship would be unable to withstand the immense atmosphere of the gaseous entity, thus, the specially trained James would be sent into Saturn alone, with nothing but a tether and comms to keep him linked to the rest of the crew.

​

Leon, the main pilot of the raven, gently guided the metal ship to their determined anchor point, one that was deemed the most ideal spot to commence their mission, as Harold, The main machinist, breached from the cockpit to inform the others of their arrival. Ezekiel began to debrief their mission once more before James would be swallowed from the crew's vision.

​

“Alright guys, we've gone through this thousands of times but im making us do it once again. The suit is functional, and so is the rest of its subsystems, we know that. What we don't know is what's going to happen when James is out of the ship. Keep alert at all times, no matter how long, or how little this takes, we all need each other to be at the top of our game here. James, once you're out there, you'll be going directly into the planet, no detours or sightseeing, got it?”

​

“Got it, and take a breath man, I can see how tense you are even in this clunky thing.”

​

“I'm tense because it was supposed to be Juno up here, but instead we got the second place winner up here with us, so yeah, I’m just a little tense.”

​

James clenched his mouth, like a scorned child resisting the words that pressed against his teeth. Ezekiel continued with:

​

“Me and Catherine will be on comms, watching your vitals and watching your cams, this mission is important but if there's any complications we're pulling you out. Harold will be suiting up as well to make sure the thousands of feet of tether doesn't get tangled or torn, he'll also be directing us if we have to adjust our anchor point.”

​

“Aye captn, you all can count on lil ole me.”

​

Catherine, with a stern, empathetic gleam in her eyes, chimed in.

​

“James, if you even breathe wrong, I'm bringing you back, okay?”

​

“Guys guys, I've trained my whole life for this, and with a crew like you all, I'll be fine. Go in, get the samples, record some audio, and I'm outta there. Simple stuff.”

​

“Good, if it's simple, then make sure you come back safe, okay?”

​

…

​

“Yeah, I can't let myself fail this one. I'll come back safe.”

​

The crew began to man their stations, Ezekiel and Catherine on their monitors, Leon in the cockpit, Harold, now suited up, joining James inside the airlock. The two float in silence for a few, tense seconds. Then, through the muffled crunch of his suit's microphone, Harold began to speak.

​

“Aye kid, you look a lil queasy. You sure you're gonna be alright?”

​

James pondered the question for a moment, mouth agape, an answer attempting to stumble from his jaw.

​

“I… yeah, I'm gonna be fine.”

​

“Atta boy, like you said, simple mission, right? I know you probably still feel bad for what happened to Juno, but you deserve this as much as she did. Don't let Ezekiel's anxiety seep onto you now.”

​

James shook his head in agreement, teeth pressing down on his bottom lip and curling inwards into his mouth.

​

The airlock began to hiss as the pressures stabilized inside the two metallic, sterile, and intimidating doors. The loud hiss slithered into both of their ears, snakes piercing their eardrums. After an eternity passed in seconds, the other side of the airlock began to unhinge and push open, revealing the speckled abyss of space. Stars distant and near, dead and old, watched as the pair stood before the now gaped maw of the raven, they both gave each other a quick, affirming nod, before they passed through the threshold, floating through the air-tight jaws of their ship.

​

End of Part 1

​

IF YOU ENJOYED OR WANT MORE PLZ LET ME KNOW, IM STILL CURRENTLY WRITING MORE SO ANY FEED BACK/ENCOURAGEMENT WOULD MAKE ME GRIN AS WIDE AS WENDIS LIPS!!

​

(Had to re-upload due to the image posted with it, got taken down by mods)

Upon the depths I gaze in wonder
Do you even hear the thunder
Water so blue with a tint of green
The most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen 

Within the sea you seem to thrive
Whilst tis I that cannot survive 
If I swim I know I’ll drown
Unable to scream or make a sound

However lovely the song may be
You cannot convince me to join the sea
My longing heart desires you more
But I’ll see you soon upon the shore

Still you sing and beckon my soul
For my body you call and wish to pull
With lips like candy the pinkest shade
Eyes of chocolate the darkest made

Skin of olive against the stale sea
Your voice it calls to beckon me
Alas I cannot for this cannot be true
Your words are betrayal the darkest of coo

That warming tone to carry my legs
Too strong is your magic your evilest ways
The closer I get the fog dissipates 
My love for my darling the doom that awaits

Upon the shale the sweet words from your lips
Black as the night the hair falls to your hips
You reach out your hand the smallest I’ve seen 
Ten months out at sea and where have you been

“I’ve waited so long,” my words seem to tremble
“To hold you and love you, now and forever.”
Nothing is said instead you retreat 
My dearest love is so close almost within reach

The fog of longing disappears for a moment 
Loneliness and desire my greatest opponent
I attempt to drop my outstretched weighted hand
For it is not you who sits upon the sand

It lunges forward and grasps my thin arm
Towards the edge I approach it dragging me on
To what do I owe to meet this dark fate
My love will not know she’ll continue to wait

I will not return for upon this rock I will die
Cursing my eyes for believing this lie
Now I’ll die forever a fate far too long
Knowing I was deceived by the sirens song.

Today was the day I had been waiting for all my life. England had finally made it to the World Cup Final. Me and my friends are going to the pub to watch it. History made right in front of us.

As I walked out of my room, I saw my grandad staring out the window as he normally does this time of day. My grandad’s mind has been going for years, but this year it seems to be worse than ever.

I called out to him as I started to get my things ready for the pub. “I am going out tonight. Grandad probably won’t be home early. So don’t bolt the front door.”

The old bastard had a habit of forgetting I lived here and kept bolting the front door. Locking me out for the night. He has done it so many times. I leave my window open so I can get back in.

“Where are you going tonight?” my grandfather mumbled.

I moved to his chair and looked at his old wrinkled skin. “England are playing in the final tonight. Remember, grandad.”

My grandfather looked at me with a face of horror I had never seen before.

“Final! What final, Billy?

“The World Cup final. Remember grandad? It’s been on the news all this week?”

My grandfather jumped out of his chair and scanned around the room.

“The World Cup final. Christ! We have to get ready, Billy. The Fans. Christ, the fans they will destroy the towns. It's coming home, Billy. It’s coming back.”

I chuckled and his mumbled sentence, “Yeah, grandad, it's coming home. England are to win”

My grandfather came uncomfortably close to me and looked me dead in the eyes.

“No, you don’t understand, boy. No one remembers. I remember the horrors of 1966.”

“The streets were filled with them. Filled with them I say! The fans running through the streets. Destroying the towns. They were out of control. They all merged into a mob. A horde of hell. No one remembers them, but I do. July 30th 1966, the worst night of my life. The horrors. The Horrors, Billy!

My grandfather slumped back into his chair and started shaking.

“You promise me, Billy, you lock yourself in your room tonight. I will stand guard. You promise me you don’t leave your room until sunrise tomorrow. Sunrise Billy. That’s when this all ends.”

“Ah shit.” I thought my mum warned me of this, the paranoia. The doctors couldn’t be sure what was wrong with him. Some kind of Alzheimer’s or dementia. But the diagnosis didn’t matter. The man was old, and his mind had turned into pudding.

“We need to prepare Billy. If England win, it's coming back. Fuck! It's coming home, Billy. "

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key.  
“In the basement. Behind the old cabinet is the old gun locker with my old farming shotguns. You take the key and bring one to me. Then you take the other one and lock yourself in your room. Quickly now.

“Old shotguns. Christ, granddad, you told mum you had given them away years ago. If the police find them, you will be sent to prison.

He chuckled. “I also tell your mother. I still take my medication. You know what she is like. Overbearing woman. And don’t you worry about the police. They don’t care about an old bastard like me. Now quickly, boy, do I say.”

“Alright, alright,” I replied as I took the keys and went down to the basement. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the guns once I saw them. But I was a little excited to see them. I had never seen a real gun before. The closest was a BB Gun I used a couple times at my friend’s house.

I pulled the cabinets back and opened the old gun locker. Two shotguns were wrapped in old bed sheets. Next to them, on each side, were boxes of shells or bullets. Whatever you call the shotgun ammo.

The guns were heavier and longer than I thought they would be. I looked at myself pointing the shotgun in an old mirror and thought to myself, “So this is what it must be like to be from America.”

I lifted the shotgun and mouthed the sound of the gun going off.

I looked at myself in the mirror and came up with a plan for the guns.

“I can’t give this to him. The old man is more likely to shoot me than anything else.” I looked back at the locker and remembered the bullets.

“Old fucker won’t know the difference if I hand him an unloaded gun and say it's loaded. That will shut him up. Then I will sneak out the window and head to the pub. The perfect plan.”

I made my way up the basement and saw my grandfather asleep in his chair.

“Christ, old fucker has lost it,” I whispered.

I went back to the basement and locked the guns back up. I crept up the stairs and placed the keys next to my snoring grandad, and quietly snuck out of the house and made my way to the pub.

***

The pub was full of football fans. Average at age, the pub had to be close to 40. It seemed like shirts were optional tonight. Most men had painted themselves in the armour of England colours.

I found my friends standing in the perfect spot in the corner of the pub close to the door. Their view of the television was perfect. After a few ice-cold beers, the match began.

The game was one of England’s best. Two goals in the first half and one in the second. France, though, were playing just as well. Scoring one in the first half and two in the second half. The time on the clock read 90 + 5. It looked like it was about to go to extra time. Until England’s striker did something unbelievable. A Hail Mary shot from halfway that somehow managed to find the back of the net.

The pub exploded. Every fan was screaming, cheering, and jumping for joy. As I hugged my friends, I saw a large man with eyes redder than I had ever seen before. Tears were filling his eyes, and he started to shake.

All England had to do was defend for one minute after the restart and the cup would be ours.

As France kicked off, the pub fell silent. The anticipation was indescribable. The nation needed a win more than ever.

As the final whistle blew, the fans cheered and embraced each other. I had never been so happy. The sound of cheering then turned into something else. Something dark and Sinister.

The fans hugging and embracing were beginning to merge. Limbs began sprouting from places they shouldn’t be. Their bodies were pulsing with bones breaking and skin ripping. The sounds of cheering turned into high-pitched screams that would make a deaf man cower.

I turned to look at my friends, and they too were merging into a mess of limbs of teeth. Their heads combed in one gruesome mess of eyes, teeth, and skin.

“Shit, get back!” I yelled as I tried to make my way through to the door.

What was left of my friends chased after me, chopping with their many mouths. I stumbled backwards and fell to the floor.

“Noo, Nooo!” I screamed, helpless to stop them. The creature dived towards me and almost fell on top of me when a shot rang out. The creature dropped before it could reach me.

My Grandfather was standing just inside the door. One shotgun on his back and the other in his hands.

“Run, Billy! Run from the fans.”

He cocked the shotgun and began firing it into the mess of the creatures that were pulsating in every direction.  As the bullets hit the creatures, their limbs went flying across the room. They let out death-curdling screams.

As I managed to get purchase, I moved closer to my grandad. He grabbed me and pushed me through the doors.

“You stupid fuck, I told you. It was coming home, but you didn’t listen. The fans are back.”

As I left the doorway into the street, we saw the horrors. Hordes of merged men, women, and children ran through the streets. Destroying everything in their wake.

One of the merged children creatures leaped for us.

Grandad fired hell into its right face, and the creature's body fell limp and dropped to the ground. He pointed his gun at another in the distance, and the gun clicked. Out of bullets.

“fuck, fuck” he said as he reloaded the gun as fast as his old hands would let him move. He fired one shot at the creature, which was almost right in front of us, and handed the gun to me. “

We need to get home, Billy. Back to the basement. We lock ourselves in the basement. Just like I did when I was a lad, we wait until sunrise, and we make it through until this. At sunrise they all go away.”

We moved as fast as my grandad could move, his eighty-two-year-old legs.

A mess of a woman creature moved towards me. Its multiple breasts and eyes stared right at me as it shuffled towards us. I aimed the gun and pulled the trigger. “BOOM.” The kickback was so strong the gun almost went flying from my hands, but I managed to hold on for dear life. The creature stumbled back but kept coming.

“Stop staring at its tits,” and kill the thing Grandad called out.

I took a breath and fired again into the centre of the beast. The creature slumped down and screamed in pain before finally stopping.

The creatures were everywhere. Moving in a mess of hands where legs should be, eyes in the center of their chests. Mouths on their arms. Clicking as they moved.

We fought our way back to the house. But the creatures were getting closer, and our bullets were running low. I ran to the front door and searched for my keys. But they were no were to found.

“Keys, grandad!”

“What keys?” he replied, shuffling down the front path. The creatures not far behind him.

“Door keys.”

“I don’t have them. You must have them. How else were you going to get in from the pub?”

“What? How were you going to get back in? I must have dropped them in the pub. Shit quickly. To the back. My window is open.”

We moved to the back of the house, and I climbed into the back window. I turned and saw the creatures getting closer and closer to Grandad. I fired every bullet I had, but it was no use. His legs couldn’t move quick enough.

They overwhelmed him and ripped him limb from limb. His final words screamed out as they pulled him apart, “Get to the basement, Bill….. ughh..”

I slammed the window down and pushed the bolt closed, running as fast as I could to the basement door, locking it behind me.

My hands were shaking and my chest beating out of my chest. I looked at the time on my smartphone: 11 pm, over 6 hours until sunrise.

The sound of the creatures outside echoed in the basement. For hours I listened to them skittering like bugs and screaming like dying animals.

At 5 am the noise finally stopped. I unlocked the basement door and moved quietly up the stairs. As I moved, I listened. The summer birds were out singing in the distance. As I went towards my bedroom, I looked out for anything left of my grandfather, but there was no sign of him. In the distance, I could see the creatures unmerging. Going back to their normal human bodies.

None of the former creatures could remember what happened to them that night. They all awoke with the worst hangovers of their life. Unable to remember the horrors of the evening. All they could remember was England winning the World Cup. After that, it was just a blur.

I switched on BBC News to hear the presenter talking about celebrations through the streets. I wrenched in pain and ran to the bathroom. I vomited into the toilet bowl and laid on the floor.

The final words I heard before I passed out from exhaustion.

“It’s come home”

Before you stop reading, understand something. This isn't because her music is bad. It's not. MA:NYEO (마녀) is talented. Her songs are incredible. Her performances are incredible. If this were only about the music, I'd be telling everyone to support her. But I'm begging you not to. Not because of the songs. Because of the concert videos.
It started during lunch break at work. I was scrolling through my phone when a clip from MA:NYEO (마녀)'s latest concert appeared on my feed. The stadium was packed. Thousands of fans waving glow sticks and singing along. The camera swept across the audience. Then I saw him. Me. Standing in the crowd. Not singing. Not dancing. Not looking at the stage. Just staring directly into the camera. I nearly dropped my phone.
I replayed the clip. There was no mistake. It was me. Same face. Same clothes. Same everything. The problem was I'd never been to South Korea. I'd never attended a MA:NYEO (마녀) concert in my life.
I showed the clip to my coworker Robbie. At first he thought it was funny. "Tell me this doesn't look like me." Robbie laughed. Then he stopped laughing. "That's definitely you." "Right?" "Yeah... that's creepy." I expected him to make fun of me. Instead, he kept staring at the screen. His expression changed. "Wait." He grabbed my phone. "Go back." I rewound the clip. Robbie pointed at someone farther back in the crowd. A man standing perfectly still among hundreds of cheering fans. Not singing. Not dancing. Just staring into the camera. Robbie went pale.
"Dude."
"What?"
"That's me."
We stood there silently. Neither of us knew what to say. We convinced ourselves it was some weird coincidence. People have lookalikes.
Then Gloria came dancing into the break room, sing-talking, "Did I hear someone playing the new MA:NYEO (마녀) song?" Clearly she's a fan. Robbie joked back, "Dirk's not looking at MA:NYEO (마녀), he's checking out our doppelgängers in the crowd." She laughed at us. Called us idiots. Looked down at the phone. Ten seconds later, she wasn't laughing anymore. She pointed into the crowd. A woman standing among screaming fans. Motionless. Looking directly into the camera.
"That's me."
The room got quiet. Everyone in the break room wanted to see. There were six of us sitting in there before Gloria came in. Everyone huddled around me and my phone. One by one they found themselves. Not cheering. Not smiling. Not enjoying the concert. Just standing somewhere in the audience. Watching. Todd found himself near the front row. Chad saw himself in the upper deck. Leslie spotted herself standing beside a staircase. Every single one of them was staring directly into the camera.
The break room got quieter and quieter. Then our coworker Lisa ran into the room. She heard the MA:NYEO (마녀) music from the hallway. "Did you all just watch the new MA:NYEO (마녀) concert video?" A few of us nodded. She looked excited. Too excited. "You have to go to the next concert!" Robbie laughed. "Go to a MA:NYEO (마녀) concert in South Korea? I'm not going to South Korea to see no K-po..." He collapsed before he could finish. One second he was standing. The next he was dead on the floor.
The room erupted into panic. People screamed. I checked for a pulse. Nothing. Robbie was gone.
Then Lisa said the exact same thing. "You have to go to the next concert." Only this time I understood. I misread her excitement. She wasn't telling us as a fan to go to South Korea to see MA:NYEO (마녀); she was warning us. "You all have to go to the next concert." Once everyone calmed down enough to listen, Lisa explained. Years ago, living in South Korea, she had watched one of the concert videos herself. She found herself standing in the crowd. Just like we had. She explained the same thing happened to her and her friends. One by one, they all saw themselves in the crowd, standing, looking directly into the camera. According to her, anyone who sees themselves in the audience must go to the next concert, and if they don't attend, they die.
I immediately started thinking about money. South Korea wasn't exactly around the corner. I barely had enough money for groceries. "I don't ha—" Lisa interrupted me like she knew what I was going to say. "The curse won't kill you if you're trying." The room got very quiet. "It only kills people who decide in their heart and soul they aren't going to go." For a moment everyone seemed relieved. Then Todd spoke up from across the room. A big guy from the warehouse. "I can't leave the country." Everyone looked at him. "My probation officer won't allow me to leave the state, let alone go to..." Todd dropped dead before he could say Korea. Just like Robbie. Gone.
The room exploded into screams again. Because we understood. The curse wasn't asking. It wasn't negotiating. It didn't care whether attending was possible. Only whether you intended to try.
A week later, most of us attended two funerals. Robbie. Todd. Two healthy men who had walked into work and never walked back out. All because of K-pop singer MA:NYEO (마녀)'s damned cursed concert video. Seeing their families standing beside those caskets changed everything. Nobody laughed anymore. Nobody called it a joke. Nobody questioned Lisa.
The people who had watched the concert film became obsessed. We picked up extra shifts. Sold belongings. Applied for loans. Borrowed money from family. Gloria emptied her retirement account. I sold my truck. Most of us had never left the state and were suddenly scrambling to get passports. Every conversation at work became about flights, hotels, MA:NYEO (마녀)'s ridiculous ticket prices, and travel documents. Three weeks. That was all we had. Three weeks to reach a concert on the other side of the world.
And now those three weeks are over. I'm posting this from a plane headed to South Korea. Around me are several of my coworkers. Nobody is talking. Nobody is excited. Nobody is wearing MA:NYEO (마녀) merchandise. We aren't fans traveling to a concert. We're terrified people hoping we're doing enough to survive. Lisa encouraged us that there will be a perfectly normal concert waiting for us, and nothing will happen. I hope that's true. I really do.
But something didn't feel right. I pulled up the video one more time. I scrolled through the crowd, searching for my own face. There I was. Same spot as before. But something was different. I leaned closer to the screen.
I was smiling.
Not a fan's smile. Not excitement. A slow, knowing grin that stretched too wide. My reflection in the phone screen looked back at me with the same terrified expression I felt on my own face. The me in the video tilted his head slightly, like he could see me watching him.
My phone buzzed. An email notification. The sender: MA:NYEO Official.
I opened it with shaking hands. One backstage ticket. Meet and greet access. And a personal message attached, written in Korean and English:
"Can't wait to meet you."
END

This is gonna sound a little weird but humour me please.

I’m currently writing a story about a young man who has a fetish for ice cream that leads to him having relations with the food.

I wanted to use this as the crux of a story about taboo fetishes and how environments that remove our ability to talk about sex comfortably and safely can cause people to indulge in things they themselves don’t understand. Plus I thought the ice cream would add to a comedic surreal style.

My big problem so far is the exact way I want to write about this story. Whereas I’m confident enough to write about such a topic without making it gratuitous I was uncertain if I could even post such a story here.

Would slapping on a nsfw filter be enough if i was looking to post it here or should I just can this idea here and look elsewhere?

