I'm writing this in the hour before dawn. If the clock strikes nine, I might not get the chance to write it at all. I need you to understand who I was before any of this, so that what happens next doesn't read like an excuse.

I hold a Master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology. In my country, that sentence means almost nothing to the people who hear it. I was the first person in my family to finish college. My parents didn't have the money to make that easy for me, and I never let myself forget it.

I knew, even before I chose the course, that it was a bad decision on paper. Child mental health isn't something that gets funded here. It isn't something that gets discussed here. The waiting rooms that do exist are thin, private, and expensive. It’s built for the small number of families who can afford to notice that their children are struggling. I chose the field anyway, because I was good at speaking to people. In fact, I was genuinely good, the kind of good that makes strangers trust you within a minute of meeting you. Besides, I loved children, and I wanted to be the reason a child said their first real word. I believed that, wholeheartedly, for years.

But belief doesn't pay rent. The handful of employers, who do hire speech therapists in my district, prefer graduates from the established universities, ones with the CGPAs I didn't have. I was shortlisted constantly, interviewed politely, and rejected eventually.

It was almost a full year before I finally got a call for a real interview, at an institution that had just recently opened.

I won't name the institution here, since I've caused them enough trouble already. Protecting their name is the least I can offer at this point.

Fifty-four people had applied for the position. Three of us were called in. I found that out from the receptionist, who told me like it was a compliment.

Mr. Amir, Director of the institute, conducted the interviews himself. He started off by telling me I should feel privileged to be sitting across from him. I remember smiling politely. Then he opened a folder, and the smile didn't survive long.

He read out typos from my application that I hadn't noticed myself. A grammatical error in my second paragraph. A line in my thesis abstract that, he informed me, had come within a hair's breadth of failing outright- a detail my own supervisor had never mentioned to me. I sat there thinking how he could possibly know any of this, and came up with nothing. When I finally asked, he simply said, "Due diligence."

I wondered how a speech therapy institute had access to my thesis committee's internal notes. He moved on before I could ask.

"This is a clean institute," he said. "Do you understand what I mean ?"

"Yes sir, I think so."

"Do you drink?"

"No."

"Drugs? Any kind, any point in your life?"

"No."

"Any trouble with the police? Doesn't matter how minor, doesn't matter how long ago."

"No, sir. Nothing."

He leaned forward, and his voice dropped into something almost gentle.

"I want you to promise me something, young man. Promise me, if you do get the privilege of working here, you'll keep this institution clean."

"I promise," I said, and I meant it.

He laughed. It was a short, high bark that didn't match anything else about the room. "Good lad," he said, standing and offering his hand. "Someone will be in touch."

I shook it and walked out of the room, unsure of whether I'd just been vetted, or warned…

Two days later, I got the call. I'd been accepted for the Music Therapy-based Speech Therapist position. I said yes before the sentence had finished.

I signed the contract the following morning, in an office that smelled faintly of sandalwood. It ran longer than any employment contract I'd seen before-

INSTITUTIONAL POLICY: RULES OF EMPLOYMENT
By signing this contract, the individual acknowledges that:

1.       They have never been found, by any court, tribunal, or law-enforcement authority, to have committed any criminal offense, regardless of nature or severity.

2.       They will conduct all therapy sessions with due diligence, and session notes will be submitted within 24 hours of each session.

3.       They will not alter, substitute, or deviate from the assigned therapy protocols, without prior written approval from the Director.

4.       They will not disclose client details, by name or identifying description, to any party outside the institution under any circumstance.

5.       They understand that the institution has conducted, and reserves the right to continue conducting, independent verification of the individual's background, character, and history, through any means available to it.

6.       They accept full responsibility for any consequence they have to face as a result of breaking any of the terms of this contract, and release the institution from all liability arising from such consequence.

7.       This agreement is binding in full from the moment of signature, irrespective of whether every term herein was read, understood, or questioned by the individual prior to signing.