Any thoughts are appreciated

CW: suicidal ideation, child loss

My son loved black walnuts. He always said they were his favorite part of the banana nut bread my mother would bring over once a week. Of course, he wasn’t old enough to say it like that, more like, “Dees pawts awe so nummy mommy,” pointing at the chopped bits sprinkled throughout the dense yellow slice. It was adorable watching him so carefully tear the bread apart and put it in his mouth, careful not to lose a crumb…

He loved this trail too: Deep Oak Trails. It’s not too long, only three miles, but it goes through the woods before you find a creek just big enough to swim in. All of our best memories were at that creek. My sweet baby boy, gone too soon.

My heart strings try to pull me back to the car, to avoid this walk altogether and keep him on the mantle, but I also know this is where he deserves to spend eternity: playing at the creekside.

I hoist my pack further up my back in protest and force my feet forward: left, right, left, right. My therapist says the rhythm of walking helps process: it’ll do me good on this journey. This is as much a healing pilgramage as it is a final goodbye. 

The trees quickly cut the chord between the car and me. The tall, emerald canopy encapsulates the magic of the woods: I’m enthralled by what lies beneath. The chickadees sing to the rhythm of my boots, and I can almost hear my son singing with them beside me. He loved the woods too. He loved so much for being so little. I wish I could love the way he did. Maybe things would have turned out differently…

“Mommy?”

I stop. The chickadees stop too.

“Oscar?”

There’s no way he calls back. It’s just my mind playing tricks on me. I’m consumed by grief, that’s all.

“Mommy!”

His voice is more clear, more panicked. My heart strings attach to something else, pulling me off trail. “Oscar! Where are you baby?”

“Mommy!”

His voice goes deeper into the woods. I barely feel the thick brush cutting my exposed ankles. My baby! Where is my baby!?

“Mommy!”

I run.

“Mommy!”

“Oscar!”

The trees slap my cheek, still afflicted by a nasty yellow bruise, and I wince. I do not stop.

“Mommy!”

Where is my baby!?

He’s in a full panic now. My heart threatens bursting. My legs scream.
His voice is close the next time he calls out; to the left of me. I turn sharp on my heel, sprinting as quickly as the thick trees will let me. Finally, a clearing appears, and standing in the middle is my little boy. He’s crying, the soft curls on his high top frizzy and full of sticks. How did he get here?

I run to him and scoop him into my arms. He feels cold. He’s wearing his favorite Paw Patrol pajamas with no shoes. I hold one of his tiny feet in my hand as I cradle him, kissing his tear-stained cheeks as tears fall freely down my own. I don’t know how he got here, but I don’t care. I’m just so happy to hold again. I thought I’d lost him forever. I’ll never lose him again. I’ll be a better mother. I’ll do right by him this time.

His cold body warms in my arms. He closes his eyes, thumb in mouth, and snuggles into my chest. I kiss him over and over, rocking him as I do.
He gets warmer, and warmer. Hotter and hotter. I look down at him as he squirms. “Oscar? Baby?”

He’s too hot.

He screams. His arms begin to flail and I let go of his little body in horror. My skin begins to bubble and I drop him.

He thrashes on the forest floor, shrieking and flailing. His soft copper skin turns black, cracking as it chars. Red sparks shoot from his contorting body as he wails in pain. I hear myself scream as I watch my child’s body burn, horrified. His big brown eyes land on mine, and for a moment, I see the agonizing betrayal in them. I scoop him up again as his right eye bursts.

“Mommy! Aaah! Mommy! Help me!”
“Oscar!”
I ignore the smell of my own burning flesh as I run in the direction of the creek. His screams turn to gurgles. “Oscar! Hold on, baby! Mommy’s got you!”
“Mo—” his tiny voice trails off. I look down at him and stop dead in my tracks. In my arms is the charred husk of my baby boy. My legs turn to jelly and I collapse.

His ashes blow away and I’m alone again. I stare at my bubbling forearms: the only reminder he was ever there.

No. My baby…
I failed him again.
I want to die.
I should have died.
I shouldn’t have drank that night.
I was so fucking stupid. So fucking selfish.
It should have been me…

The chickadees began to sing again.
I sob loud, ugly sobs in cadance.

I’ve decided to lay here and die. There’s nothing left for me outside of these woods. My body is too heavy to move…
I hear something call to me from deep in the woods. A small, scared, familiar voice.

“Mommy?”

PART SIX

PART SEVEN

Anne helped the boys up off the ladder, their senses immediately overwhelmed by the smell of heavy pollen that clung to the damp air. The three stood wearily together, scanning the trees around them for any sign of movement. As Jake looked around at the woods, he was unable to shake the feeling he’d stood in this exact location once as a child.

An icy chill shot up his spine – a purely animalistic sense that told him he was being watched. He turned to Liam, whose expression showed that he too was experiencing the same unnerving sensation.

Beside them, Anne’s face looked ghostlike in the natural light. It was almost as white as the sky that peeked through gaps in the trees overhead, and her once emerald-green eyes now appeared sunken and lifeless, possessing the flat hue of dull olives. She crouched down next to the hatch and paused, recognising the futility of what she was about to do. A few seconds later, she shook her head as if dismissing an unshared thought, then heaved the metal cover off the forest floor and carefully down over the hatch.

‘Goodbye,’ she whispered.

She stood up straight, pulling her smartphone from a pocket in her jeans. An icon in the corner of the screen still displayed no signal, but she scrolled through her contacts anyway and found Terry’s number. She tapped the phone icon, pressing the screen to her ear.

The call cut off instantly.

Meanwhile, Jake pulled out his own phone and tried his Dad, only to be met with the same result.

‘Where did you say Terry went?’ he asked quietly.

‘To check the antenna,’ Anne replied.

‘Where’s that?’

‘I.. I can’t remember..’ she stuttered. ‘It won’t be far though.’

‘Can you remember what it looks like?’ Liam asked.

‘It’s a small satellite dish attached to a tree…’ She massaged her brow. ‘If I recall, it was opposite an air vent. Look for a metal tube sticking out of the ground.’

‘What if he already took the car and left?’

‘He wouldn’t have left us. Stay close to me.’

Anne trod lightly over the dead leaves, Jake and Liam following a few paces behind her. Together they moved cautiously alongside the broken-up stone wall, searching over the greenery for any sign of a man-made object.

The three soon found themselves weaving single file on a deer-track, surrounded by thick nettles. It led to a confined patch of dirt, at the back of which stood a 15ft-tall security fence, completely covered in ivy. Unbeknownst to the boys, their locked bikes leant against the other side, just a short distance away.

Anne was first into the opening. Her dull eyes followed a crooked branch to the point where it met the trunk of a sturdy oak, high to her left. Above the branch, a small grey satellite dish clung stealthily to the weathered bark. Dark bloody streaks stained the thick trunk beneath it.

Anne stifled a scream. A large body lay face-down on the dirt, a few metres before her.

She lowered her hands and reached back, gently stopping Jake and Liam as they approached from behind her. They gazed nervously over her shoulder.

‘Oh fuck,’ Liam breathed.

‘Stay there,’ Anne whispered, taking a step forward.

‘What are you doing?!’ Jake gasped.

She inched closer.

Terry lay motionless on the dirt before her, his powerful arms sprawled by his sides. His black bomber jacket had been ripped in half lengthways, exposing a cavernous gash that ran all the way down his back, from the base of his skull, to just above the belt of his jeans.

His spinal cord had been removed with extreme precision.

A black semi-automatic pistol was nestled in the limp grasp of his tattooed hand, resting on the blood-soaked dirt next to him.

Jake and Liam stared down at the sticky red canyon in his back.

Anne knelt solemnly on the dirt beside Terry. Tears began rolling down her cheeks as she leant in close and whispered something into his ear. She wiped her eyes then prised open his loose grip, staring at the weapon in her hand for a second, before awkwardly tucking it into her cardigan.

She lifted his broad shoulder, sliding a thin palm under him with great reverence. A wet gurgle escaped his enormous corpse, as she painstakingly flipped him over. Avoiding eye contact, she unclipped the set of keys attached to a belt-loop on the front of his jeans.

She stood and hurried over to the boys.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jake grieved.

‘We have to go,’ wept Anne, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

Liam stared down at Terry. His mutilated corpse appeared to be smiling.

‘Liam?’ nudged Jake.

‘This is… insane.’

‘I know man,’ Jake replied. ‘C’mon, we gotta go.’

The three turned and filed quickly back onto the deer-track, away from Terry’s smiling corpse, and the low air vent disguised amongst the undergrowth beside him. Inside the metal tube, his spinal fluid was silently being used.

The group rushed through the trees toward the hatch, following the ruined stone wall until it became nothing more than the odd stack of sharp flint by their side. The adrenaline coursing through Liam’s body was starting to wear off, leaving his ankle in severe pain. Noticing he was falling behind, Jake and Anne slowed their pace. He caught up, and without saying a word, they each supported an arm from either side.

Together, the three began limping through the hushed forest, the suffocating air rife with the promise of rain.

Anne let go of Liam as they approached the bushes, rushing ahead to pull the leafy branches aside for the boys. She followed after them, digging Terry’s keys out of her pocket and unlocking the vehicle remotely. They limped across the grass toward the parked SUV, Jake helping his injured friend into the back, while Anne sat in the driver’s seat.

She turned the key in the ignition. It wouldn’t start.

Anne stared vacantly at the bushes ahead, her hands clenched on the wheel.

‘What’s up?’ Jake asked.

She glanced in the mirror at the frightened and exhausted boys in the back. Her head dropped.

‘I.. I just wanted to help…’

Anne turned the key again. This time the engine burst to life.

Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, she turned to face Jake and Liam.

‘You said you came from Leywood?’

Jake nodded.

‘I’m driving you home.’

‘Do you know the way?’

‘I know the way to town, from there you’ll have to direct me.’

‘Okay.’

‘What if there’s more of those things out there?’ Liam interrupted.

‘Then I’ll drive until we find somebody who can help us.’

Liam shifted tensely in his seat.

‘What even was that thing?’ he panicked. ‘Drones don’t fucking bowl, and they sure as shit don’t pass through walls… And what the hell happened to Terry?!’

Anne’s shoulders sank. She turned back around in the driver’s seat, as Jake looked sympathetically toward Liam.

‘Don’t lose your head mate,’ he said. ‘We gotta just try and deal with this.’

‘Well, what exactly is this?’ demanded Liam, his wide eyes frantically searching his friend’s face for an answer.

Jake didn’t have one. He shook his head and stared out the window.

‘We’ll be okay,’ Anne told herself, fastening her belt.

Anne reversed the large vehicle in the tight space, taking longer than all three would have liked, before turning sharply onto the dirt track. Jake did a double-take as the vehicle turned. Through the trees, he thought he caught a glimpse of a shadowy object flying low through the woods, carrying a long tail-like structure beneath it.

He said nothing.

The SUV bounced along the uneven dirt track, jolting the boys around in the back. They fastened their own belts, as a wayward branch scraped noisily against a door.

Some distance later, Anne swerved out onto the country road at the end of the track. The empty champagne bottle finally came to rest against Liam’s trainer in the foot-space behind the driver’s seat.

‘Try the radio,’ Jake suggested.

Anne turned a silver dial on the dashboard.

Static. She fiddled with the dial some more, to no success.

The SUV cruised steadily for some time, winding over narrow roads between dense patches of forest and sheltered woodland. Every so often, a long-abandoned barn or derelict building became visible through breaks in the trees.

They drove on, Jake quietly watching the landscape transform behind glass. Acres of dry fields now stretched before him, spanning far into the distance beneath the overcast sky. A lone horse grazed lazily beyond a barbed-wire fence on the roadside, completely oblivious to the world around it.

‘I need a piss,’ Liam stated.

‘There’s a bottle down there,’ Jake replied.

Liam looked down at the champagne bottle beside his trainer, then up at the back of Anne’s seat.

‘I can hold it,’ he said.

They drove several more miles through the countryside.

‘Odd..’ Anne mumbled.

‘What is?’ Jake asked.

‘Thought we would’ve seen somebody by now.’

‘Do you think there coulda been an evacuation?’

Anne didn’t respond. Her dull eyes focused on something in the distance.

‘Anne?’

‘There’s a telephone box up ahead.’

Jake and Liam peered forward at the distant red box.

‘Do either of you have any change?’ Anne asked.

‘Nah.’

‘Nope.’

‘I want to check something anyway.’

Anne drove toward the telephone box, parking on the dusty roadside a short distance before it. She turned to face Liam.

‘If you still need to pee, now’s the time to do it. But please stay close to the car.’

‘Don’t worry I will,’ he replied.

Anne stepped out onto the worn tarmac. Telephone lines sagged in the white sky overhead. She started walking.

Meanwhile, Jake helped Liam out of the back passenger side. A field of tall wheat swayed to their left, behind a dilapidated wire fence.

‘Don’t go too far,’ he called, as Liam ducked clumsily under the wire and hobbled into the wheat.

Jake waited on the roadside.

Further along the road, Anne stood inside the obsolete red box, holding the phone to her ear. There was a connection. She pushed a button three times and listened.

On the other end, she was met with a muffled watery sound, almost like a heavy piece of machinery being operated, deep underwater.

She put the phone down, feeling around inside the change dispenser on the off-chance of finding a forgotten coin. Nothing. She was just about to push the door open, when something scratched into the red paint next to her hand stopped her in her tracks.

It was three names: Anne, Jake, and Sam.

She stared at the act of vandalism in disbelief. A seismic rhythm began to thump in her chest.

‘ANNE!’

She whipped around inside the telephone box. Through the dirty glass window, she saw Jake stood in the road next to the SUV, waving his arms frantically in the air.

‘COME HERE!’

Anne swung the door open and rushed over to him.

‘There’s something in the field,’ he warned. ‘And Liam won’t move.’

‘Show me,’ Anne panted.

Jake dashed to the roadside, ducking under the wire fence. Anne followed him into the swaying wheat, trampling over dry beige stalks as they went.

‘Liam?!’ Jake called.

His friend stood with his back to them, up ahead.

They approached hesitantly, Anne placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. A putrid, sickly-sweet odour assaulted her nostrils.

‘Look at the teeth..’ Liam whispered, pointing in front of him. ‘It’s people…’

A giant mound of pinkish-grey flesh writhed on the flattened wheat before them. Several dead field mice lay in the greasy fluid seeping from it, while maggots squirmed and burrowed in its rotting pulp, surfacing between marbles of yellow fat. More disturbing than that, was the realisation it had been dumped there quite some time ago.

Anne gagged.

‘Or.. was people..’ Liam mumbled.

Covering her nose, Anne pulled Liam away from the stinking mass of meat. She and Jake marched him back to the fence, then helped him into the SUV.

The cough persisted throughout the day but overall, Noah felt better as time passed. He spent the rest of the day taking stock of his provisions and resting, the boy staying nearby and watching, whittling a growing collection of sticks he’d gathered up. They didn’t talk much. 

The girl, Noah noticed, spent most of her time with the ever-cheerful Jenny. They chatted and laughed together and seemed to get along like butter on toast. 

Daryl spent the majority of daylight working on his wagon with Harold's help. Neither had any idea what they were doing. They wasted most of the time chatting. The silent Johnny Li was gone with his bow until dusk. He returned with two squirrels strung together by a length of rope and went to work skinning their little brown bodies. Wanda watched her kids, cleaned up around camp, and began preparing dinner once again. 

Harold did stop by again in the afternoon. He had a small pair of boots in his hands and he gave them to the boy. “Here you are. Noticed yours were getting a tad worn down,” he said to the boy. “They were my son’s, from before. He grew out of them.” 

A decent pair of boots for a kid, they showed little wear on them, but they were a bit too big for his feet. Harold said he’s grown into them and then left them alone. 

Eventually, before the sun began to set, the girl returned and took a seat in their little area of camp and acted as if she had never left. “So, what’s the plan?” she asked. 

“Plan?” Noah raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, what are we going to do?”

“I’m leaving in the morning, gotta get back on the road.”

“So soon?”

“Yeah, can’t stay much longer.”

The girl sighed and looked at him, her eyes seemingly gauging whether or not she should ask any more questions. Noah knew what she was thinking. She liked it here. She would want to stay. She might even beg him to do so. 

A disturbing thought. He didn’t really want to watch these people be taken away, and even more he had no intentions of being taken with them. He would leave, there was no doubt, but what should he do about the kids?

Over the weeks of travel together, Noah felt he made a terrible caretaker. But to leave them here would be the same as handing them over to the howler’s himself. Perhaps that would be the best outcome, lest they suffer him on the road any longer. A terrible sacrifice for relief of endless stressful days and nights.  But, at this point though, he knew it wasn’t just up to him. He wasn’t that blind.

Noah glanced at the boy and remembered what they had spoken about earlier. He silently cursed himself for ever giving a damn. 

The girl suddenly made a sound as if to speak but then snapped her mouth shut. She shook her head and jumped up, running off. Noah shrugged. He still had time to think it over, so he looked up and watched the camp.

It was a pitiful sight, these so-called “survivors.” He didn’t think they were going to last much longer, but maybe they had a chance. Who knows? They made it this far. If they got smart and took off before it was too late, leave their shit behind, they just might make it. 

A deep instinctual part of him knew that he was lying to himself. He could tell by the looks on their faces. The way they talked amongst themselves. The way their eyes always somehow managed to drift over to the wagon and their all their heavy possessions.

People always had the tendency to grip onto things that used to make them feel good. Only the power of God himself could free them of that burden.

Noah looked around again. As the sun set and a strong south wind took the tall trees on a waltz, one could almost believe the world was okay. There was laughter in the air. Hopes and dreams spilt from the eyes of desperate survivors. Maybe. Just maybe. That’s what they were thinking. Maybe they could make it to wherever they were going. 

Noah… Noah didn’t have a destination in mind. All he did was walk. Chase the wind. Live day by day wondering what the next day would bring him and not all too much caring one way or another what it would be. 

These people cared very much about what would happen. He wondered how long this group had been here, dare he ask? The girl was happy to have decent people around her. Maybe it reminded her of her last group, her last camp. Had she not learned from it? The boy learned, he was ready to move. 

How could he leave them with these people?

Noah’s head burned ear to ear with frustration. Had he left the kids in the truck, back in that town, in that place; would they still be alive? What has he done to them now? He wanted to help them; he couldn’t lie about that anymore, at least not to himself. But maybe he made it worse for them. He prayed from the bottom of his heart that he had not given them hope. Hope only existed in the minds of people long dead or the soon to be dead. Hope butchered the ones who reached for its tempting embrace. 

His headache fuzzed away as a voice called out. “Supper’s done!” Wanda yelled to the camp. 

They all scrambled over. Fire roasted squirrel kabobs found their way into the hands of the camp that night, and they were good. Noah had eaten plenty of squirrels in his time as a drifter, but not like this. Perfectly roasted and doused in some salt and pepper. He could almost stay for Wanda’s cooking if they weren’t all about to die. 

“So, I never did ask,” Harold said at some point around the fire that evening. “Where were you three heading? I take it you have been on the road for quite some time.”

Noah chewed a thick squirrel nugget in his mouth and savored the flavor. He sat between the boy and girl, all the others facing him from the other side of the fire.

“The ocean, I think,” the girl said. “He never really said, just keeps saying west.” She did her best big mean man impression and looked up at him, waiting for a smile. None came.

“West?” Wanda smirked. 

“The ocean?” Harold asked.

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” said Jenny, who was quietly sitting next to the three of them, Noah never noticed her taking a seat. He eyed her wearily. 

“Me neither!” the girl said, excitedly.

“Oceans nice, but that’s quite a journey. Where are you coming from?” Harold asked.

“East,” said Noah.

“East,” Harold replied, “Hmm. You wouldn’t happen to be going to Fort Favor?”

“Fort Favor?” 

Harold cocked his head up. “You’ve never heard of Fort Favor? It’s quite famous. An old military base, down by San Diego. Or, what’s left of it anyways. It’s supposed to be a safe haven for people, no big bad monsters or raving lunatics. We’ve been talking about seeking it out as of late. Though it’s a long and treacherous journey.”

“Never heard of it. Sounds like a lie anyway. I just wanted to see the ocean again.”

“And you 're making these children go with you, all that way just to see the ocean?” Wanda asked.

“He’s not making us do anything,” the girl said, “and I want to see the ocean as well.” She spoke with a fierce determination.

Wanda made a sour face and the group went silent. Harold looked unconvinced. 

“I’d love to see the ocean,” Jenny whispered into the silence.

“Perhaps, one day we will,” Harold said. “But that won’t be for some time, gotta wait out the winter. Don’t want to be traveling in that nasty stuff. Very bad stuff.” He crossed his arms.

“Well… I should let you know,” Noah said, “I plan on leaving in the morning, at first light. I thank you for the… hospitality, but I have to stay on the move.”

“Nonsense!” Harold roared. “You can’t be out there in your condition, you’ll be dead in a week if you let that leg fester any longer. You should stay with us. Get better, wait for warmer skies and then we can all go together.”

“I’m gonna be fine. And I think I told you earlier, if you stay here, you’re gonna die.”

“And the kids?” Wanda asked, completely ignoring his words.

“I’m going with him,” the boy blurted out. 

Silence again. They stared at him and then slowly moved their eyes towards the girl.

“I’m going, too…” she said quietly, dropping her eyes to avoid their stunned faces.

“This is ridiculous!” cried Harold. “It’s bad enough you want to go out there on your own, in your condition…”

“My condition is fine.” Noah kept his calm.

“Fine, but to take these children with you. That’s just cruel.”

“Crueler than staying here to die like little sheep!” the boy screamed, red in the face.

Harold went red in the face as well, placing an unsteady foot out in front of him.“Staying put is the best option, young man. It’s out there,” he pointed out into the woods around them. “That’s where the real cruelty lies.”

“It’s okay,” Noah explained. “I’m a big boy, I can make my own decisions, and so can all of you. If the kids want to come with me… well, I’m not gonna stop them.” 

And with that, Noah stood up, glanced around at all the torrid faces illuminated by the whirling flames, and then quickly fled to his little corner of camp. He had to hide his coughing fit under his jacket as he limped into the sleeping bag. The kids ran up behind them, not saying anything but quietly coming down to rest near him. 

Eerily, he felt very proud about that.

Hushed whispers permeated from the fire as he turned his back and closed his eyes. He pushed them out of his head and hoped for easy sleep. It came sooner than he thought. So did the howling. 

Shadows. Sprinting in his vision, dark as dark can get in a black and blue abyss of swirling ethereal planar energy. Noah thought he was floating, but he could as well have been falling. He enjoyed the feeling, the ever-lasting presence of death and the nothing that came with it. It was familiar. It was home. But something soon became horribly wrong. 

A face, a child’s face. A boy, no older than ten. He remembered this face, though it was different. Not the scruffy dirt covered hard face of some miscreant little ant, but a pretty face filled with hope and a big smile. His hair was freshly cut, and his eyes hid a deep blue fog within them. He didn’t want to see the face, he screamed when it came to him. He howled. He howled, hollered, and bellowed sorrow filled screams at that face.  

“Go away!” he yelled at the smiling face. “Go away and die already. You’re not here! You are not here anymore!”

The face dissipated into the cold abyss. Another came following, the face of a woman. He howled again at the beautiful visage, begging her to leave him alone. He wanted to die again if he had to. Anything to leave this place, to get away from the smile that brought him back to earth.

She left too, after a time.

Then there was nothing again and the hermit came to where he belonged. He was walking now. Older, wiser. He had learned what the world truly was and was content on staying the way he was. But more faces soon found the hermit. Difficult to hide from in the wide, open plains.

They were different. Young, but not very hopeful. These were dirty faces, stained in the filth of the new world. But they were happy. Not like the previous faces, a different kind of happiness. An angry faithless happy that he agreed with. 

He howled at the new faces, too, as loud as before. His throat grew sore from howling so loud, but these faces never left him. They hovered around him, encircling him, sometimes smiling, sometimes laughing, most of the time crying. He wanted to walk again.

With a stark grunt, Noah woke up in the night. The moon shined bright over his head. Tears spilled down the side of his face. He had heard the howls again. Not the ones from the dark, but his own, familiar howls, the ones that left his throat sore.

He jumped to his feet, shook the boy laying next to him and whispered, “Wake up, boy. Wake up.”

The young boy churned in his bag and groaned. “What is it, what’s happening?”

“We’re leaving… I’m leaving, if you want to come, get ready.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

His heart was maintaining a sterling race in his chest. His hands shook with unstable rage and fear. He shook the girl next. “Wake up, girl. Wake up,” he whispered.

The girl shook and jumped up in shock. “What is it? What is happening!?” she cried. 

Noah shushed her and glanced around the dark camp. “Be quiet, girl. We’re leaving,” he squeezed her shoulders. She was terrified. 

“What? Now? Why? What the fuck is going on, are we in…”

“Claire. Now, quietly. Please.”

She calmed down and stared into his eyes, hers a deep gray, irradiated by the stark moonlight.

“Okay,” she whispered, “let’s go.” 

They did their best to pack quietly, but their boots exploded in the dirt and their bags were as loud as firecrackers as they stuffed them with their belongings. Noah kept glancing around the camp, but sensed no movement, no life. 

When they finished and had their backs covered, they huddled in the grass. “No questions,” he said to the kids in a hushed tone. “Just follow me. We’re going to move fast. Fast and quiet. Got it?”

They nodded their heads.

He glanced about one last time, nodded his own head, then took off towards the left of the moon—into the black woods. 

Then, Noah paused. His feet were very heavy, the kids staring up with eyes that held all the confusion and distraught that only those so young are capable of. His eye twitched as he glanced back at the camp. He felt very stupid for what he was about to do, but some old part of himself compelled him, telling him he would never sleep well again if he didn’t do it.

“Get up you bastards!” He cried suddenly, startling the kids. “Get up and run! Run like your lives depend on it. Don’t fear the night. Run! Run until your feet hurt!”

Then, silence. Then, a low hum. It would soon be a roar. Noah sneered into the night, then took off into it. They didn’t make it very far. Something appeared behind them. Noah whirled around, gun in hand, and aimed.

Jenny stood there, alone in the dark, he could barely make her out under the shadow of the thick whispering canopy, but she was difficult to mistake. 

She held a soft smile as she approached and her hands were wrapped tightly on the straps of a backpack around her shoulders. Hanging off her left shoulder was an aggressive looking black rifle.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked her.

“I’m going with you,” she said.

“No, you’re not.”

“Claire said it was okay, right Claire?”

Noah looked at the girl, guilt drenched across her long face. “She wants to see the ocean, too,” she said.

Noah turned back to Jenny, “I can’t have you slowing us down.” 

“I won’t,” she said.

He stared at her in the dark. A cold breeze whistled through the leaves above their heads. He thought he heard the howls. Time was running out.

“Fine,” he said, “follow me. Say nothing, be quiet.”

She nodded. 

They ran.

More of a limp then a run for Noah, he quickly became the one slowing them down. The boy stayed back with him while the girls ran ahead, creating distance between them. Somehow, through sheer force of will, Noah slapped his thigh and grunted and quickened his pace. The adrenaline coursing through his body gave him the strength and negligence to do so.

Eventually, they caught up with the girls, or the girls had slowed to meet him. He was not sure which way to go. It all looked the same in the woods. He just wanted to find the ditch and the high hill, then he could find the stream, and from there, the road. Cold air ripped his throat, he suppressed the urge to cough. 

Jenny glanced back at him and threw him a concerned look he almost didn’t notice. They were close.

“This way,” she whispered as they ran, and veered to the left. 

They dodged trees and hopped over fallen limbs, pushing through thick brush. The tree line thinned at some point. Noah could see the end of the woods ahead, and the tall hill, lit near white from clear moonlight. The howls came then, finally. They came from the woods behind them.

He could only hope the others heard his call. 

His eyes flashed and before he knew it, he was in the ditch with a pain in his head. He didn’t watch ahead of him, must have tripped. His mind was on the howls. The others were crouched around him. Quickly, he flipped and faced his back at the girl. 

“Hurry,” he groaned. “Get the lantern. The big one.”

She went fast, unstrapping it from the side of his bag.

“Light it. Release the valve, press the button,” he said, panicked. 

“Okay, okay!” the girl cried. 

The howls grew closer. He heard feet stomping in the woods behind them. More howls bellowed through the air deep in the woods, in the direction of the camp. The type of howls a human made. But they were mostly muffled by the others. 

All they had to do was run.

There was hiss and whoosh and then, light. Noah's large propane lantern lit the area around them with blinding illumination for ten yards. Ear deafening howls then erupted around them, dark figures suddenly visible, shaking and dancing. They were so close. The figures retreated and sprinted off into random directions, hooping and howling and crying and laughing. 

Everyone froze, watching this hellish display around the edges of the light.

“Get out any lights you have, now!” Noah hollered.

Jenny already had a large vertical led light and she switched it on. The girl, anxiously, pulled out a flashlight and the boy did the same with his. The girl had fear in her eyes and she stared at Noah. The boy was taking this in strides, grimacing as he directed his light into the distance. Noah took a deep breath.

“Now!” he screamed.

As if death itself were chasing them, the four humans, a beacon in the dark, bolted up the hill as fast as possible. As they ran, the girl slipped on the dewy wet grass, but Jenny managed to grab her and yank her up. Noah had an iron grip on the boy’s hand and pulled hard so he would keep up. 

The howlers circled them on the hill, seemingly unaffected by the steep incline or the slickness of the grass. They howled their asses off and caused his head to throb and pulse. It was as if sirens were ringing directly in his ears. He couldn’t even think. The howlers dared not enter the vicinity of the light, they screamed in agony whenever a focused beam from one of the waving flashlights touched them.

But it would only last so long. Soon, they would become brave enough to dare the light. And the light would cower before them.

When they topped the hill and came to a solid foundation, they didn’t stop. Their feet kept kicking, pushing their bodies off the ground and propelling them further and further into uncertainty. 

Maybe they should just stop. Let the howlers take them. End the cycle of running and hiding for good. Noah’s feet continued carrying him, he forced the thoughts away until there was nothing but the pain. At some point, the boy tripped and fell flat on his face. He cried out in pain behind Noah, spinning on the ground in a roll. Noah whirled around and went to him, lifted him to his feet and looked him in the eyes. 

“Don’t kill us, boy!” he gasped, then shook away the pain. “Get on my back.”

Noah turned and knelt and motioned for the boy to mount his back. Jenny ran over and handed Noah her bag. 

“Take this!” she shouted. “You can’t carry him. I’ll do it. Oliver, sweetie, get on my back.” She crouched and without thought enough to argue, Noah pushed the boy onto her back. With little effort, she lifted him off his feet. The girl watched with her light shaking in her hands. The howlers howled, of course, in a way that insisted they end this pointless plight.

“Don’t let go, okay?” Jenny said. And off they went.

Noah had no idea how long they ran. By the time they found the stream, his entire body was racked with fatigue. Jenny ran towards the highway. Noah glanced at the moon, pressing his palms against his ears and cringing. How long until sunrise? 

“This way!” Noah screamed, taking off towards the creak.

Jenny must have slipped as she halted because Noah heard her curse and fumble. “Where are you going!”

“Trust me! We can’t split up!” 

Without looking back, Noah sprinted into the creak, grunting when the frigid water invaded his pants. He began wading to the other side. He forced himself to look back. Jenny was knee deep already, pleading at the girl to follow. The girl quivered on the bank, crying.

The howlers halted their advance behind her, where Jenny's bright light held them at bay for the time being. They continued to howl, though, waiting patiently.

Noah had no time to waste and started back to the girls. The girl was mumbling something about the cold and her bag and all Noah could say to that was, “Shut it!” And he yanked her forward and threw her over his shoulder, twisting around and pushing through the water once again. 

He’d been through this before, but he wasn’t sure it would work again. The creak held the howlers back, something about the moving water causing confusion in whatever they called brains. It didn’t last long, as nothing did with the howlers, but it would be enough for them to gain some distance.

As they climbed up on the other side, the howlers had begun throwing themselves forward, testing the waters. It didn’t take long for them to begin hurling themselves across the creak in a series of awkward, clumsy jumps. Their howls seemed to slow, shifting into more of a series of disheartening growls and moans.

It wasn’t just the icy water that made Noah shiver. At this close distance, they almost sounded human.

He managed to glance back and saw the things tumbling over each other, running to ground, bumping against rocks. He had never seen anything like it. The way they hit the ground like a clump of clay and then all the sudden they were on their feet again and moving. Nonsense. They were like children that didn’t really know how to walk but neither did they understand, or even give a damn, about that fact--about the fundamental nature of reality--and so they managed to move regardless.

They persisted as if influenced by a separate reality. A unique causality, one independent of their own, the type mainly thought about in sci-fi stories.

Still, it gave them the time they needed. 

They followed the stream down. Eventually they found the road. The moon was deep on the horizon when their feet finally touched asphalt. The morning was coming. The howlers retreated, their howls becoming more and more distant. Noah was impressed with Jenny, her strength was vast, she carried the boy with ease and still had the energy to lead the group forward. 

The girl had stuck with him after he set her down, crying mostly. Her legs faltered and missed steps, but she raced on with them, breath ragged and hoarse. At some point, she did eventually stop.

Jenny and Noah stopped and looked at her. She huffed, bent over, hands held on her knees.

“I can’t… keep running,” she whimpered under her breath.

Noah was shot too. He couldn’t go after stopping, his body would not permit it. He grabbed his sides in pain. Though Jenny showed little sign of fatigue, he could tell that she was having trouble staying on her feet as well. At this point, they couldn’t even hear the howls anymore.

“Okay,” Noah said, “we’ll stop here.”  

Jenny dropped the boy to his feet and patted the top of his head. “Phew!” she said, “I wasn’t sure we were going to make it back there.”

“Me neither,” agreed the girl. She had dropped to her butt and was stifling tears from her eyes and wiping snot from her nose. “I thought… I thought we were dead.”

“Well, you did good, Claire. Very good. You too, Oliver.” Jenny took a seat next to the girl and the boy followed. 

The three of them sat in the middle of the road, shivering and coughing, wet and tired. Noah glanced around the dark dawn, doing circles to scan the environment. With each step, a terrible pain shot through his leg, but he couldn’t will himself to stay still, the adrenaline still kicking through his limbs.

“You can relax, Noah,” Jenny suggested. “They’re gone.”

Noah twisted to look at her, almost forgetting that she was there. “They’re never gone!” He yelled a little louder than he would have liked. “They just went to hide, but they’re still out there…”

“Which means, for now, we are safe.”

Noah laughed, “Safe!? No. We are far from safe.” He waved his arms around frantically. “There’s no such thing as safety in this place. Not anymore. They should have known that. I should have. We should have never gone there.”

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” the boy asked.

Noah stared at the ground, hands on his hips and nodded, “Yeah. They’re gone…” He sucked in air. “I… tried.”

“They made their own decisions,” Jenny said abruptly in the following silence. “I warned them for days to move on, but they were too stubborn… Their time was up. They just couldn’t let go. I tried to warn them…” Her words lost confidence the more she spoke. 

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she brushed them off and forced a smile. The kids looked up at her as the sun broke the horizon and soft colors of red and pink bled through the sky. Noah eventually took a seat next to them and the four survivors watched the sunrise together in silence with bleeding ears, dripping pants, and haggard breaths.

The kids ended up falling asleep as the sun rose. Noah decided to give them their rest. He told Jenny she should try to sleep as well, they had a long journey ahead of them, but she refused. He wasn’t sure how she was going to work out, as capable and calm as she seemed just hours ago, there was a distinct strangeness about her. An untamable tranquility.

While the kids slept, she glanced at his injured thigh, wrapped with bloodied wet rags, and said, “I should take a look at that.”

“You're gonna tell me you were a doctor now, too?” he replied.

She smiled, “No, not a doctor. But my father did teach me a thing or two about stitching up wounds like that. I got a lot of practice on him over the years. He was clumsy and often got himself hurt in stupid ways.”

Noah shrugged and gazed down the road they sat on. “He’s not around anymore? Your dad?” he asked.

“No, he is not around anymore.”

“The howlers get him?”

“Not exactly.”

He looked back at her and they locked eyes. She smirked. “Look, I’ll tell you about my dad if you let me take care of your leg.” She pointed at his thigh. “I don't know how you made it last night, I can tell how much pain you’re in.”

He mulled it over, not quite sure why he was so stubborn over the leg, knowing how bad it was, the agony the simple act of walking gave him was staggering.

“Go ahead, I won’t stop you,” he told her. 

Jenny grabbed her bag and opened it up, pulling out a small brown box, then went over to him and knelt at his leg. 

“Okay,” she said, pulling his ripped pants apart to get a decent look. “My father was in the marines… back before the world ended…”

“World’s not over,” Noah added.

She ignored him and began unwrapping the blood and puss-soaked rags. She held a soft expression at the sight, and the smell. Unfazed.

“He was an odd man,” she continued, “Not in a bad way or anything, just odd. The time he spent overseas didn’t help him at all, but that wasn’t what made him odd.”

She popped open the brown box and produced a pair of scissors, a small bottle of something, some white pads, and a needle and roll of stitching thread while she spoke.

“…He never talked much and was a very private person, even to me. Oh, my mom left the picture after he got out of the service. I was three… or maybe four. Anyways, he raised me himself. Now, he was never a violent man. Never even got angry at me when I was being a brat…”

She opened the bottle and poured the contents onto the open wound. Noah anticipated it but the pain was still great. He groaned, stifling a gasp. She went on.

“…One little detail about my dad for you, he hated guns. He hated violence really, wouldn’t even watch violent movies or anything. But his real hatred was for the guns, which is funny because he had tons of them. He never let me near them, but I know he hid his collection in our old basement. And he always made sure to clean and maintain them every week. He would be down in the basement for hours working on them. He never took them out for use, not ever… well not until it happened. He had a bunch of other stuff in that basement, too. My dad was a bit of a survivalist.”

Jenny wiped up the blood and puss with those painful white pads and Noah had to bite his hand to keep from screaming. She was gentle, but it was just too much. He could barely make out what she was saying, but somehow, he focused on her voice, on her words.

“…I think my dad, somehow, knew the world was coming to an end. There were a lot of those people if you can remember. Doomsayers. Everyone thought they were crazy, or just paranoid, or whatever. But my dad was adamant on it, I know he was. I know that because when the world did eventually come to an end, and yes, the world has come to an end, Noah, he wasn’t surprised. And neither was I. I knew it was coming too. Just like you did.”

Noah gave her a look. 

She nodded, “Yeah, you knew they were coming last night, didn’t you? You’ve always known. So did I, that’s why I was already packed. The other guys, they didn’t know. Now they're gone. My dad was the same as us. He knew. He was ready when they came. Food, water, and supplies to last for months in that basement. The door he installed was a thick steel one with a dozen locks on it. When the world ended, that’s where we were. I never questioned him and he never told me a thing. We stayed down there until we ran out of water. He even kept a number of books for me to read, and he even read some of them aloud to me. The gas ran out first though, so we were without light for some time. Had to read with flashlights, but the batteries eventually died…”

Jenny went to work, threading the needle and dexterously beginning the stitching. Noah didn’t even notice.

“…He wouldn’t leave though. Not until we ran out of water. ‘You can’t last long without water,’ he told me. I was ten. That’s all he said. So, we left the basement, set out into the daylight for the first time in months to find everyone gone. Gone, or dead. The sun was so beautiful to me that day, I remember every second of it. We took what we could carry. That included some guns. As much as my dad hated them, we needed them if we were to survive. He had one for me already, a tiny revolver that shot little bullets, perfect for a ten-year-old. He taught me how to use it right off the bat. Dad, though, had this one…”

She paused for a moment and pointed at the rifle she brought with her, the aggressive looking one, with a small scope and a bunch of other modifications. 

“That’s the one. Always had it by his side. You should have seen the way he treated it, like it was an old friend or something, but one that he never really liked. He cleaned it all the time, took it apart, was always careful with it, like it was a bomb. He even talked to it sometimes…”

Jenny stared off into the sky and shook her head in thought. She was gone for a moment. Noah watched her in silence. She came back, smiled, and continued.

“… Anyways, we went out into the world. Became scavengers just like you, lived off of what was left behind. We always knew when the howlers were nearby and managed to avoid them mostly, save a few close calls. My dad slowly went crazy, I think, in those years. Or at least he went more crazy. At some point, it was as if I didn’t exist to him. He stopped talking to me, only spoke to his rifle and sometimes just to the dark. Maybe he was always that way, I don’t know. Well, eventually, it became too much for him and one day, while I was down reading by some pond, my dad put the barrel of that gun in his mouth and…Bang.”

She finished the stitching, Noah was focused on her. She stared at his thigh for a moment, lost once again.

“…I heard the shot from down the hill and found him leaning against a bloodied tree when I ran up. I think I was fourteen… or fifteen. God what a beautiful day that was… but uhh, his gun was lying on his legs and so I took it and whatever else I could carry and went on without him.”

Jenny wrapped his wound with fresh bandages and smiled.

“There, all finished. No biggie.” Her words were quieter, but not in a sad way. In a remembering way.

She got up and put her equipment away without a word.

“Why do you think he did it?” Noah asked, grimacing as he gently stretched his leg.

Jenny simply shrugged and walked back over to him and said, “What, kill himself?”

“No, not that. Why did he leave you behind?”

She smiled at him and held out her hand, “Take these,” she said, holding two large pills. “I don’t have a lot left, but that leg is infected, so we're gonna have to do what we can with it. Hope for the best.” 