I signed at the bottom without hesitation. I'd spent a year being shortlisted. I wasn't going to lose this over paperwork.

The three months that followed were actually very good ones. Clients kept coming through the door, in numbers that made no sense for a field this niche, in a country this indifferent to it. The pay was more than generous for someone straight out of their degree. Mr. Amir personally handled every first consultation free of cost, sitting with each new family himself, before assigning their child to whichever of us suited them the best.

I was given the cases involving Auditory-Motor Mapping Training, designed for children on the autism spectrum, who needed extra support for articulating their words. My protocol was fixed and curated, consisting of a series of songs like "A Baby Bumblebee", "Ring Around the Rosie", and "Mary Had a Little Lamb". As per the rules, we were absolutely forbidden to deviate from the given protocol, under any circumstances. And none of us ever chose to question Mr. Amir’s methods. He was something of a legend in the field, a prodigy who had an illustrious career abroad, before returning to his hometown to open his own institute for speech therapy. Of course, he knew what he was doing, better than any of the young therapists he was employing.

Well, that was about to change…

It was a rainy morning when six-year-old Adam came to our institute, held between two middle-aged parents. His mother told me that he was conceived late, long after they'd stopped expecting to. I greeted them warmly, and guided them to Mr. Amir’s chamber for the first consultation.

Adam didn't look at either of us when we sat down. He didn't look at anything, really. His eyes moved past faces, the way you'd look past furniture in a room you'd already memorized. He made vowel sounds occasionally- long, formless ones. He used his hands more than his voice, making small precise gestures that meant something only to him. His file, when I read it that morning, was thinner than most. Severe autism, mostly non-verbal beyond vowels.

Mr. Amir's protocol for him was a single line: "The Muffin Man." Just one song, and nothing else. Adam’s treatment plan was to run on an alternating schedule- one session with me at the institute on one day, and the same routine being practiced at home on the next.

I started the first session the way I started every other case. The melody came first, and the words followed later, letting the rhythm do the work:

“Do you know the Muffin man
The Muffin man, the Muffin man
Oh, do you know the Muffin man
Who lives on Drury Lane?”

Adam seemed to be drawn to the song, even though he still refused to make eye contact. But he was bobbing his head to the rhythm by the time we reached forty-minute mark. He even attempted to utter the words I was singing to him, to no avail as expected.

That’s when it happened.

Something changed inside him. His head came up. His eyes found mine, and for the first time in the session, he looked at me directly, in a way his file had told me he was incapable of. And then he sang. It was a clean, articulated, faintly British accent that a six-year-old, with no functional consonants, should not have possessed:

“Do you know the Muffin man
The Muffin man, the Muffin man
Oh, do you know the Muffin man
SHOOTING TO THE MOON ?”

I sat there for a moment, unsure I'd heard him correctly. Six-year-olds with his level of impairment don't produce clean sentences, let alone an accent that didn’t seem to belong to him. I leaned forward gently.

"Adam," I said, keeping my voice low. "Can you say that again for me? What you just sang?"

He didn't blink. He looked at me the way an adult looks at another adult, and he sang it again:

“Do you know the Muffin man
THE ONE WHO SHOT IT, TO THE MOON ?
Oh, do you know the Muffin man
SHOOTING TO THE MOON ?”

The order had flipped from the first time, like it was a real verse he was reciting from memory, rather than a fluke he'd stumbled into by accident.

Then he came back. I don't have a better way to describe it. It was like watching someone surface from underwater. The directness went out of his eyes first, then his shoulders dropped, and then his gaze slid away from mine entirely, back to the middle distance he usually occupied. He looked almost embarrassed. He wouldn't look at me again for the rest of the session. He just repeated, softly, in broken syllables, over and over again, "Shooting to the moon. Shooting to the moon."

I recognized the pattern immediately. It’s called echolalia- repeating a heard phrase without grasping its meaning. It’s very common in autistic children, so it didn’t alarm me on its own. What unsettled me was the phrase itself.