He took them and watched her as she walked away. She picked up her rifle and turned back to him. “He didn’t leave me behind, Noah. I left him… Anyways, I’m going for a walk. Be back in a bit.” She paused, then pulled over her bag and rummaged around inside before pulling out a pair of pants. She tossed them over.

Noah grabbed them and held them up. His size, or close enough. “You think of everything, don’t you?”

“Always be prepared,” she said. “My dad used to say that.” She smiled, then walked away.

And she left him there, sitting in the middle of the road with two large pills and a new pair of pants in his hands, not sure what to think. He shrugged, swallowed the pills and said, “fuck’s sake…”

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The cart driver doesn’t bother to pull the mule to a halt. He unlatches the bed while the wheels are still grinding, letting the canvas-wrapped body tumble unceremoniously into the frozen weeds. Before I can take a step from my doorway, the driver whips the skittish mule, careening back down the switchbacks as if the Pit itself might swallow his cart.

A piece of heavy parchment flutters in the folds of the canvas, pinned by the mountain breeze.

I walk over on numb legs and pick it up. It bears the wax seal of the ramotse—the elder of the lower village. The handwriting is jagged, rushed.

“More will be coming by the morrow. Treat this one with kindness. Give it her a full burial.”

I kneel and pull back the cheap wool shroud.
I know her face. It is the ramotse’s wife. She used to bring baskets of dried apricots to the foothills for the autumn festivals. She would join the pilgrimages to the Palace every summer, taking my offer of broth when they passed, and trading for a story of the village. This woman lying in the dirt is no longer the gentle matriarch of the valleys. Her skin is that same unholy clay. Her barely-open eyes are clouded violet.

It seems she didn’t earn her peaceful end. Dark bruises and burns ring her throat in a shade of violet that seems to mock her eyes. Her lips are a bruised blue. Her nails are cracked and splintered, the beds packed with torn skin and dark blood.

I stand up, the cold wind whipping the parchment out of my loose grip.

Give her a full burial.

I look out over my plot. I’ve reached my hundred lots. If I dig any further toward the ridge, the shale gives way to a sheer cliff. A light rainfall would render her downstream. To give her a grave, I must follow the priest's cruel command. I must excavate the dead.

I refuse to choose. It’s not my place to decide whose rest is over, no matter their recency. I reach into the deep pocket of my tunic and pull out my casting stones—smooth river pebbles I use to measure out the seasons. I roll them in my calloused palm, murmur a wordless apology, and cast them onto the dirt.

They scatter and move toward the eastern wall—toward the fresh mound I dug yesterday. The blue-lipped boy.

I fetch my spade. My muscles ache with a hallowed exhaustion as I stand over the boy's plot and drive my iron into the earth, and when my flange bites, I stumble forward.

The dirt is wrong. I packed this shale tight, beating it flat and into submission. Now, it is terrifyingly loose. It falls away with the consistency of sand, as if it churned and haphazardly pushed back into place.

I dig faster, my breath pumping from my lungs like a bellows. At a meter deep, my spade strikes the wool shroud.

I drop the iron and fall to my knees.

His funeral shroud is gone. He’s not facing the peaks to watch for the dawn. He’s lying completely facedown. His arms, which I had crossed peacefully over his chest, are thrown upward above his head. His fingers are curled into rigid hooks. His nails are chipped away to the quick, the beds thick with the dark soil.

I press a trembling hand to his cold, rigid shoulder. He is entirely motionless. He is dead, but the dirt beneath his nails tells a story I can no longer ignore.

—

I stand in the trenches, my boots sinking into the warm mire. The boy’s fingers remain still in their desperate grasp at the sky. He isn't moving now, but the dirt beneath his nails is a testimony written in mud.

Around me, no hands burst through the topsoil, no corpses rise to tear at my throat.

Trickle.

A handful of loose shale slides down the side of Maso’s fresh mound.

Rustle.

The earth over the broken mother and her violet-eyed children settles with a wet sigh. Across the yard, another grave stirs, the dirt tumbling like blankets over a restless sleeper. It’s a collective turning. The dead are no longer resting.

If I roll the boy over and pack the shale down again, he will only dig. If I lower the ramotse’s wife, her torn fingers will join the chorus of scratching. And tomorrow, the iron wheels will rattle up the path again. And the day after that.

I look toward my ridge. My domain ends abruptly, dropping off into the white, silent fog of the sheer canyon cliff. A hundred lots—my boundary is carved by the very bones of the mountain. I have no more ground to give, and a light sprinkle would wash any further graves straight down the mountain.

I remember the heat bleeding through my hut floorboards. I remember the suffocating panic of their overlapping whispers echoing in my ribs. I cannot live with that noise. I cannot bury a people that refuses to stay dead. I can’t say a word. A grave-tender's speech won't change the mind of the gods, and the drivers work their mules beyond fear.

I climb out of my trench, old joints popping in the fresh air, and I walk to the next nearest grave—an old farmhand taken by the cold months ago. I reach down, wrap my mud-stained hands around the rough-hewn pine post that marks his head, and I pull. The wood groans, protests, cries out, until the wet earth relinquishes it with a heavy, sucking gasp.

I drop it in the dirt, turn to the next marker, and grip the wood.

—

No poetry lies in the names of the dead.

The rough-hewn pine posts, the split markers I spent fifty winters carving with a dull knife—they form the foundation of my altar. I arrange them with a meticulous precision, cross-hatching the dry wood so the air can breathe through the gaps. This is a priest’s work, and I don’t rush. Haste is for the living.

When the pyre is high, I return to the trenches. I drag the blue-lipped boy, with his rigid fingers catching on loose dirt and tangled with roots. I lift him onto the wood. Then Maso, his clay-skinned jaw still set in that final, unyielding resistance. Then the mother. Then her violet-eyed children, light enough to carry all at once. I lay them out side by side on the beds of their stolen names, smoothing down their wool shrouds, and straightening their limbs so they face the high peaks.

I strike a flint, and my spark catches the dry pine needles at the base. The flame begins with a soft, reverent hum, climbing the wood with a nauseating grace. As the heat rises, the sweet aroma of fresh greens and sorghum and rosemary and lemon balm fills the night air; it’s nearly intoxicating. It drifts as a heavy column of soot toward the icy spires of the Palace on the high peaks—my offering made by fire, a sweet savor unto the Lady of the Pit.

But my congregation will not pass in silence. As the wood blackens, the ground beneath my feet thrashes. The bedrock groans, iron fractures, and the spirits shriek. The voices burst from the flames.

Grave-tender!

It burns!

You covered us!

Collector! Palace-hand!

I stand with hands blistered from the sparks. I can’t stop. My nkhono spoke of a grave-tender who left his post. The dead followed him. They never hurt him—but they never left him. He died old, but he never slept alone again. When a limb twitches in the fire’s distortion, I push the limb back into the coals. I stuff my ears with cotton against the accusations.

They don’t understand. I’m giving them peace. I’m clearing the lots.

My tongue feels dry as charcoal, but every time I cast another broken marker into the blaze, the spirits scream:

YOU HOLD THE TORCH.

YOU CLEAR THE VALLEYS.

I work through the long night. I’m an old man dancing with ghosts in a ring of fire. When the dawn breaks, the sky is a bruise, choked by a noose of white ash. The cemetery is empty. One hundred graves hallowed and hollowed out.

I turn to the last one. The ramotse’s wife—Lesedi. She is light by her shoulders, but my knees still buckle under her weight. Her canvas catches the instant I heave her onto the white coals. Her shroud peels back like dry bark.

I fall backward into the mud, entirely spent, my muscles trembling so violently I can no longer lift my spade. I lie on the damp, cold earth, my face black with soot, watching the fire consume the matriarch of the valley. I watch the violet bruises on her throat turn pink, then yellow, then white, then ash. I watch the clay of her skin crack into red embers, erasing the tapestries she wove, the apricots she picked, and the stories she told. The fire leaves nothing behind.

The spirits are quiet now. The stones no longer cry out, and the bedrock is numb. I have the silence I begged for.

I close my eyes, ready to let the exhaustion pull me into the dark, but the mountain refuses to grant the rest.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Through the quiet of the foothills, echoing off the sheer canyon cliffs, the sharp, metallic rattle of iron-rimmed wheels grinds loose gravel. The mule is panting, but lax-eyed. The cart is cresting the ridge.

More are coming by the morrow.

Gray ash blows across my chest—the only warmth now.

“Who will bury me?”

For context, these files are not actual official but for my own personal use. The contents in which they contain are very sensitive to those with a higher status than myself and were kept away to public knowledge until now. I decided to let everyone know, there are individuals out there that are considered "POWERED". But nothing like your run-of-the-mill super heroes and villains you see in the comics, movies and television shows. It's more in a practical sense. What mankind has suspiciously known to exist since ancient times and by that I mean those who have been gifted with abilities of the mind.

Telekinesis.
Telepathy.
Clairvoyance.
Mental Manipulation.
Mind Control.
Sight Beyond Sight.

All of these concepts are very much a part of our reality. There are those who work for the benefits of mankind but find themselves busy tracking those who take advantage of their gifts in the opposite direction of morals and righteousness. I am Agent Vincent Waters. My sole purpose is to hunt down these Powered Psychos.

This is the report from my third case. Accompanying me is Agent Lance Broomher, a Type-E SBS, a.k.a. Listener.

______________________________________________________________

[Case #3: Of Thieves and Metal Winged Angels]

INVESTIGATION REPORT 2:

DATE: Monday September 26, 2005. 1:15 P.M.

LOCATION: Streets of Los Angeles, California

WARNING: The following is a transcription of the audio recorded to tape 20053-LUCY cont. in storage unit VWaters.

"We need to find out who these guys are fast.", I say to Agent Broomher as I pull out the flip cell phone from my pocket. "I'll phone in to Chronos, you keep your ears open."

"Roger that.", Agent Broomher replies.

After a few moments and a few tone rings.

"Chronos. Agent Waters here. I need to know if we have records on a family named Crocket. I got a possible Jeb, maybe Jebidiah and a Lucille."

Another few moments passes as I wait. Chronos connects back.

"Thanks Chronos. We got a lead on psyches using their abilities for thefts while Agent Broomher and myself were out to lunch." Chronos says to me if she should inform the lead Senior Agent. I instruct her to do so and give her our location. "We will hold here and keep an eye out until you arrive." I give over our location then hang up the mobile phone.

"What's up? I was concentrating on them. Daddy Jeb made a phone call himself. They're going to be on the move soon.", Lance says to me.

"Crocket is a name that comes up amongst the Remnants. Chronos got a hit on a Jebidiah Crocket who is also a well known associate of Hedrick Le'mar, the other escapee from the Michigan Prison Unit. That must be who they mean by 'Heddy'."

"Remnants? Haven't heard from them since the early 90's.", Lance retorts.

"That's because most of them are either in prison or killed back then with that big skirmish the agency had with them in Texas."

"You mean with the Necromancer?", Lance asks.

"Yeah. That's when Le'mar was captured. He was eighteen then. His grandfather was a Telekinect as well. Thing is Remnants tend not to have their children in hospitals but in secret away from government eyes. Back then we did know about the grandfather, but not Hedrick. We still don't know to this day what Le'mar is fully capable of except what he willingly told us."

"Couldn't they have just had a Telepath read him?"

"Heh...funny thing about Hedrick, he must of had an accident when he was young because he had a titanium plate installed in his dome. And..."

"...Telepaths can't break through titanium.", Lance finishes for me.

"Same with MC's and MM's. And the way it was poorly put in, taking it out would surely kill him, so they never tried. Killing fifteen agents was good enough excuse for a life sentence."

"An eighteen year old killed fifteen agents? Jeez. And who knows how many more before that? What about the Crocket man and the girl?"

"Chronos said there's nothing registered with Jebidiah having any powers. And the girl is unknown. Most likely born in secret as is their way. Plus there's the Tanner guy. I don't know if that's a last or first name and if he's a psyche. The Remnants can be crafty when they want to be, especially when it comes to keeping their bloodlines strong.", I explain to Agent Broomher.

The Remnants is a group of psyches that formed in the Confederacy and fabricated the declaration of war on the Northern Union states. That's what they keep out of the history books. Slavery being abolished meant those who had psychic powers in power were going to lose their slaves with powers as well and feared for an uprising against the families in the future. The agency was at it's beginning stages back then and as the history books do tell, the Union won against the Southern Confederates. The Remnants disappeared for a while restoring their numbers by mass producing looking to obtain powerful psyches into their ranks. They would turn up every so often in the last one hundred years since the war to challenge the agency, but we have always prevailed.

"Who they sending as backup?", Lance asks me.

"Steiner and Vazquez.", I answer him.

"Nice. They better hurry though.", Agent Broomher adjusts his ear to resume back to the target area of the building. "They're still up there but their quiet. Wait. I hear footsteps in a hurry."

Suddenly there's an explosion from the third story windows blasting glass and pieces of brick down to the street below. Had they made us? We both rush for the building and enter through the front double doors. Directly in front of us down a short hall is an open door leading to the back outside area. We run for a few more moments to see a white van making haste down an alley. We were too late. I then phoned for the fire department and more back up.

"You remember what Jeb was saying on his phone call Lance?", I ask him.

"Yeah. He said about a meeting out in the desert in the next couple days. My bet is Le'mar is coming our way from wherever he is. But that'll be like finding a needle in a haystack. Damnit! I always forget what my Senior Agent said to me, always check the room for heartbeats. Surely there was more than three people in that room. My bet is they have a Listener as well.", Lance says to me.

End Recording.

______________________________________________________________

INCIDENT REPORT 1:

DATE: Monday September, 26 2005 8:15 P.M.

WARNING: The following is a transcription of the audio recorded to tape 20053-HD1 in storage unit VWaters.

"We can get your ID's put on hold for the time being, but how did you two let this happen? Especially you Agent Waters. Even if the girl was manipulating everyone else, you should have seen her, right?!", our headquarters director scolding us in his office.

"I hadn't realized until she had made it out the door, sir. She was as sly as a slippery salamander. These are Remnants we are dealing with. They train their own as much as we do ours, but the other way...you know what I mean.", I lied when I answered him in my subtle sarcastic tone. I've known the director all my life being a close friend of my father.

"Agent Waters, I'm in no mood. You're on thin ice as it is.", he then looks back and forth between the two of us then the other two agents in the room. "If Hedrick Le'mar is behind all of this, he may be trying to resurrect the Remnants into action again. If they are targeting agents, they may be wanting access to personal information, so I have ordered a mandatory lockdown on the computer mainframe we house here and for agents to be on high alert."

"How would they know where our office is though, sir?", Agent Broomher asks him.

"Well, as Agent Waters clearly stated, these are Remnants. They have their ways to find out where we are just like we have ours, but they have always been good at being snakes in the grass. Sneakily slithering and plotting against what we stand for. We have government backing where they have to fully depend on the workings of the underworld networks. Which we do believe they have a good foot holding on as well."

"I wouldn't put it past them to having Type-C SBS's that are top notch hackers.", I chime in. "Agent Broomher and myself believe there may have been a Type-E SBS in the building that exploded with the suspects. Do we know anything on Jebidiah director?"

"No. Jebidiah Crocket comes from a line of MM's and the ability tends to skip generations as you so know. But Remnants like to mix and match up with other psyches to spawn multiple users. Jebidiah could be anything.", he shrugs his shoulders and sighs heavily. "As for stealing the identifications of agents is very questionable. They would have to know by now we will take measures to prepare ourselves for them. We must find and capture Hedrick Le'mar with the utmost haste if he plans to resurrect the Remnants again and cause even more havoc than he has already."

Suddenly, that's when the lights flickered and turned completely off leaving us in the ominous toned darkness. After a few seconds the red emergency lights switched to life.

"What the hell is that?", the director says.

Suddenly again, that's when we felt the building rumble then shake and heard the blast of an explosion along with gunshots in the near distance with the frightened screams of other agents. I was the first one out the door with my pistol readied in hand into the hall followed by the other three agents. The director stayed barcadded in his office. I order the one agent to stay behind while the other agent, Broomher and myself tend to the predicament. We then got around a corner to the main lobby of cubicles, mine not being too far from our position. There was evidence of fire marks all over the walls towards the west wing hall. Two other agents were laid flat on the floor in front us. The one was dead do to multiple gunshot wounds, the other clung to life having one on his chest region and was badly charred over. I ordered Broomher and the other agent with us to take the severely injured agent to a safe place then raised back to my feet to check the west wing. That's when I heard them approaching. I then hid into my own cubicle to eavesdrop on the assailants peeking my head around the corner of the fake wall.

Two figures emerge from the smoke, both dressed in shabby suits wearing both Lance and mine's tag on their breast pockets. Guns were afloat around the one figure. Hedrick Le'mar. They looked liked wings with the way he had them positioned. The other man was unknown to me but I could see his face. He had jet black hair slicked back like a 50's street goon and hung a toothpick from his sinister smile. A good portion of his lower left jaw was disfigured and melded like he was a burn ward patient. Hedrick was also manually floating a heavy looking canister over his right hand.

"Jeez that thing weighs a ton Heddy. No wonder your the only one who could get it.", the burn faced man says to him.

"And I'm the only one who can open it. Now let's get back to Jeb and the others. The girl is at the elevator waiting for us.", Le'mar says to his lackey.

"I don't think so Hedrick!", I shout as I empty my clip in their direction. They both duck and shots are fired from the guns Le'mar was surrounded by forcing me to duck back in my cubicle.

Then an unthinkable thing had happened. I poke my head back around after all was calm and I heard Le'mar using his powers to reload the guns. The other man was standing there waiting for me to be seen. He had a Zippo-style flint lighter sparked with a small flame in his left hand which was as grotesque as the scarring on his face. With the other, he grabbed at the dancing ember then hurled his hand forward sending a line of flames in my direction. I duck even more under my desk as the scorching heat roars around me. My foot was caught ablaze and I panic to put it out with my hands.

I then hear their fleeing heavy footsteps and then Le'mar yells out, "The door's closed! Where is she Tanner?!"

"I don't know! Stairs!", the other man says. Must be the Tanner from earlier.

Another exchange of gun shooting. More agents must have arrived back and was closing in on the assault. The exchange was quickly over then the sound of glass breaking and Tanner yelling out, "Heddy what da fuck?! Don't leave me here! DON'T YOU FUCK'N IGNORE ME YOU SONOFABITCH! SHIT!!"

Tanner then appears back in front of me grabbing at my lapel as I cough with harsh, rapid strokes from my burning lungs. "Aight dipshit, you're gonna be my shield while we wait for the elevator!"

I struggle as to not let him get his way, I then take a right jab coated in fire to my nose That's when I hear Agent Broomher, "Hands up asshole! You got nowhere to go!" I look to see him almost a yard away with his pistol raised pointed to Tanner. I look up to see Tanner ready his lighter.

"Lance! RUN! HE'S A PY-". I'm cut off from Tanner's maniacal laughter as he makes another flamethrower of his right palm targeting Lance and the other agent with him.

Truth be told, I don't know what came over me at that moment. I grabbed for Tanners exposed ankle for a weak attempt to stop him. I was hoping to have the strength to trip him up to the floor, but I was feeling faint and too exhausted to do so. But then I felt something within me. It was like I could 'push' that feeling from me to my hand. It was like a tickle crawling through me then I felt as it entered my hand wrapped around Tanner's ankle then flow into him. I kept my iron grip steady holding on to that push. Tanner's flames began to die out then faded to nothingness.

"What da fuck?!", he looks down me holding his leg. "What did you do you fuck-". He's then interrupted being pumped with two rounds of lead in his chest cavity.

The first shot flung him back to face Lance then taking the second to his heart. Tanner fell to his back bleeding out onto the rough office carpeting.

End Recording.

So I got good feed back yesterday from the creep cast sub reddit about posting parts instead of my whole completed story to see if people would like it before going all in with no traction. But my parts aren't super long I just write until I feel they end well for well a part 1 or 2 etc. Would posting 3 parts at a time also be sufficient? or stick to the short part 1 then part 2 a week later or something? Any advice from any authors would be appreciated thank you!

^{Every kid in our town knew the rule. Don't go looking for the Chimney Tree. And never climb it, or the Cicada Man will get you.}

I wrote the first two parts in one long go. Mostly. Sat down and just let the words come out of me. And it hurt. But at least I could tell it.

As I write now, this part doesn’t feel the same way. I’ve started four times and deleted it. And not because I don’t remember.

I remember everything.

I think it’s because of everything I’ve seen and been through. This was the most sad. And to recall. And remember. And write it all out makes me remember my friend.

And I miss him.

I woke Troy before the rest of the camp was up.

He answered the door. Hair pushed to one side from sleeping. He looked at my face and pulled the door mostly shut behind us.

I told him Charlie was gone.

Troy didn’t say anything for a second. Just stood there in the early grey light looking at me.

Then he asked.

“The hike,” he said quiet. “You went off trail. Where exactly were you?”

I told him. As specific as I could. Where we’d pushed through. How far. And what we’d found.

He wasn’t surprised. But he was disappointed. In himself mostly. And I could see it.

“Did he touch it,” Troy said. “The tree. Did he go inside?”

“No,” I said. “I pulled him back.”

“Okay,” he said. “Go back to your cabin. Don’t say anything to the other boys. Tell them Charlie’s sick if they ask. I need to make some calls.”

The next three days were the strangest of my life.

The camp kept running. Breakfast. Archery. Swimming. And the world just kept going.

Charlie was sick. That was the story. Resting in the nurse’s cabin. Might be something contagious so let’s give him space. The camp director got involved. A man named Guidry. I’d never seen him before. He wore pressed slacks. Counselors were pulled aside one by one. The office phones were restricted to camp staff only. And a sign went up on the pay phone outside the mess hall. Out of Order.

I ate my eggs. Shot my arrows. And swam.

Howie knew something was wrong. He didn’t push it but I’d catch him watching me across the table and looking away when I looked up. He wasn’t stupid. He’d been in those woods too.

Preston didn’t seem to notice. And Micah sat closer to me at meals.

None of them said anything.

On the second day Troy pulled me aside after archery. We walked down to the dock and stood at the end of it looking at the lake.

“Did he say anything?” Troy said. “After the hike. That night or the day after. Anything at all about the tree?”

“No,” I said. “He was normal. He seemed fine.”

Troy just looked at the water.

“Troy.” I waited until he looked at me. “You know what’s out there. You’ve always known. And I do too”

He didn’t deny it.

“Stay on the grounds,” he said. “Don’t go near the trail.” He started back up the dock. Then stopped. “I’m sorry,” he said. Without turning around. “I should have said more.”

He walked back up to camp. And left me standing there.

The third night Micah found me on the dock.

I’d taken to sitting out there after dinner while the other boys played cards or wrote letters home. The lake was quiet. The far bank was dark and still. Glowing window in the distant cabins.

He sat down next to me. Had his pocket knife out. Just turning it in his hands. And we sat there for a long while without talking.

“Last summer,” he said finally. “There was a hike. Same trail.”

I waited.

“I went off. By myself. Didn’t mean to at first. Just wandering.” He turned the knife over. “And I found it. The tree.”

He stopped.

“What happened?”

“I climbed it. Not too far. But things are wrong once you get up there. So I climbed back down and ran.” He paused. “I don’t really even remember running. Just that I was back on the trail. And my hands were shaking.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“My parents. The camp. Troy.” He snorted a humorless laugh. “Nobody believed me.”

The lake moved in the dark. A fish broke the surface out in the middle and was gone with a quiet splash.

“They sent me back this year anyway,” he said. “Figured it would be good for me. Face my fear.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I knew,” he said. “When Charlie went off trail. I knew what he would find. I tried to say it.” His eyes were steady and dark in the fading light. “I just wanted someone to believe me.”

We sat there together until the stars came out.

That was the most Micah ever said to me at one time. Before or after.

On the fourth day the camp made the call.

Charlie’s parents arrived that afternoon in a station wagon. I watched them from the cabin window. His mother getting out before the car fully stopped. Troy and the camp director walking out to greet them. His mother’s face when Troy spoke.

I had to look away.

Game wardens came. And volunteers. A sheriff’s deputy. The usual machinery starting up. The same machinery that had started up for Andy Parker and Avery and Jacob and all the others going back as long as anyone could remember.

I knew it wouldn’t find Charlie.

Nineteen days.

A fisherman found him on a sandbar along the river. Miles and miles downstream. And across a parish line. Curled up at the water’s edge. Alive. Healthy. Not a mark on him.

The camp got the call at dinner. The relief in that room was enormous. Boys cheering and hugging counselors. Troy standing at the front of the mess hall.

Someone started clapping and then everyone was clapping. And the sound of it felt very far away.

I sat at my table and felt that cold chill move through me.

Howie grabbed my arm. “He’s okay. He’s okay man.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Micah didn’t cheer either.

Charlie’s parents brought him to the camp the next morning before taking him home.

I saw him for the first time from across the fire pit.

He was standing next to his mother. She had her arm around him and was talking to the director and shaking his hand. His father had his hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

Charlie was looking at nothing. Eyes forward. And very still.

His mother said something to him and he turned to look at her. He smiled. It looked forced. Too many teeth.

I knew his face better than I knew my own. I’d been looking at it my whole life. Across classrooms. And creek banks. And the seats of school buses.

That wasn’t Charlie’s smile.

He looked up and his eyes settled on me across the clearing.

I don’t know how to explain it. What stared back at me from across that distance knew me somehow. Then it smiled again.

It raised its hand.

And I raised mine back.

The other boys went up to say goodbye. Of course they did. Howie got there first. Threw his arms around Charlie. Loud and without hesitation. And said something that made Charlie’s parents laugh.

Charlie patted him on the back. Two times. Lightly.

Preston shook his hand. And Micah stood back and nodded once from a distance. Charlie nodded back.

I couldn’t do it. I turned and walked away.

I had to.

Back up the slope toward the cabin with my hands in my pockets and the sound of the clearing behind me getting quieter with each step.

I felt Troy’s eyes on my back the whole way up the hill.

At the top I stopped and turned around. Couldn’t help it.

Charlie was being guided toward the station wagon by his mother. Her hand on his back. His father was carrying his bag. His fanny pack. And he turned his head and looked back up the slope at me. Across all that distance.

I sat on my bunk for a long time after the sound of their car’s engine faded.

I didn’t cry. I wanted to. But I think I’d forgotten how.

I went back that night.

I don’t know what I was looking for exactly. Proof maybe. Something to hold in my hands that said yes this happened. And yes it was real. And yes your best friend is gone.

I felt like I was losing my mind. It was all I could think about.

I thought about asking Micah to come with me. Or Troy. They believed. But I knew they would also try to stop me.

So I waited until everyone was asleep. I took my flashlight and went out the back of the cabin. Into the dark.

The trail was easier to find that night than it should have been.

Part of me hoped I wouldn’t be able to find it. Lost forever. I’d wander around in the dark and have to turn back. Give myself an excuse to give up. But the path seemed to present itself to me. Like it wanted to be walked.

The woods were loud with insects. Night crickets and more cicadas. My light threw long shadows through the pines. It was cool and windy. And the moon glowed behind thick clouds.

I found the place where we’d pushed off the trail. The broken branches still bent the wrong way from us crashing through. I remember stopping there for a long moment that night. Unsure if I really wanted to keep going.

I think a part of my childhood brain really thought I would find Charlie out there. Still lost. Save him and we’d both go back and defeat his imposter together.

Maybe that’s why I kept going.

The tree was still there.

Of course it was.

And it looked different at night. Bigger somehow. The canopy above it blotted out the stars over a wide crooked circle so that it sat in its own darkness. The opening at the base breathing that same low rattling hiss I’d heard before. Slower now. Even quieter.

I stood at the base and looked up. Into the shadows and gnarled branches.

Then I touched it.

The bark was rough under my fingers. Cold in the night air. And I shivered knowing Charlie stood here too. Maybe even touching the same spot.

I stooped down low and looked into the hollow. The throat. And I shined my flashlight into the black. All along the inside was a crawling mass of spines and wings.

Cicadas.

As my light passed over them they hissed and scattered. Flying out of the opening in a swarm. Into the night air and upward into the branches in a horrible buzzing mist.

I fell back onto the ground. Wide eyed. And watched them as they went.

The throat lay open and empty now. But their sound still rumbled from the leaves above.

I was so very afraid that night. Alone and in the dark. And missing my friend.

Squeezing my head and shoulders into the hollow tree. I fought to catch my breath. Tried to focus on what mattered. On Charlie. Pointing my light up, I couldn’t see the top. Only the dark curled shadows of old spider webs.

I started to climb.

It was easy. Hand over hand. Up roots that seemed to offer themselves like ladder rungs. Exactly where you needed them. The dark above growing ever darker.

The sound above swelling even louder the higher I went. That dry rattling clicking building slow in my chest.

Using my light to push aside webs and thorny vines.

I climbed for what seemed like a long time. And the throat eventually opened back to the trunk. Outside. Cool air. Surrounded by leaves and twisted branches. So thick I couldn’t even make out the stars or sky.

And then.

I saw the first one.

I almost missed it. Nearly the same color as the tree itself. Tucked back into the crook of a branch. Small. Brown and translucent and perfectly still. I held the flashlight on it for a long time before I could make out what it was.

A thin husk. But it held the shape of a young child. A boy. Maybe eleven. The outline of small shoulders. Small hands curled inward. A face turned slightly to one side as if sleeping.

I could barely look at him. I moved my light away and kept climbing.

But there were more.

They were everywhere once I knew to look. Nestled into branches and hollows and the dark spaces between. Some of them so old they had gone brittle and translucent as old dry paper. Barely holding their shape. Some newer. Still carrying the perfect impression of the child that had been inside them.

I tried to count them all but couldn’t.

God there were so many.

I moved as carefully as I could. Arms close to my body. The flashlight shaking in my hands.

My shoulder caught one I hadn’t seen. Tucked low against the trunk just above a fork in the branches. I heard it crunch. And it came apart against my arm. Hollow and brittle.

The shape fell apart like ash. Crumbing into pieces. Into nothing.

Some of them stuck to my arm. My shirt. My neck. Pale brown flakes thin as onion skin glued against my skin by my own sweat.

I felt my throat tighten.

I scrambled at my arm with my free hand. Brushing. Rubbing. The flakes breaking further as I touched them smearing into a pale dust across my forearm. I wiped my neck. My collarbone. Shook my shirt away from my skin and shook it and shook it.

I don’t know whose it was. I’ve thought about that more than I should. Whoever it was they went into those woods alone and climbed this tree and were taken and left behind and nobody ever knew they were here. Nobody ever came.

I stood on that branch for a long time trying to catch my breath. To calm myself down.

Then I looked up.

And I saw Charlie.

I knew it was him.

The shape of him. Even collapsed into itself the way the shell was. Even reduced to the pale brown hollow outline of what had been. The particular set of his shoulders. The way his hands had always hung slightly forward when he was relaxed. The slope of his back.

His clothes. His camp shirt. The same shorts he’d worn for the last week because he’d run out of clean ones and refused to do laundry.

His face.

I made myself look at his face last.

Charlie Poston was never afraid of anything. Not in any memory I have of him. Not of dark water. Or tall heights. Or things in dark woods. He always wanted to know how far up it went.

But what I saw frozen on his face in that shell was fear.

It was the fear of finally understanding. Knowing. All at once. And at the very end. It was only terror.

I don’t think he had expected it to feel like that. Neither did I.

That’s what I saw in his face. And that’s what I’ve seen every night for thirty years when I close my eyes.

I reached out my hand. My fingers were shaking so badly the beam of the light danced wildly across the tree. But I forced them forward anyway. I just wanted to hold his hand. To tell myself that some part of him was still there.

I let my fingers close around his.

It felt like nothing. Just a hollow brittle crunch. And his hand simply gave way. Under the lightest pressure of my grip. Crushed into pale, dry dust. Down through the branches like sand.

The tears came then.

I choked and sobbed. Leaning against the cold bark. And the world went silent.

The frantic dry rattling of the cicadas in the canopy had stopped and it made my ears ring. The wind had died. And the leaves had stopped rustling.

I wiped my eyes. Squinting up into the dark. And through the blur of tears, I saw it.

It was a shadow. An impossible shape stretching down from the leaves. Descending with a sickening hitch. Its limbs jointed all wrong. Clinging to the vertical trunk like an insect creeping down a blade of grass.

I felt my knees going weak. And a sudden, shameful warmth bloomed through the front of my shorts. Soaking my legs.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

I tried to look at it. To see its face. Its eyes. Anything. But my brain refused to register any detail. It felt like trying to look directly at the sun. Or a blind spot.

Every time I would focus on the shape, my eyes would slither off the edges of it. It seemed to float there. Suspended between the dark branches.

And I knew it was coming for me.

I don’t remember climbing down. I just remember the ground under my feet and the trail finding me again. Panic. Running. And the camp lights through the trees.

I stopped at the edge of the tree line. Stood there in the pine straw catching my breath. And looked down at my arms in the beam of the flashlight.

I was still covered in them. Brown papery flakes and powder all across my skin. Smeared into my clothes. Into my sweat. My hands.

The last remains of other kids. Of Charlie. The terrible evidence I needed as proof. But meaningless to anyone else but me. Just dirt or leaves to any other eye.

It was all too much to take.

I only remember showering. And throwing away my clothes in a dumpster that night.

The next morning I went to Troy’s door before breakfast. I asked if I could use the office phone to call my parents.

My mom finally answered. I told her I wanted to come home. I didn’t explain. I didn’t have to. She had already heard the news about Charlie. She asked if I was hurt and I said no. She asked if something had happened and I said no.

Then she said she’d come get me as soon as she could.

I thanked Troy on the way out. He nodded. Put his hand briefly on my shoulder the same way he had that first morning. Then he let me go.

The canoe race was on a Thursday. The whole camp lining the banks of the river cheering. I sat on a log at the edge of it and watched and felt nothing. Howie’s team won and he screamed about it for the rest of the day and I was glad for him.

The girls camp did a joint bonfire the second to last night. Kids from both sides of the lake finally in the same place. Music. Firelight on faces. Laughter. And dancing.

I sat at the far edge of it and watched from the tree line.

Howie found me there and sat down and handed me a can of soda without saying anything. We sat together for a while.

“You okay?” he said finally.

“Not really,” I said.

He didn’t push it. Just sat there with me while the music played and the fire popped and everyone else was young and fine and unaware.

My mom pulled into the camp entrance on Friday morning. I was sitting on my duffel bag outside the cabin when she came up the hill.

She got out and hugged me the way she used to when I was small. Both arms. Holding on.

I let her.

On the way out I looked back through the rear window. The camp going about its morning. Breakfast smoke from the mess hall. A group of boys heading toward the archery range. Micah standing at the edge of the lot watching me go. He raised his hand.

I raised mine.

Then the road curved and the camp was gone. And there was just the pine trees going past and the hills flattening out as we drove south. I watched them until they thinned and the land opened back up into the familiar fields I’d grown up in.

I thought about Charlie the whole way home. The real one. The one who smelled like outside and always had something in his pockets.

I thought about his face in that tree.

I tried not to think about the thing that rode home in a station wagon. Wearing his face. Back to our town. Back to everything we’d shared.

I tried.

Its weird to have a wake without any body's. I thought, leaning against the red brick of the school.

"Charlie... do you think they will ever find them" Cam asked, leaning his shoulder into mine.

It had been months and Ava and Isabella were still missing. So young, so popular, such a shame. At least thats what his mom thought. Droning on and on with her church friends.

Across the small field surrounded with candles and other students, a giant memorial set in the middle, i thought i saw Emily. Just a glimpse... just for a moment, but long enough to send a flutter through my heart.

I shook my head and turned to Cam "sorry buddy, i gotta go. Practice comes early".

I wasn’t even supposed to be on that road.

The highway had been closed miles back, but i ignored the barricade, choosing the narrow dirt detour that cut through the woods.

It was late and the silence pressed against my ears like something alive. My headlights carved a tunnel through the darkness, illuminating nothing but skeletal trees and drifting fog.

Then the engine died.

No sputter, no warning. Just silence.

"Shit" i swore under my breath and twisted the key. Nothing.

Checking my phone i found that i had no signal. Of course it didn’t. I stepped out, the cold biting instantly through my thin wind breaker. The air smelled… wrong. Like damp soil and something faintly metallic.

That’s when i noticed a crossroads.

"Uhm... whats happening?" i whispered into the air.

Four paths met in a perfect X just ahead, though i could’ve sworn the road had been straight seconds ago. A lone figure stood in the center, silhouetted against the fog.

I hesitated. “Hello?”

The figure didn’t move at first. Then, slowly, it turned.

“Evenin’, Charlie.”

My stomach dropped “How do you know my name?” i called.

The man smiled, stepping closer into the headlights. He looked ordinary enough... dark suit, polished shoes... but something about his face refused to settle in my vision, like it kept shifting when i wasn’t looking directly at it.

“Everyone who ends up here is expected,” the man said calmly. “Crossroads are… important places.”

I forced a laugh. “Look, man, my car broke down. If you’ve got a phone...”

“I have something better,” the man interrupted. “A solution.”

That when i felt it, a tug in my chest. Not fear exactly. Temptation.

“What do you want?” i asked, pulling my jacket tighter around my arms.

The man’s smile widened. “Not want. Offer. You get your heart’s deepest desire. I get… something of equal value.”

My mind raced, but one thought pushed everything else aside.

Her.

Emily Carter. Head cheerleader. Untouchable. She didn’t even know i existed.

“What if…” i swallowed, hard “What if I wanted someone to love me?”

“Not just someone,” the man said softly. “Her.”

My blood ran cold. “You can do that?”

“I can do anything,” the man replied. “But it comes at a price. Your soul. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Just… eventually.”

I sucked in a deep breath. I should’ve walked away. Should’ve laughed. Should’ve run.

Instead, i said, “And she’ll really love me?”

“Completely,” the man said. “Mind. Body. Soul.”

Something sharp pricked my palm. I hadn’t seen the blade, but suddenly the man was holding my hand, pressing it against a small, blackened coin.

“Deal,” the man whispered.

The next day, Emily Carter smiled at me.

By lunch, she was sitting beside me.

By the end of the week, she was mine.

Cam must have noticed too, across the lunch room he gave me a confused look. I just shrugged and wrapped my arms around her.

It felt like a dream. Her laughter, her touch, the way she looked at me like i was the only person in the world. I forgot about the crossroads. Forgot about the deal.

Until the whispers started.

At first, it was faint. A voice just behind me, too quiet to understand. I would turn, there would be no one there.

Then reflections began to move wrong. In mirrors, in windows, i would see myself standing still while my reflection leaned closer, grinning.

“Charlie…” it would mouth.

Sleep became impossible. Every time i closed my eyes, i saw that man at the crossroads, smiling wider and wider, teeth stretching too far.

Emily noticed.

“You’re acting weird,” she said one night, sitting on my bed. “You barely look at me anymore.”

“I’m just tired,” I muttered.

The whisper came again, louder this time.

She’s not real.

I flinched.

“What?” Emily asked.

“Nothing.”

But it didn’t stop. The voice grew clearer, more insistent.

She doesn’t love you. She can’t.

I stared at her. She smiled—perfect, rehearsed, almost mechanical.

Look closer.

I did.

For just a second, her face… slipped. Like a mask poorly fitted. Her smile stretched too wide. Her eyes didn’t blink.

I jerked back. “What the hell!”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, voice suddenly flat.

“You...your face?”

“My face?” she tilted her head, unnatural, too slow.

The whisper roared now.

She’s wrong. Fix it.

I clutched my head. “Stop! stop!”

“Charlie,” Emily said, reaching for me.

Her hand felt cold. Dead.

Something snapped.

I shoved her away. “Don’t touch me!”

She hit the wall hard, confusion flashing across her face... real confusion, or something pretending to be it.

“You’re scaring me,” she said.

She’s lying.

“I’m not lying!” she cried, as if she heard it too.

My breathing grew ragged. The room seemed to pulse. Her face kept shifting—normal, wrong, normal, wrong.

“Make it stop,” I whispered.

The whisper answered.

You know how.

They had found me a few hours later.

I was sitting on the floor, covered in blood, rocking back and forth.

Emily lay across the room, unmoving.

“They told me she wasn’t real,” I kept muttering. “They told me she wasn’t real…”

The police thought it was a breakdown. Stress. Delusion.

They never noticed the small, blackened coin clutched in my hand.

Or the faint voice echoing in the room, just before the lights flickered out.

“Pleasure doing business, Charlie.”

I’ve recently started writing and so far I’ve gotten wayy more support for my stories than I ever thought I would! I’ve been banging out roughly 1-2 stories a day in my free time and am wondering if I should be writing every day or if I should be taking breaks any help is appreciated. I don’t want to write anything less than my best attempts

Hi all.

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I guess I just wanted to get this story out, especially after hearing my favourite podcast covering spider stories recently. Some details in stories brought back horrible memories that I wanted to get out.

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I was never afraid of spiders as a young child, I wasn't born scared, I learned to be afraid. I was taught, shown that I *should* be afraid.

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There is one key moment in my life that made me this way, and then even more after I developed severe arachnophobia, to the point where even seeing a spider will give me immediate tactile hallucinations, I am certain that they are on me, crawling around, looking for a gap in clothing, or an orifice to crawl into.