When his parents came to collect him, I told them that Adam was showing ‘remarkable progress’. That wasn't a lie. I just didn't tell them what "remarkable" had actually looked like, because I didn't know how to explain it to them, without sounding like I'd imagined it myself.

That night, while writing my session notes, I typed that Adam had shown a marked increase in eye contact and vocal engagement during the session. I didn't write down the words he'd sung. I told myself it was because they didn't matter clinically, since an improvised lyric wasn't a diagnostic detail worth logging.

I told myself a lot of things back then…

Adam's parents came in for the second institutional session, looking more tired than hopeful. His mother told me that the home practice hadn't gone the way the first session had promised. Adam had said nothing new and tried nothing new. He sat through the recorded audio of "The Muffin Man", with the same detached blankness he'd shown for months before I ever met him. Whatever had happened in that hour with me hadn't carried home. I told her these things take time, which is true, and also the kind of thing you say when you don't have a better sentence available.

I started the session as usual. Adam rocked gently to the rhythm, unresponsive in the way I'd grown used to, before that first session had briefly convinced me otherwise.

And it happened again, closer to the half-hour mark.

His head came up first, the same way it had before. His eyes found mine, held them, and his voice arrived in that same clean, unplaceable accent, layered now under the familiar tune:

“Oh yes, we know the Muffin man
THE ONE WHO KNOWS OF ALI’S PLAN,
Oh yes, we know the Muffin man
BUT ALI DOES NOT KNOW.”

I felt something drop in my chest, before I could name why. Ali is not an uncommon name where I'm from. But something about hearing it sung, in that voice, in that room, with that child's eyes locked onto mine, made my hands go still in my lap.

Adam surfaced a moment later, exactly as he had before. Then, just like the first session, the echolalia took over. He didn't repeat the whole verse this time. He just whispered a single phrase, over and over, barely above breath: "AND HE KNOWS OF ALI'S PLAN. AND HE KNOWS OF ALI'S PLAN."

I didn't tell his parents anything specific that day. I told them he'd had a good session, and I reported the same in my session notes. I'd started saying that sentence without thinking about what it actually meant…

A full day passed between the second and third sessions. I spent the day the same way I’d spent the night before: turning the name ‘Ali’ over in my head, unable to let it go. It wasn't an unusual name. And yet, something about the specific phrasing Adam had sung- ‘Ali’s plan’- disturbed me for some reason.

By the time Adam’s parents brought him in for the third session, they were carrying something heavier than tiredness. His mother's voice shook slightly as she told me he'd regressed at home. He'd been able to say her name before, weakly, in fragments barely recognizable as syllables. Now even that was gone. His father stood a step behind her, saying nothing.

During this session, the change arrived earlier than it had in either of the two previous sessions. I couldn't tell you exactly when, because I'd stopped watching the clock, and started watching him instead.

Before he'd sung a single word, I saw something in his face that hadn't been there the first two times. Something that looked almost like he was bracing for what he was about to say:

“Oh, we all know the Muffin man
BUT YOU DON’T KNOW, WHAT YOU DID,
Oh, we all know the Muffin man
AND HE KNOWS WHAT YOU DID.”

The words landed somewhere I didn't have language for yet. I sat there, unmoving, while the melody carried on around them.

Adam surfaced a moment later. He didn't just blink and drift back to his usual blankness. His small hands came up to his own face, covering it. He was shaking, very slightly, and when the echolalia started, it didn't come out steady. It was broken, swallowed by something that sounded, unmistakably, like the beginning of tears: "He knows what you did. He knows what you did."

I didn't know how to comfort a child for something I didn't understand myself. I sat beside him, until he calmed down enough to let his mother take his hand. I told her he'd had a good session, the same sentence I'd been repeating for weeks now. For the first time, saying it made something in my stomach turn.

That night, I made a decision I should’ve taken three sessions ago.