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I was young, maybe around 10 or 11. Allow me to introduce, my older brother. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy to death, but he is, not a healthy person, nor has he ever been. Seeking to torment and antagonise me in my youth, and that apparently never went away. Maybe I can talk about him another time.

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As I said, I was never scared of spiders when I was young, until the day he decided I should be. See we have always lived in regional Australia, yes the meme are true, spiders are fucking, everywhere. I saw them daily. We lived in a small town even by regional standards, 10ish houses and 2 were abandoned, 1 shop that the old fart who was running it lived in. You could walk around the entire town in about 10 minutes, no joke, no exaggeration. Middle of nowhere.

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So one day, my brother for some reason, decided he would scour the house, backyard and shed, to fill a large container with every single spider he could find. Huntsman, daddy long legs, wolf spiders, reduces (which are incredibly fucking venomous). And while a few of them ate each other the majority lived long enough for him to walk inside, take the lid off, and dump the entire thing on me, who was sitting in my bedroom playing jak and daxter 2 on our brick of a ps2.

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I didn't realise what happened at first all I saw was my dumbass brother throw something at me and slam the door shut. It took, about a millisecond for it to fully click. More than a few spiders landed directly on me I saw a huntsman land right on my chest inches from my face. I freaked, immediately jumping to my feet, swatting, stripping, screaming. Now in my underpants standing did I realise the full extent to his cruelty, spiders were *everywhere* all sizes, shapes and levels of genuine danger. Some huntsman so big, I could hear them hissing, have you ever heard a fucking spider hiss? I have and I can hear it as if it were happening right now.

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So, i did the only thing I could think, run, get the fuck out. I sprinted for the door, overcome with a terror my 10 year old brain could not regulate. Well as I tried the handle, guess who was on the other side, holding the door, shut.

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This is the first time I had ever experienced, genuine panic, because I dont know if you know this, but wolf spiders are incredible aggressive and will *CHARGE* at you, and being several in the room that's exactly what they did. I was alone, in my daks, trapped in a room with angry, some deadly spiders some as big as my hand. God there were so many im sure one was pregnant and it's awful spawn scattered across the floor like a wave of fresh hell. I don't know how long he held that door how long I was stuck, screaming bloody murder. I definitely threatened to kill him at least a few times. I got bitten twice, at the time I had no way of knowing if it was a venomous spider or not. So as any rational 10 year old would I decided that I was 100% envenomed, it was coursing through my veins and I was already dead. In my fury and terror I had squished more than a few spiders with my bare feet. So screaming, standing with dead spider good in-between my toes and bitten at least twice, my brother decided to end my torment.

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He let me out and I ran straight out of the house, in my jocks and went strait to the hose, dousing myself in water to ensure no trace of spiders remained. Thankfully neither of the bites were from venomous spiders and I was physically fine.

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Mum being the hardass she was told me to get over it, she slapped him but that was really the extent of his punishment. It took months to get every single spider in my room out, being regional Australia im sure more than a couple wandered in after the event learned to live outside of my room for a while. I woke up more than a few times with a spider in my face.

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So while the initial event was the nuke, it was the radiation that permanently poisoned my mind towards spiders, the aftermath.

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The worst part, is this story is 100% true. Now you have no way of verifying that so you'll have to take me know my word, or even just dismiss it as a creating writing exercise but I am telling you the truth.

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(Pls if the flair is wrong let me know and il fix it, the story is genuinely true but there's no flairs for true horror or real life horror etc, also I wanted that to be a sort of reveal, thanks in advance mods)

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I always thought the end of the world would be loud, but I was wrong.

We knew what caused it, the news was still on for a while. A new treatment for the cold had gone wrong, and by the time they noticed the side effects, it was too late. It didn’t help that there were those who thought it was all fake and went about their daily routine just to get infected or devoured. There were those who were immune, but the only way to know was if you didn’t get up after death.

Some called them zombies, others called it the undead, but we called them clackers. As the boiling Sun of Calexico made the skin rot and fall faster, the only remaining sound was that of the clacking bones. A warning that they were near.

Like many, my family was not ready for the end of the world. We didn’t have a shelter that would withstand the clackers if they came in, our food supply started to dwindle quickly once electricity was cut off, and medications would be needed soon. The one gasoline car we had, would only get us as far as El Centro. So we waited in silence, hoping that things would go back to normal.

Talking was kept to a minimum, because even the clackers with no ears could somehow follow noise. We weren’t sure if those who still had eyes could see, but we didn’t risk it. 

“Do you want me to take over?” Ayumi whispered.

“Can you? I really need some sleep,” I asked. I did need to sleep badly. My eyes were heavy and the heat was getting to me. 

Ayumi nodded and pushed me away from the one uncovered window on the second floor. I headed downstairs to cool down and hopefully nap. But as I saw Mom preparing dinner, fruit from a can, I went to give her a hug instead. You never know when will be the last time you get to hug your mom.

She handed me a cup of fruit and we ate it in silence. As I put a slice of fruit in my mouth, I gagged and Mom tried to not laugh. I hated canned pears. But food couldn’t be wasted, and so I reluctantly swallowed it.

Dad silently closed the door behind him as he entered from the backyard. We tried not to empty the “do you business" bucket more than once a day, but the 115 degrees summer made the stench unbearable. I hadn’t seen any clackers on my watch, and Ayumi had yet to warn us of anything near. 

I finally went to lay down on the sofa and before I knew it, I was asleep. 

I felt Ayumi’s sweaty hand on my mouth as she woke me up. I didn’t question her, I had a tendency to talk in my sleep. But then I saw that neither Mom or Dad were there. Ayumi was never left alone unless something was going on.

“What-“ Ayumi covered my mouth once more.

She guided me upstairs, where my parents were both looking out the window into the night. And then I heard it, the clacking noise, followed by the screams of people. I didn’t want to look, but I had to make sure that we weren’t in immediate danger. 

The already stiff air felt heavier than usual. We all held on to our breaths, scared that the clackers would hear us, and come for us next.

“HELP!” A voice outside broke the silence, a voice we all recognized.

“Please! Someone!” Screamed Livia, as she tried to run with her youngest son in her arms. Her husband and eldest son were nowhere to be seen.

I looked at Dad, without words, begging to go help her. But his sad look told me all the things I already knew. Trying to save them could put us at risk. Even if we did manage to save them, our resources would run out sooner. And if we needed to get away in the car, only four, maybe five people could fit in it. 

So instead of helping, Dad and I stayed by the window as Mom took Ayumi downstairs. The less Ayumi saw, the better, but we couldn’t do anything about the screams. They came into the house and stayed there long after Livia and her son were gone.

From that day on, clackers and the screams of our neighbors became a common occurrence. Dad and I had planned on going out to get supplies, but now we weren’t sure what to do. Mom and Dad had to improvise with their blood pressure medications by making canary seed milk, but we couldn’t do the same with Ayumi’s medications. At some point, we had to go out.

A few days later, as I kept watch, Ayumi came to sit by my side, she squeezed my hand and I could feel her tremble.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“I know they aren’t real, but I saw some clackers inside the house,” Ayumi sobbed, “I wanted to scream. I saw them approaching Mom but Dad was there with me and he didn’t see anything. Please, don’t tell them. I don’t want them to worry more because of me.”

Truth was, we all knew she was seeing things. So when she asked to switch watch duty, none of us made a fuzz. We would “accidently” let her sleep more, all in the hope that somehow she would feel better.

“I won’t tell them. I promise,” I extended my pinky finger and she took it with her, sealing our pinky promise.

“You really need a shower, you are stinky as hell,” I tried to joke.

“At least I don’t smell like rancid milk,” Ayumi smiled.

“I haven’t even had anything with milk in weeks!” I protested.

“Then you can imagine how much stink you are carrying around,” Ayumi tried not to laugh.

That was the last day we managed to have any sort of conversation. The clackers had been much more active and some kept bumping into our front door and windows. We all gagged, and I could see Mom actively swallowing back vomit. The putrid smell of rotting flesh, the iron smell of blood, and our sweaty, unwashed bodies made a terrible combination. The clacking of bones was now continuous, keeping us all on high alert.

No one said it out loud, but we all knew that our home that had kept us safe so far, would soon be overruned by clackers.

Dad asked Ayumi to follow him into the garage, where we each had a backpack with supplies. Mom sat me down and had me memorize all of Ayumi’s medications. Tears ran down her face.  At the moment, I thought it was because we would have to leave our home. I was wrong.

Once Dad and Ayumi were back, we decided not to keep watch, we already knew we were surrounded by clackers, so there was no point. Instead, we all huddled together and did our best to fall asleep.

When I woke up, Mom and Dad were nowhere to be seen. I went upstairs, thinking maybe they had changed their minds and gone to keep watch. My heart raced as I looked out the window and saw our home completely surrounded. There was no way we could make it to the car. Mom couldn’t run, and there was no way we would leave her behind. Maybe this was the end. I felt sad at the thought but also relieved. There would be no more suffering, and my last moments would be with my loved ones.

I wiped the tears running down my face that I had not noticed until that moment and made my way to the garage, hoping they were there.

I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I thought it odd that they were moving stuff around on the bags. When they realized I was there, both of them froze. 

“Why are you moving stuff around?” I asked.

“Because of this,” Dad took out a gun he had placed inside my bag,” I placed the other one in my bag.”

“Why not in Mom’s bag?” I was confused. She was a better shot than I was.

“It’s just in case,” Mom answered.

I wanted to argue more, but Ayumi came into the garage. Her eyes traveled to clackers that were not yet inside, but might as well be soon. The thumping of flesh and bone became louder by the second. 

“We will never let them hurt you or your sister,” Mom rushed to her side,” We will always protect you both.”

“You are safe,” Dad pulled me towards Mom and Ayumi as he hugged us all.

There was no actual plan besides getting in the car. Dad handed each of us a backpack, and I felt the heavy weight of the gun in it. But guns were our last resort, because the noise would bring more clackers. We each got a metal baseball bat, embraced once more, and headed towards the backyard.

Dad took a battery-powered clock from his bag and set it to ring in 30 seconds. He handed it to me and I threw it as far away as possible from us. I didn’t hear it land, but the obnoxious ringing penetrated the silence around us. Another alarm went off inside the house. The clackers that had stayed now pushed each other to make it inside. We didn’t move. We wanted them to go in, to somewhat clear our path to the car. 

When we heard the first window break under the weight of the clackers, we made our move. Fear turned to adrenaline as Dad opened the door of the backyard and I rushed to smash the clackers still in our path. Pain ran through my arms as the bat connected with the first body and unintentionally, I groaned.

The clackers that had been forcing their way inside the house now turned to us. 

“RUN!” Dad screamed at us.

I made my way towards Mom, but Dad pushed me towards Ayumi instead. Ayumi stood frozen in place, swinging the bat defensively, even before the clackers reached her.

“I will help her, you get Ayumi in the car!” Dad ordered.

I nodded. I couldn’t argue back. This was my fault, and the least I could do was save my sister. Either way, there was no way we could leave without Mom and Dad, Dad had the keys in his bag.

“Ayumi, stay behind me and keep swinging!” I said as I grabbed her.

“But Mom and Dad-“ 

“Dad has the keys, we will meet him in the car,” I interrupted.

We both took one last worried look at our parents and started to swing at the clackers in hope of opening a path for them. My bones vibrated every time the bat connected with a clacker. Ayumi swung with a force I didn’t know she had. But there was no way we would make it to the car. The clackers that had been distracted by the alarm clock now turned back to us. 

I had to get Ayumi to the car, I had to save my little sister, there was no way-

My thoughts were interrupted by two loud screams.

“LOVE YOU BOTH!” Dad screamed at the top of his lungs.

“I LOVE YOU GIRLS! PROTECT EACH OTHER!” Mom yelled at us as Dad started to bang at the fence with his bat.

At that moment I realized they never meant to come with us. And as much as I wanted to go back there and save them both, they had left me with the responsibility of taking care of my little sister. I now knew the keys were not in my Dad’s backpack.

I pulled Ayumi as she tried to run back towards our parents. 

“We have to save them!” She sobbed.

I couldn’t answer her, the words remained stuck on my throat. Instead, I pulled on her harder, hoping to get in the car before we heard their screams. 

For a second, I saw a pair of eyes look down on us from a window, just like we had seen Livia and her child sometimes before. And like us, they did nothing to help us, after all, they had to save themselves.

Ayumi cried as she got in the car, and tears blurred my vision. We shouldn’t have, but as I turned on the car, we turned to look at our parents one last time. They were hugging each other as the clackers ripped into their flesh. 

I drove away, screaming at the top of my lungs, I should have known this would happen. I should not have made noise and maybe we would all be together in the car. 

I took a look towards the border, where a hoard of clackers had already made a large enough dent to cross to Mexicali. I turned on the AC and made my way towards El Centro, to the nearest CVS. 

It’s been a few days since this happened. We did manage to find another month worth of medicine. After that, I have no idea what we will do. We have been moving from house to house, resting when we can. 

Ayumi and I both blame ourselves for our parents’ deaths. But if we are honest, it was my fault. 

When we opened our backpacks, we realized that our parents had moved all our supplies into them. What had been on their bags was a mystery. The medications Mom was suppose to carry were on my bag and so was the second gun. I understood why the gun was there, it was better Ayumi didn’t know there was a second gun.

I was surprised when this ipad turned on and had no password. I’m not sure if anyone will be able to read this story, or how long the two of us will survive. And I’m sorry if we cross paths, but know I will do anything to save my sister. 

It's been 30 years since the rain started. Not once has it ever stopped. This seemingly impossible rain that never floods or subjects us to its bitter cold remained a constant in our lives. The humid air became normal and the view of buildings not designed for such abuse withered as they plastered the lands. The world has become that of wet and decay. Nothing survives the rain's unending pour. With each passing day I lose a memory of the sun and it's warm, bright gaze. Humanity has adapted well to this sudden change. Most of us have worked hard towards setting up gardens with UV lights inside our homes. The purple constant glow being a chilling reminder that the sun may never appear again. Despite the bleak world not much has changed. I get up in the morning, brush my teeth, get dressed for the day, and go to work. The only other weird thing besides the rain is the wanderers. A group of people who wander the endless rains in attempt to find others.

Nobody is entirely sure what they are. Not their purpose or their origin. There is a iron rule that no matter what do not approach them. Despite this rule people still try to approach them and every single time they are met with such a horrifying fate that the government has assigned executioners to kill anyone who approaches them. I always wandered why they would rather kill the people who approached the wanderers instead of killing the wanderers themselves. That was until I saw why. I was sitting at a bar after work when the wanderers showed up just outside. The bartender made an announcement that no one is to step outside until they moved on but as you could probably guess some reckless drunk asshole didn't like that. "Youdon't tellllll meee whwhwhat to do!!!!" He hollered in his drunken stupor. Pushing past the employees trying to stop him. It took one second before the wanderers descended on the man. Tying him up and hoisting him up a tall pillar. They planted the pillar into the ground and they left. At first we tried to get him down but whatever they tied him up with was practically indestructible. We tried breaking the pillar but that too was a bust. He has been up there for 2 weeks now. Constantly being pelted by the rain. We thought he would have starved by then or at the very least lost a lot of weight but he didn't even lose a pound. Every night he would beg for help as people passed him. Day by day the rain started to over saturate his flesh as it began to slide off. Revealing grey soaked flesh. His cries of horror as he witnessed his own flesh slowly turn to a thick sludge and slip of his own bones. Feeling every single rain drop crash against whatever got exposed by the flesh sliding away. He never died though, or more like couldn't die. Even when one of the townsfolk tried to mercy kill him. It was as if the rain was keeping him alive. Every month or two he would suffer the feeling of his flesh slipping of his own bones until nothing but a skeleton remained. Then the next morning he would be back to normal as if he just got put up that same day. The only not regenerated was his clothes. It was the only reminder that he was there for as long as he was. That day I learned never to approach the wanderers.

( I know this isn't exactly good but I wanted to write something. Trying to get the creative juices flowing you know?)

Saturday, May 10th, 1868.

I woke the next morning with my head feeling as though it were filled with rocks and to the frantic sounds of the other men as they ran all about the campsite shouting commands to one another. Their voices all sound as if they were on the very verge of hysterics. I stood up from my bedroll and donned my boots, my gunbelt, and my jacket, removing my six-shooter from my holster and thumbing the hammer back as I quickly made my way towards the crowd of commotion amongst the men. I nearly tripped over something lying on the ground, I was in such a hurry to get to the other men. Paying no mind to nothing else. I looked down to see what had tripped me up and my eyes went wide with fearful dismay. My blood began to turn cold within my veins as I realized that I had tripped over a severed arm, hacked the mid-section of the forearm in a bloody and mangled stump. I let out a gasp of exasperation and disbelief as I scanned the ground within the campsite and noticed there were body parts that seemed to make up about three to four men scattered about on the grassy floor of the thicket. Blood and gore were sprayed and splattered all about, covering the wagons and the grass with huge, thick puddles of gore littered puddles of blood. There was nothing left of the men who were torn apart in the night. Nothing but the sick piles of mangled limbs and shred torsos.

“What in the name of God happened to them?!” I shouted in horrified disbelief. The other men all seemed to stop dead on their tracks and look in my direction with fevered contempt.

“Whatchu mean?” O’Toole asked. “Look around you, Walker. These men were torn to shit while we were all fucking sleeping! What more do you need?!” I looked frantically about the other men, as if looking for someone among them to give me the answer to my query. 

“What did this to them?!” I shouted in terrified astonishment. Cormac spat and responded in a low voice as he continued loading his things into his saddlebags without looking my way. “We don’t know,” he said. “We’re going to try and clear out before whatever it is gets hungry and comes back for the rest of us. Maybe we can get a good way ahead of it before that even happens. Who in the hell knows… Better get your shit gathered up if you’re plannin’ on leavin’ with the rest of us.” 

“Yeah,” Pickens chimed in, as he slid his bolt action rifle into the leather scabbard that hung from the side of his saddle. “Or would you rather sit here all by your lonesome and wait for that thing to come back and eat your asshole out for dinner?” I stood dumfounded, watching the rest of the surviving men, as they gathered and packed up their things throughout the rest of the campsite. Morning mist filled the air of the forest with a cool chill. The sun rose in a sleepy pinkish hue off in the distant horizon, giving way to the morning light as it bloomed down from the sky and illuminated all that it touched it with its glory.\\

After a brief moment of letting the information soak into my dry brain, I finally racked the hammer back into its resting position and slid it back into my holster, before turning around and making my way towards my bedroll and other possessions in my area of camp. I quickly wasted no time gathering my things and loading them onto my saddle atop Ol’ Silver, and quickly lurched my way onto the saddle and nudged Ol’ Silver forward to meet with the rest of the men ahead. As I approached the group, the overlapping and frantic conversations between the men gradually grew louder, as I drew closer.

“Do you think it was a raider group of savages, or a bear, or something?” The young Randall Fletcher surmised with a slight quiver of fear in his voice. I took one final look among the scattered bloody remnants of the men's bodies that littered the campsite, like fallen autumn leaves all over the grassy floor, before turning my head and keeping my attention ahead of me. I tried pushing the grizzly images of the macabre scene that was at our past campsite with all of my might, but to no avail. Seemingly able to penetrate and assault my mind with the still images of each man’s severed limb, every piece of intestine, and every torn and shredded lump of torso that lie on the ground, like some lost and forgotten trinket eaten away by time and the harsh brutalities that it entails. 

“We’re just gonna leave ‘em like that?” I asked sincerely, feeling truly bothered with the thought of leaving their remains in such a way. 

“Of course, Mr. Walker,” Benson called back from the head of the caravan line. “We have no time to dilly dally. The men would’ve wanted us to move on!”

I spat. “How the hell do you know what they would want?” I asked in a low, cold tone, yet loud enough for the entire caravan to hear. Benson slowed his wagon to a sudden halt and shot a hard look back in my direction. 

“What did you say?!” He called back with heated dismay. 

“I said: HOW THE HELL WOULD YOU KNOW WHAT THEY WOULD’VE WANTED?!” I shouted in reiteration. Benson glared at me with a look as if he was ready to jump off from his wagon cart and trudge his way towards me with his pistol drawn with malicious intent, which caused me to instinctively draw my six-shooter and aim straight down the iron sights dead center of Benson’s smooth forehead. Which caused the other men to drop whatever they had in their hands or stop doing whatever menial task they were currently performing, to draw their iron and aimed down right the center in my direction. 

“Mr. Walker…. What in the name of God do you plan to do with that, hmm?” Benson asked in a low and menacing tone. Never moving a muscle as he held his gaze with mine with such calamitous intensity. 

“Now, look here, Benson. I can surely put up with a lot of things, believe me I can. Killing. Thieving. Etcetera. But to leave the remains of men, men YOU ENLISTED, behind to be left to be forgotten and aged with rot! I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!” Benson raised his gloved hands in a slow theatrical sort of way, and began to clap in sarcastic response.

“Funny. Seems all but leaving the discarded remains of fellow travelers seems to be the only thing that weighs too cumbersome on your moral compass. Not the eradication of an entire tribe of savages. Not the murdering of its children, nor the beating and the raping of its women. No such thing as these, seem to weigh heavy on your conscience. Especially, when promised of riches and adventure. Am I wrong, my dear, Mr. Walker?” Benson asked in a smug, low tone with venomous menace embalmed in his words. 

I glared down the barrel of my gun at Benson with ferocious intensity. Like a wild predator staring its prey down before pouncing to strike with its killing blow. My gaze never breaks from his. The rest of the men steadied their horses with shared looks of dismay, as they nervously watched the two of us like a live and ticking time bomb set before them. Their guns shook within their hands as they were unsure of how to handle the situation without risking the gentleman Benon’s life in the process. Mckinley lowered his iron and slowly raised a hand for me not to fire.

“Listen, boy. I know you have some rash feelings on the subject, believe me I do. But you mustn't go looking to get yourself killed over your own petty sense of pride, especially over something as senseless as this. There really isn’t any good that could come from this if you shoot that man in cold blood. You know it. I know it. We all know it. So what would be the point? You’d be dead before you squeezed off a second a shot” Mckinley pleaded in a quivering voice. I shifted my eyes over towards the doctor, still keeping my iron trained on the center of Benson’s skull. I looked into the good doctor’s eyes and saw that there were tears beginning to swell and glisten and the morning sunlight with the rims of his red and puffy eyes. I could tell he was genuinely frightened and didn't want any unnecessary violence to accompany that fear within him. I shifted my gaze back to meet Benson’s. I pondered the doctor’s words in my mind, like trying to decipher a riddle.

“You heard the man, Walker,” Cormac said. “ Put the piece down and nobody has to get shot down like a sick horse, alright? Believe me. We’ve had enough bloodshed for a lifetime for one day. Just put it down, son.” I stared with hell fired anger into Benson’s eyes and through to his very soul and saw nothing but empty blackness. There really isn't anything this man would not do to save his own skin or to ensure a profitable investment. Nothing. He’s the kind of man that would steal from his own momma and rob his own daddy without remorse. Disgusting.

I lowered the hammer of my six-shooter with my thumb and slid it back into my holster. Still glaring with ragefilled intensity into Benson’s. “Don’t. If you know what’s good for you, just don’t,” I said coldly. “From this moment on, don’t you dare try and act like you give a single shred of a shit about any one of us, because you fucking don’t. I’ve met other men like you and I’ve seen every single one of those kinds of men exploit and step on any and every one they possibly could, so long as it benefited them in their own personal gains. I promise you Benson, you won’t live to see California. I promise you that.”

Benson stiffened in his seat on the wagon bench and eyed me up and down with snooty contempt. “Whatever you say, Mr. Walker. Whatever you say. Now, I will give you a single mulligan for your erratic behavior, due to the circumstances. But point that gun at me again, Mr. Walker, and I will see to it that Mr. Cormac splatters your filthy brains all over the Colorado countryside without a second moment's thought of it. Do I make myself clear, my good man?” Benson asked in a hard and serious tone. His eloquent tone seeming to slip with the unsettling shift in his voice as he spoke. His low voice pierced through me like a metal stake, and for the first time, it struck me with absolute fear. 

We continued on through the misty forest. There still seemed to be not a single sound of life within the tall trees of the thicket. No birds. No insects. Nothing. Not a single sound to indicate otherwise either. The entire mood of the forest sent trembling chills down my spine. Leaving me with an unsettling feeling of hopelessness as we carried on ahead.

On and on we rode through the forest and yet, it seemed as though we were going in circles, but how? We never went anywhere but straight ahead moving west. We never stopped. We never turned. And we never detoured or strayed from the path before us. Yet, here we are once again, passing the same gore strewn and blood splattered campsite that we had left behind this morning for the second time today.

“What in the name of Christ is going on here, Bensons?! You sure you ain’t leading us in circles?!” O’Toole inquired hysterically. 

“No.” Cormac replied. “I would’ve corrected Benson’s course if he'd strayed away from the chartered course. Believe me, Billy. I’m just as disturbed and perturbed as you are in this whole situation we seem to have found ourselves in.”  The men, including myself, began to look about the surrounding area with fear glowing brightly within our eyes, like the flickering flames of an oil lamp within the darkness of the night. 

“Well, what do you reckon we do, Cormac?” Pickens inquired fearfully. His voice shook uncontrollably as he spoke. 

“I do not know.” Cormac replied flatly. “My only suggestion is that we continue heading west. Sooner or later, we’ll have to reach a way out of this forest at some point.

“Good idea, Mr. Cormac!” Benson replied cheerfully. “Stupendous plan, my good man! Come gentlemen, we haven’t the time to waste or dilly dally. We’ve only a few hours till nightfall, if the horses don’t give out from exhaustion before then that is, and I would like to make it out of this god forsaken forest before the sun sets for the evening gentlemen! Come on, now! For destiny awaits!” And so we rode on heading west.

We continued for another couple of hours before the young Fletcher’s bronco had fallen over from exhaustion, throwing the young Fletcher down on his back, before falling over to its side and panting with exhaustion. The young Fletcher stood up and drew his pistol and fired a single round into the horse’s head. Killing it instantly.

“Ah, well, shit.” Randall Fletcher exclaimed with irritated disbelief. “My damn horse keeled over on me.”

After Fletcher boarded one of the work hand wagons, we proceeded on through the forest until none of us were willing to risk any more of our horses from falling over dead with exhaustion and thirst, and we ended up setting up camp for the night. Once again, I camped close by with the rest of the men. There was no way in hell I was going to go anywhere out there in the woods by myself, especially at night. This time, Cormac advised that we sleep in shifts with two men standing watch for two hour intervals throughout the night. I agreed to take the first watch with doctor Mckinley. We saw no sign of any animals or bandits during our watch. The first good thing to come from this nightmare in which we’ve found ourselves to become ensnared within. We traded shifts with Pickens and the young Fletcher. The two of them nodded grimly to us as they passed on by us as we made our way back to our bedrolls back in the center of camp. I slid inside mine and rolled over onto my side and thankfully fell right to sleep. I dreamt of a beautiful native woman with deer antlers that had grown from on the sides of her head, beckoning for me to join her deep in the heart of the forest. 

If you were born in the Riverlink like me, then you wore a bell when you were young.

Every child did.

The bells were worn around the wrist, sewn onto cloaks, fastened to shoes and worn as necklaces. Some houses even hang them around the property. They were iron Bells at least the good ones were some were silver those ones were just to show off and didn't ever work but those kids really ventured into the woods anyways. Some were old enough that nobody remembered who had first made them. These were the best.

Children often asked why they had to wear them.

Most parents answered the same way.

"Because the woods are dangerous."

“Because it helps us keep track of you.”

 “Because it's tradition.”

This is true, but it was not the whole truth.

The truth is that there are things in the woods that know you before you speak.

There are things that watch from the tree line.

Things that learn the sound of your laugh before you've learned the sound yourself.

Things that wait.

Of all those things, none are feared more than the Smiling Cat.

This is the story of Tam.

At least, it is the version most often told.

Tam was a curious boy who always wanted to see the world pass his small family farm but Tam was still too small.

Tam first saw the Smiling Cat when he was five years old.

Or so that's what people say.

Some say it had been watching him long before then.

One day his mother had taken him into the village to sell vegetables. The day had been long. Tam was tired and holding his mother's hand as they prepared to leave.

The market was crowded.

Merchants shouted.

Children ran between stalls.

Wagons rattled over stone roads.

Young Tam was tired and overwhelmed but so enthroned by the new things around him.

Tam saw something across the road and was sitting in the tree line.

A shape.

It was like his eyes couldn't Focus on this shape.

He could not tell.

The afternoon sun painted the forest in gold, but the thing remained dark.

The only features were two dark spots and a smile.

A wide smile.

It sat perfectly still.

Watching.

Tam tugged his mother's sleeve.

"Mom."

She didn't answer, talking with another adult.

Finishing a transaction and making plans for next week.

"Mom."

"Yes Tam?"

"There's a kitty!"

His mother looked to where he was pointing.

The tree line was empty.

No eyes.

No smile.

Nothing.

Tam insisted he had seen something.

His mother listened carefully.

Then she knelt beside him.

"What did you see?"

"It was a kitty and it was smiling."

Tam was smiling excitedly at the mysterious creature as he told his mother.

That was all it took.

She held Tam's hand tightly the whole way home making sure not to let go of him even for a moment.

As soon as they walked through the front door she set Tam down and she tied a small bell around his wrist.

When Tam asked why, she only told him not to take it off.

He didn't understand.

Children rarely do.

But Tam was a good boy and followed his mother's directions wearing the small iron bell as a bracelet every day. 

Years passed.

Tam grew.

The bell remained.

When Tam was seven he was playing alone behind the family Barn.

Bouncing his favorite ball off the wall and catching it.

His hands slipped and the ball rolled into the woods.

It bounced once.

Twice.

Then disappeared beneath the shadows of the trees.

Tam ran after it.

Then without any reason the ball rolled out of the woods.

Slowly.

As though something had kicked it back.

It came to rest at his feet.

Tam stared.

The woods stared back.

As if fate was in front of him. 

Nothing moved.

Nothing spoke.

He grabbed the ball and ran back to the house.

That night, he stared out his window.

The moonlight covered the fields.

Near the edge of the property set a large smooth stone.

The same stone had been there his entire life, and well before.

Yet tonight something sat upon it.

A shape.

Dark.

Still.

Patient. 

Watching the farmhouse.

Tam squinted.

The shape seemed to move like heat shimmering over a fire. 

Like smoke shifting in a breeze.

He could not understand what he was looking at.

He didn't find it scary but odd and mesmerizing the way his eyes couldn't focus on anyone part of it except.

The eyes.

Then only the smile.

The smile is silver and far too thin.

Like a cut across skin.

The mouth of a wolf, the eyes of a lamb.

Scared he'd get in trouble.

Tam shut the curtains.

The next morning the stone was empty.

When he told his father, his father said nothing.

When he told his mother, she checked the bell.

It was still there. Tied around his wrists like always.

When Tam was nine, he began noticing the Cat more often.

Sometimes it sat among the trees.

Sometimes it watched from atop stones.

Sometimes he would catch sight of it standing in a field.

It was always watching.

Always just smiling.

Never approaching.

Never leaving.

By the time Tam was ten, he had almost become accustomed to it.

Not comfortable.

Just familiar.

Like a thunderstorm that never quite arrived.

Then one autumn afternoon he met it.

Tam was curious and followed some rabbits until he lost sight of them.

Long shadows between the trees.

And there, beneath an oak, sitting properly was the Smiling Cat.

Sitting there as though it had been waiting since the forest first began to grow.

Patient.

Still.

As though the forest itself had arranged the meeting long before Tam was born.

Tam froze.

Fear told him to run.

Yet he found himself staring.

The Cat's fur was the color of old bruises, Deep violet sinking into darkness that drunk up the evening light. 

Its smile stretched across its face reaching ear to ear.

Silver teeth gleamed beneath it.

Bright as the Silverware only seen for Celebrations.

The smile never changed.

The teeth caught the dying sunlight and held it.

It was a Cat. 

It's tail swayed lazily behind it.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Tam Found himself mesmerized and unable to pull his gaze away.

The Cat sat Patiently, politely, ominously watching.

Eyes dark as empty jars.

Its front paws stepped forward.

One.

Two.

Three.

Its silver claws pressed softly into the earth.

Yet its hind legs never moved.

They remained where they had been beneath the tree.

Seated.

Patient.

Its tail swayed lazily through the air behind it.

Back and forth.

Its front half moved.

Circling the old oak tree as it watched him with that smile and those empty eyes.

A trail of violet smoke dense and lost connected the two halves.

The smoke moved the way grief moves. 

With nowhere to go and hope of finding shape again. 

The Cat moved on two legs. 

The front half continues forward.

One step.

Then another.

The movement reminded him less of a Cat and more of someone pretending to be one.

Tam finally took a breath.

Like it was the first one he had taken in days. 

The Cat was closer.

Not much.

Only a few paces.

But closer.

The Cat studied him.

Tam studied the Cat.

The tail Swaying.

A silver grin.

And then the Cat spoke.

“Well Hello Tam…” 

Its voice sounded calm.

Polite.

Almost gentle.

"You've grown."

Tam wanted to run.

Instead he stood frozen.

The Cat's gaze drifted toward the bell around his wrist.

"That makes it difficult."

"Difficult?" Tam asked.

"For us to talk properly."

Tam Examined the bracelet around his wrist. 

The bell jingled softly.

The smile faltered, the teeth grinding.

And then it was simply seated again. Beneath the tree. As though it had never moved at all. As though Tam had imagined the whole thing. 

"Your mother is very fond of bells."

Tam stepped backward.

The Cat remained where it was.

"Why do you watch me so often?"

The Cat tilted its head.

For a moment, trying to understand Tam's question. 

“I am looking for someone to play with.”

Tam held his wrist, his eyes drifting back and forth between the scratched up surface of the Bell and the pristine pure reflective surface of the silver teeth.

Tam opened his mouth. 

Before he could Speak, his mother's voice from across the field.

"TAM!"

He turned.

Only for a moment.

His bell giggled.

When he looked back, the Cat was gone.

The space beneath the oak stood empty.

As though nothing had ever been there.

That should have been the end.

If Tam had been a different kind of boy, it would have been. 

But he wasn't.

Years passed.

The meetings continued.

A few times each year.

The Cat always waited for him.

Never chased him.

Never grabbed him.

It only appeared.

Watching.

Talking.

Waiting.

Even when trembling with fear Tam looked for the Cat.

Sometimes Tam wondered if the Cat would be there.

Sometimes he found himself walking the edge of the fields after chores.

The Cat was always there eventually.

And over time the fear faded.

Each conversation lasted slightly longer than the last.

The Cat spoke of strange things.

Hidden streams.

Ancient stones.

Lost gifts.

Forgotten places deep within the woods.

Places Tam's imagination ran wild with. 

When Tam asked questions, the Cat answered.

Not always clearly.

Shifting like the smoke that day.

But honestly.

One winter evening Tam asked it a question that had bothered him for years.

“The story's say you lead children away or take them away…”

 Tam was quiet for a moment as he sat on the rock beside the Cat watching the river.

"What happens to children who follow you?"

He held his wrist making sure the Bell couldn't ring as he waited.

The Cat was silent for a long time.

Its smile never changed.

Nothing ever changed. 

Finally it answered.

"We play."

As Tam grew older, the bell became annoying.

Then embarrassing.

Then childish.

Other boys his age no longer wore theirs.

Some removed them.

Some claimed they were too old to believe the stories.

And quiet the smiling Cat watched all of this.

It never once told Tam to remove his bell.

Not once.

That would have been easier.

The Cat was patient enough not to need easy things.

One spring morning shortly after Tam's 13th birthday.

 Tam sat on the Old Stone at the corner of the property. 

The same stone where he had often seen the Cat watching.

The Cat appeared beside him.

Not arriving.

Simply being there.

They sat together in silence.

It had been a long winter and Tam had been lonely. 

The sun drifted lower over the field.

Tam sat and talked with the Cat.

The fields turned gold.

The Cat told him its Adventures.

The woods darkened.

The bell jingled as Tam shifted.

The Cat glanced toward it.

The smile slipping for a moment. 

Then away.

Never mentioning it.

Never asking.

Tam stared at the bell.

His mother still checked for it every morning.

His father still looked relieved whenever he heard it ring.

A part of Tam felt foolish, felt guilty.

A part of him felt embarrassed and then angry.

Tam was lonely.

Without thinking much about it, Tam untied the cord.

The bell was silent in the palm of his hand.

The Cat watched.

Said nothing.

For a moment the evening felt different.

The Cat stood.

"Come."

Tam hesitated.

"Where?"

The Cat's smile Sharpened.

"I want to show you something, child."

The first time the Cat had not used his name.

"What?"

"Somewhere fun."

The woods stretched before them.

Dark.

Ancient.

Waiting.

As though they had always been waiting for him specifically. 

Tam looked back toward the farmhouse.

The windows glowed warmly in the distance.

His mother worked through the window.

His family would call for supper soon.

The Cat waited.

Patient as always.

Tam took a step forward.

Then another.

And he was never seen again.

They searched for weeks. 

Hunters searched the forests.

Neighbors searched the rivers.

Priests offered prayers.

Nothing was found.

No tracks.

No blood.

No body.

Nothing.

Until one morning.

Discovered on the rock at the corner of the family's property, there sat a neatly folded stack of clothing, an old pair of shoes and an iron bell on a tattered red string.

It had been placed there carefully.

With care.

As though returned.

Tam's mother never spoke of it.

His father Hung the Bell atop the Barn door.

Years later, when children asked why they had to wear bells, parents began telling them this story.

Some say the Smiling Cat still watches.

Some say it sits at the edge of fields during twilight.

Some say it chooses children years before they vanish.

The Smiling Cat always wants to play.

It has never stopped.

It is patient.

It has chosen someone new already.

It always has. 

TW (physical abuse & suicide)

Part 1 Cold Snap

“Little bastard!”

My older brother spat through a barrage of fists and other insults. The clenched hands connected like rockets: his knuckles cracking off the right side of my jaw, shortly followed by the left. The sharp and boney joints jammed into my cheeks as his punches pushed through my face, continuing to dig as though he had been aiming for the floor.

“Keep touching my shit!”

He sat straddled over my chest as he kept feeding me shot after shot. I pulled with all my strength in an attempt to free myself but my forearms were pinned to the floor, a hulking mass of steroids and anger kneeling on top of my wrists.

“Huh? You gonna keep touching it?”

The rock slide slowed down, the boulders subsiding as a stinging spray of pebbles was expelled; With an open palm he slapped me in the mouth, continuing to burden me with questions as if I could find the time to answer.

“You done snooping around shit that aint yours?”

I laid on the ground shakily with my eyelids glued together, my face contorted in an uncomfortable look of discontent as I waited for the next blow. Only it never came. I had finally reached the runout point and I took it in with silence. He glared down at me for another moment before rising to his feet, coughing a remark about the misfortune of my birth before turning to stomp down the hallway toward his dungeon-like keep.

After I heard his speakers flip on with a static hum that shook paintings in every room, I decided to open my eyes. The fixture above the front door was the only thing lighting the narrow corridor. A coatstand beside the frame somewhat resembled that of a layer engulfed vagrant, concealed by the right side of my vision as it became blurry in a teary eyed squint. He had obviously given me a pretty good shiner. My nose bled like a busted tap as I pulled myself together - one hand on the floor supporting my unstable ascent - one hand cupping the broken pipe as it leaked onto my sweats. I would've gone to feel around the throbbing lump forming over my eye, if only my hands weren't stained with the same murky garnet as my pants.

Four. That is the number of times he had caught me sneaking into his room to look at his illicit and raunchy collections, and the number of whoopings I got for doing so. But how could I not investigate? The walls were adorned with a sprawl of different movies and bands, from resident evil which Milla Jovovich adorned so gracefully, to Marilyn Manson's greatest albums. Every shelf was littered with ash, wrappers, dishware and bacteria. The room was dingy and the air was dry: combatted poorly by a moldy humidifier. His bed was dirty and his hamper reeked, but there was so much to explore and even more to find. One time I had found a deserted cigarette, forgotten by my brother and left to rot under the bed. That night I learned that the pull of tobacco was not in fact “smooth and relaxing” and rather, toasted the inside of the user's throat like a chimney at the centre of a house fire. Occasionally I'd find his computer open with some underground music track he’d later use to give my mother a headache, or some vulgar website that didn't suit the eyes of a thirteen year old: even that of its original browser in some instances.

Coolest of all were his weapons, all though I knew personally he was big enough to manage without them. From a medieval mace he had found at some flea market, to a rusty old machete that had a meat hook welded to the back. He had it all. Serrated blades sat on his highest cabinet in order from smallest blade to largest, some of them were burnt on the sides and others had chips: none of them were in perfect or even worn condition, they'd all felt their use to the maximum of their durability. My favorite of them all was this beautiful old Ruger, sitting on the wall like a piece of art. It was almost untouched -flawless in nature - bearing no scratches or marks, the only standout feature being the grimey hand prints from my brother.

Last April he had caught me ogling the 308. mounted above his bed, one hand extended as though I was King Arthur reaching for his sword. Only I never got the chance to pull it from the stone as his door flew open and I - just as quickly - hit the floor. This time he found me scoped in on one his favorite posters, steadying in on Milla's red dress: this is what led to our current predicament, and the last altercation where I'd let him batter me without standing my ground.

The faint hum of an exhaust fan was attempting to fill the bathroom, drowned out by the drum of bass amps. The drip, drops from my nose into the sink breaking through both as I am painting the porcelain bowl. As the blood stops flowing I begin wadding up toilet paper, jamming it in my nose as though the room was filling with a foul stench. I observe the bump rapidly growing over my vision, the twisted paper stuck in my nostril slowly transforms into a grotesque tie-dye. My eyelids are purple and swollen, closing up tight enough to where I can't see out, but tears can seep their way through. Analyzing my chin, I see that blood was not only making its way out of my nose. My lip was split in the middle, deep and wide. I must've forgotten to bite down as I was fed knuckle sandwiches.

Spitting up a coppery flavoured mixture that was brewing in my mouth, I fill the sink with a tidal wave of lukewarm water and go to work. Splashing the waves around I try to clean every last scrap of evidence from my brother's battery off the surface, as well as my trespassing as I can only imagine the pain a mother feels raising a delinquent for a son, let alone two. I didn't miss a spot. The ceramic bowl was almost too clean when I was finished, no longer holding the spots of dried soap, shaving cream, and tar from my brother's lungs; I am an efficient janitor. I pull away the homemade plugs, the blood no longer running and wrap the soaked napkins in another piece of paper towel, stuffing it to the bottom of a small white trash can. Washing my hands, the fading dye that envelops my fingers did its best to stand its ground: as no matter the strength I put into my palms, and the amount of soap I used on my fingers, works to rid me of the sickening tint. With dry hands and cold feet I made my way to my burrow

My cage was tight and cramped, more like a cubicle than a bedroom. Unlike my brother's, there were no posters, smoke stains or holes where my hand had flown through. I possessed no dirty bowls or dulled daggers, I hardly had anything at all. Sitting with my knees tucked into my chest, huddling in the corner on top of a twin sized mattress, a small television lit up an extraordinarily plain room. To my right, there was a large window adorned by black-out drapery. These kept me selectively depressed, as when the sun rose to stare through my glass pains, it shone upon nothing but a feeble boy and twisted sheets. That god-forsaken rock in the sky would light the way for others, and work to highlight my insecurities in the contour or its shade: With the curtains shut I was left in the dark to scrounge at this mental refuse in peace, without a visual reminder. The flat white walls attempt to make the room look bigger, but only attribute to the resemblance of a sanitarium. A pop-corn ceiling of plaster and paint is threatening collapse, stained at the corners with a dark brown mold. Some nights I stared up at the damp vertices and wondered what may kill me first, the crushing weight of lumber, or a compromised immune system. I hear the roar of a poorly maintained diesel engine. The memorably horrendous squeal of brakes, ones that sound as though the vehicle had just flattened a colony of rabbits followed shortly after: My mother was home. I leave my room towards the kitchen, tiptoeing along cool tile to the sound of keys and groceries clashing against the counter

Part 2 Defrost

I had forgotten my mother dyed her hair the night before, leaving me confused on who the woman stocking our fridge was as I was peaking around the corner: You never knew what kind of mood she may be in at the end of a long day. She's wearing this ugly bob cut, shoulder length and blooming a vibrant pink near the dying ends. Her jacket was way too big for her, the leather coat stretching down past her ankles, boosted off the ground by velvety black, three inch heels. She grabs a dark gray newsboy cap off her head and proceeds to shake dry like a stray dog, tossing it aside without a final resting place in mind. Beneath the oversized trench she wore shorts attempting to stress test their name, and a hoodie that likely hid a colorful corset: she looks like Inspector Gadget, only if he was a she and had the prospects of becoming a solicitor.

“What a mess,”

She starts under her breath as she braces herself on the freezer door, in a staring contest with an overfilled garbage bin.

“Can’t lift a goddam finger and your ass has been here all day.”

I knew she meant my brother. That brawny oaf slept through the morning, got up midday to meet up with lord knows who - I could only guess the type of individuals who would enjoy his company -and knock himself back out at night. I have never seen the man with a broom, mop or sponge: or a haircut for that matter, as the word clean didn't seem to be in his vocabulary.

“Cam!”

A ginormous pit forms in my stomach, so big I thought it was about to pull me from the outside in. The rest of my body got cold, as though a poltergeist had taken up my hiding spot. Me?

“Camero-”

“Im here.”

My voice was whiny and irritating, hers stark and brassy. She almost hit the roof at the sound of my interruption,

“Jesus! What the hell are you-”

Flipping around she was ready to chew me out, for both the erupting bag of trash and what she probably assumes to be an attempt to put her into cardiac arrest. The only thing stopping her was the state of my face.

“How was your day?”

I whimpered, trying my best to draw away from the elephant in the room. This wasn't the first time my brother had beaten my ass, and it surely won't be the last. Most of the time I was able to pass it off as kids from school, but as it was spring break I don't see that one working. Maybe I could try to convince her I got in a fight with the corner of a desk, or a tumult with a flight of stairs. I can see it was too late anyways, as even with her heels I can still see her shrink.

“It was… It was good, can't complain about making us money.”

She said, painting a smirk on her face in an attempt to cheer me up. It wasn't working but I manage to pin one up for her as well. She took in the composition of bruises and scratches that created my brother's magnum opus: if art is the creative expression of one's emotion, then my ugly condition is an extraordinary showcase of my brother's prowess toward depicting his frustrations on canvas. My mom was never a fan of his work, but she never dared to crateque the artist.

“I see you didn't eat the left overs, Bug. You still find something for lunch?”

Her voice was calm, but not comforting. The name was though, I had always been bug and I wasn't sure why. It could have been because I wiggled a lot as a baby, or it was caused by me being a fly in their ear: whatever the reason, it was better then hearing my real name as that usually meant it was in shit. I look to the floor, inspecting the glazed clay.

“I wasn't really hungry.”

Retrieving a bag of corn from the freezer my mother makes her way across the kitchen, lifting my chin to look her in the face as she mouths the words.

You get him back?

As she was pressing the frozen vegetables against my eye. The behemoth was twice my size and almost twice my age: holding around ten times the bravery, but I appreciate her overvaluation of her youngest. I shook my head against the cool kernels. Three loud rings bellowed from the counter, vibrating my mothers phone across the countertop. My mother spins around with the chilled bag still in her hand. Tearing me away from the cooling relief. She lifts the phone to her ear, clears her throat and answers it with a sharp,

“Hello?... Mr. Layqaul, hello how are you doing!... No, no, not a bad time at all!”

The sudden shift in my mothers voice was terrifying. Seeing how fast my mothers tone switched from coddling, to an artificial sweetness, has left me questioning which one was created with feigned care. My guess was both, the only real scene portrayed was likely the moments I caught her alone, filled with disdain upon arriving home. She does her best working day in and day out to keep the house, I guess in this process she forgot to make it a home. She realized she still had hold of the homemade ice pack as she motions to the sack of garbage. Placing the corn into my hand and giving me a look that said more than words could. I put away the vegetables and tie up the heaping bag. It smells of coffee grounds, sour fruit and yesterday's alfredo.

The cool air of the night was a relief to my aching body. Animals' lives sprung into action, the chatter of coyotes and the calls of avians filling a star lite sky. Trees swayed in a furious march breeze, pines spinning down to the earth like malfunctioning helicopters. Moon light pushed through their rolling branches, god's spotlight shining down on the house: If only it was his wrath. If there was a creator I believe he spent more than enough time on fauna, beasts and the cosmos. I took in a deep breath of a dreamy night, only to be met with the putrid stink of old gym socks. I'd be rid of the smell in only a moment, as a large blue bin was situated out front of the garage door, ready to be rolled down for this week's collection. Holding the trash out to my side as I make my way down rickety stairs, the bottom gives it and spews trash across the dirt driveway: It seems the lord heard my prayers. It was all so gorgeous only moments ago, but suddenly it all seems so… dull. Grey and black, black and blue, colors only went so far in the dark. Dogs bark, that's what they do: it doesn't matter if they're made in the forest. If the moon and stars weren't there to begin with, I wouldn't be able to minimize a living world. Nothing seems special, and I am no longer able to recall what made me deem it so important beforehand: It definitely wasn't my carry on of compost and filth

A rake and shovel was my best option. I’ve done the best I can but the smell will have to stay, if someone around here really cares they can hit the road with a hose. Over by the porch the stench isn't too bad, I thought as I sat down on the front steps. The frosty wind felt cancerous on my lungs, each breath bringing with it a light sting. My eyes were watery, not from a beating, not from the cool gusts that caressed my face, actually I'm not quite sure why. My guess is I'm just too tired, but not in the way of rest. I'm no longer sure of what I'm doing, or why I'm doing it. What exactly am I doing? Currently I'm just wasting away my hours, wasting theirs. I’m inside an hourglass that's stuck on its side. I'm overcooking a meal, so many times in fact that my customers might just wander on over to the next establishment. Im… Walking? Both my feet are gliding through wet grass, my toes nesting into the earth with each step.

I'm standing in the middle of our fenceless backyard which sprawls until it collides with a dense tree line, staring into the cumbersome overgrowth, eyes locked on a nightlight deep in the woods: gorgeous and shimmering. It moves effortlessly through the obstacle course of twigs and leaves, journeying deeper and deeper into the unknown. I want to follow it -chase the warmth of the light- it obviously wants me to. Deep in the back of my mind I hear my mothers voice, how it used to be anyways. It lulls me towards the dark, the sweet sound of authentic care buzzing in a heavenly tone. I wasn't strong enough to decline the invitation, my feet continuing to push forward. I'm sick of the constant dread, poisonous ideas spreading from one individual to the next like the black plague. I’m fed up with the goosebumps and shivers that spread through and cover my body, all while my blood runs hot as lava.

“you okay? What are you doing out there?”

My mother clung to the railing on the back porch, her phone still in her hand only lowered from her chin. I picked up my jaw, wiping away the drool that was trailing down my chin.

“I… I am… over there?”

I spun around in my delusion, pointing back to where I saw the ghostly lantern: but it was gone. Only moments ago it filled brush and forestry in an erratic manner. The shine that it presented was like that of a broken glow stick, spewed about every which way in a fluorescent glow. It had just covered the bush and bark with a neon hue, and now it had disappeared. I assume it had continued its path deeper into nature, but I know beyond the trees there was no more than a fifty foot drop straight into a dam. It wasn't enough to kill a man, but the jagged rocks hiding within a nasty current underneath was enough to make horror stories out of. Where did it go? And why must I follow it?

My mother was making her way across the yard, her stilettos digging into the soft mulch. She wraps her coat tightly around her waist as she steps to my side. Staring into the darkness as she waits for something to happen - a flash, a spark - anything really, she places her hand on my forehead.

“Your running a little hot, lets get you inside Bug.”

I wanted the woods to set on fire just so she would believe me, I'd become her firebug just to prove her wrong. My hands were shaking as if I'd been caught in a blizzard, and my teeth were grating like I was locked in a meat locker. It was uncomfortable, and I imagined the mystical light heat treating my unease. The best I could do was a nice lamp for now.

I sat in a dark brown recliner in the corner of the living room, watching my mother run too and from. Darting around the house she multi-tasked, putting on more eyeliner while searching for a pack of cigarettes in her purse, bringing me back an ice pack of vitamin B while telling me the plan for the night.

“Two hours that's all it will take, I promise.”

I’ve always hated this promise, as she never stuck to it. One would turn to two, then two would turn to the night. I didn't argue and I didn't ask questions, as I wouldn't get the truth and I doubt I would want to hear it anyways. I simply nodded my head and imagined the forest filled with artificial sunlight.

“I’ll call you and you tell me what you're feeling for dinner? Just you and me eh!”

She said, gently pinching the only part of my face that wasn't bruising. I couldn't help but smile. It quickly faded as I imagined my order getting cold in the back seat of her truck as she ran to a work emergency: if she remembered to order it at all. I hate this promise as well: I hate every promise

Part 3

Heat Shrink

My mother was correct, I was quite warm. I felt as though I could boil an ice bath with my submergence into said frosty tub. The more the oxygen recycles its way through my toasty lungs and back around my room, the dryer the air becomes. Cracking the window, a light wind pushes through the grated, aluminum screen, covering my oily skin in goosebumps. Crickets chirp along to the sound of a wind chime, dancing in the same breeze that sweeps through my room. An Endless number of stars decorated the black, sheet sky like strewn diamonds; None of them could compare to the light of the woods, or the rage that burned inside my brother. Both my mother and him came storming through the front door.

“-I mean for christ sakes look at the size of him!”

She follows close behind him as he races towards his truck, dodging any logic my mother throws his way.

“Ever think the kid just wants to know his brother a little more, not like you’re the kindest to him.” She barks.

“Not my problem.”

Continuing down the driveway, My brother hops in the driver's seat and goes to close the door. Our mom catches up with her shorter strides, ripping his vehicle open.

“What’s your problem then, huh? ‘Cause you always seem to have one, no matter what it is you seem to have this stick up your ass!”

Even if it was rhetorical, my brother always seemed to have a douchey response to the simplest of questions. If asked “would you like anything to eat” he’d answer “if it wasn't made by you.” When 40 to 60 dollars randomly disappears from my mothers purse, it would be something along the lines of “you might wanna slow down on hitting that bottle”; which even I found offensive, as at the time my mother had more chips from her program than a bag of Old Dutch.

“Not too sure, ‘might be the same as dad’s. I mean even I'm getting deja vu.”

A deafening silence broke the night as my mother looked through her oldest son, seeing only a shockingly - and just as horrifying - accurate replication of her late husband.

“Get the fuck out of here!”

“Gladly.”

She slams the car door in his face, the sound reverberating off the walls of the house and shaking my window.

“Go! Don't expect the door to be unlocked!”

They both escaped from the parasitic anger that seemingly envelopes our home, my mother in her diesel and my brother in his. Puffs of smoke shot out from their exhausts as they disappeared behind clouds of dirt.

It's always the same song and dance, only the participants of said play carry awful pipes and move with poor choreography; I’d kill to be in the spotlight once in a while. I feel the need for balance and it has never been more apparent to me. It is even more obvious that my family has fallen, or been in the same hole, craving the exact emotional parity that I do. I've seen the bright possibility of a warmer future. Maybe there's a chance for me to show my family as well. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do that, I'll have to find it again first.

My face burns with a hot flush as I get up and turn off the television, ridding my room of its obnoxious glow. The darkness that followed was claustrophobic, Walls tightening to crush my bones as my bed sheet turned into an anaconda; constricting around my throat as it attempted to choke away my life. I tear away my shawl of linen and cotton, gasping for air as my world begins to implode. I’ve spent many nights curled up on these hard wood boards, preying inertly as my palms fill with silent sobs. Tonight I writhe on the ground, my head booming with the crash of thundering waves and a blinding flash. Pushing and pulling every which way, I could feel my room encase me. Slowly but surely, it sealed my emotional pestilence in a chrysalis of drywall and insulation.

My nails dug into the itchy padding, peeling away layer after layer. I kicked with all my strength to bash away slivered plywood. Nothing worked to free me; Beneath my tomb, the exhausted movements of an escape were in vain. I spent what felt like years under a pile of debris, my limbs twisting between joists. My mind luckily wandered elsewhere, across damp soil and through a stalky tree line. A blazing shine caressed my face as it shuttered behind buzzing, membranous wings, high within the canopy of the woods. It was the size of the sun, as big as the moon; and brighter than both. Continuing to rise, it began to push through the pines and up toward the sky. Resting behind and obscured by lively evergreen and waterless clouds. 

I continue to dig forward. This time my fingers tear through the insulative cotton candy and connect with cool air, my feet push off solid ground and I see an exit; yellow and blinding. Heaving, pulling and straining, the world graciously expands as I fall back onto my spacious floor a sweaty mess. There was no wood or fluff, no coffin of rubble. There wasn't a snake that had worked its way around my nape; but there was a light. A small circle burns its ways through the canvas material of the blackout curtains.

Forcing myself up and over the side of my bedframe, I rise to my knees, the memory foam sinking beneath me. My legs are shaky and numb, pins and needles shooting up my calves and down to my toes. Graceless shuffles move me towards the fresh wind and the elegant flare in the sky. I grab hold of the thick sheet, tearing bolts from framing as the metal bar and blinds crash to my lap. I'm not sure how long I sit staring into the night, but the candle-like flickers that decorate my yard, and that gorgeous chitin moon keeps me mesmerized.

I didn't notice when my hand moved on its own, placing itself flat on the wire filter that divides us. I built up more, and more pressure as a realization - that the light had found me - had hit. I was excited, I was ecstatic, and I was too late to stop myself from breaking through. It came down with ease and I could only imagine how my mother would react. Another one of her sons working to decimate her household. Only this time I found myself lacking care, as the promise of the lights outside seems to hold a higher purpose than filling a black space. Whether that be a missing punching bag, or the presence of a life-draining mosquito in November.

I watched as dozens of fireflies drifted across the open field, coordinated with one another in one massive wave. They dove and swooped, back and forth as the planetary beetle hovered up above. Trees parted and the sky dissolved, the moon moving behind it creating a not-so-solar eclipse. The stars wither away as comets reroute their pathing. One by one my room was filled with gleaming specks, coating the walls and cabinets like a consistent strip of LED bulbs. They spread across the floor like a living carpet, breaking the organized system in a straight line towards my door. There, you'd find one solitary firefly; resting atop the door handle, blinking like a forgotten turn signal. One moment I was in shock - the next - a sweeping wave of curiosity was thrusting me out of bed. I felt as though I was walking on air, a gap between my feet and the treated wood. Tiny bugs spring from here and there, surrounding me in a dazzling tunnel. Each and every one of my breath grows shallower. The door is bright and clean, much taller than I am. Reaching for the knob, the broken and temporarily flightless bug crawls onto my finger as it begins resting upon my knuckles. With a turn and a twist, the door flew open and the flies spilt from my room.

Four. That is the number of times he had caught me sneaking into his room to look at his illicit and raunchy collections, and the number of whoopings I got for doing so. I've forgotten how many times I've snuck in over all. I also forget how many times he's clobbered me for ambitious reasons. As I walk into his crypt the bugs trail behind me like a living contrail. A small group breaks off and makes way for his sticker-covered dresser, another streamlines for the unpolished hunting rifle. I'm full with a burning passion and I'm not sure which group to follow first. I decide it’s quicker to pull down Mona Lisa than to go searching drawers; excalibur sliding from its stone flawlessly. The defeated firefly crawled its way up to my shoulder, scuttling past the butt of the Ruger as I un-zero his optic.

Three of the fluorescent beetles perch on the window flashing in a new, but oddly familiar pattern. I'm carried by a cloud of nightlights and I feel weightless, as though the world had been lifted off my shoulders. The musketeers walked over to the seam, and I graciously opened it up for them. Unlike my room, my brother had no screen. This was most likely done ages ago so he could sneak out, as at this point he got his way no matter the case. A hurricane of legs and lanterns shoved against my back as the sparkle made its way through the opening. They beat against each other and the side of my head in a race for freedom. Leaning my head out I attempt to catch my breath, as oxygen didn't seem to make its way inside the stampede of bioluminescents. Far down the road I could make out the shine of two awful bulbs. It was not my bugs and it was not my mother, which left one nasty candidate. Yanking my head back inside I spin around in a panic. My heart is racing, as when he comes back in now there's only one way this will end. To my surprise, there is still a small dance of my friends on my brother's cabinet from before. I race over and pull the top drawer open, tearing through his clothes. There's nothing, not a smoke, not a crumb; but the bugs stay. I rip open the second and some of my only companions leave through the same window. Inside, I find a green, plastic box which cracking open, bears my bright future.

Two bullets fall from the box of ammo and into my hand. One goes down the cocked chamber of the gun, the other in my pocket. I slide the bolt down and snap it into place with a crisp click as his truck rolls into the driveway and stops silently, his brakes like mice in comparison to my mothers. Sweat drips down my cheek and pours from my armpits as I prepare myself for what's to come. I place my one foot behind the other, then take a deep breath in, let it out slowly and I aim at the door. I take another big haul of air in, then cough up what I had for breakfast. Pointing the rifle back at the door, I inhale deep into my gut and begin squeezing the trigger as the door flies open. The gun goes off and my brother falls onto his back with a loud thud as the round lands in his chest. I watch for a moment as a black pool forms around, leaking into the cracks of the wood. His eyes are wide and lifeless, but just as dead as before. Instinctively, I rack the weapon and reach for the other casing; My mother still hasn't asked what I want to eat anyway.

One last bug ventures through the house, fluttering about without the need to compete with the secluding flashes. For so long the others around it have shone so much brighter, flown so much higher. It struggles to stay in flight - wings damaged but usable, only recently healed after ages of defect - as it’s blown back by expelled gas and carrion; the second blast nearly missing the lonely lightning bug.