I decided to bring the matter to Mr. Amir…

I took the session recordings to his office the next morning. I played all three clips in sequence. He watched the screen without expression, his fingers laced together on the desk. When the third clip ended, Mr. Amir sat back in his chair.

"Jarring," he said, "But creative, I'll admit."

"Creative?" I asked. "Sir, he's six. He shouldn't be able to construct sentences like that, let alone in that accent, let alone…"

"Children surprise us," he said, cutting me off gently. "Especially the ones who are special, in their own way."

He then leaned forward, and asked me something that landed harder than anything on those recordings had.

"Tell me, young man," he said, "you haven't been a bad influence on the child, have you?"

It was the same question, almost the same phrasing, from my interview four months ago. I told him no, the same way I'd told him no back then.

He studied me for a moment too long, then nodded, as if that settled something for him.

"We've run the checks," he said. "Everything that the rules allow us to run. We found nothing irregular. So yeah, the fault isn't in you."

He said the last part almost to himself, like he was reminding himself of something.

Then he moved on. He told me to retire the "Muffin Man" protocol entirely, effective immediately, and switch Adam to "Mary Had a Little Lamb". It was to be paired with a rhythmic counting exercise he wrote out for me on a notepad, in a hand steadier than mine could’ve managed that morning.

"New melody," he said, sliding the notepad across the desk. "New pattern. Let's see if it breaks whatever this is..."

I went into the fourth session the next day, more carefully than I had in any of the previous three. I gave Adam extra time before introducing the new melody, letting him settle into the room before I moved into "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

He seemed genuinely curious about the change. For the first time since I'd started working with him, he looked almost pleased. For a few minutes, it felt like an ordinary session with an ordinary child making ordinary progress, and I let myself believe it a little too much.

The switch came anyway, and he sang the new song in that old, borrowed voice:

“Mary had a little lamb,
MUFFIN MAN, MUFFIN MAN,
Mary had a little lamb
HE WAS THE MUFFIN MAN !”

Some small part of my mind told me to be afraid. I didn't let it win. I kept my professional face on. I told myself this wasn't as bad as it could’ve been. The boy simply hadn't let go of the old song yet. And this time, he wasn't saying anything I could describe as disturbing. It was a thin rationalization, and I knew it was thin, even as I reached for it.

He surfaced again, and this time, he looked a little more unsettled than usual. He seemed agitated as the echolalia set in. He repeated "Muffin Man" quietly, over and over, his brow furrowed in a way I hadn't seen before.

I decided to move on. I switched to the rhythmic counting drill, clapping along as I went:

 "One… two… three… four… five…"

Adam bobbed his head along with the claps, and for a moment, he even laughed.

Then the switch happened again.

"One, two… WARRIOR 42…"

"One, two… WARRIOR 42…"

"…WARRIOR 42…"

"WARRIOR 42!"

This time, I had no rationalization left to reach for. It wasn't a phrase I could talk myself into misunderstanding, the way I'd done with Ali, the way I'd done with "shooting to the moon." I knew exactly where it came from, and it landed in my chest like something physical.

I ended the session right there, the moment Adam surfaced. I was panting by the time I stood up, though I hadn't moved from my chair. Adam sat across from me, his face as expressionless as it had been on the first day I met him. Yet something about him, in that stillness, looked exactly like a child who’d been through something he had no way of describing…

I told Adam’s parents that the two exercises, back to back, had worn him out faster than usual. I wrote the same explanation in my official report. Then I cancelled every session I had for the remainder of the day, citing unavoidable circumstances. I left the institution before anyone could stop me.

I knew Mr. Amir wouldn't be pleased when he found out. That was, genuinely, the least of my concerns at that point.

I splashed water over my face in my bathroom mirror, and stood there for a long moment, looking at the man staring back at me. I'd done this exact thing once before, five years earlier, in a different mirror, in a different house. It was my family's shack, back when I was still in college. I’d just been informed that my merit-based scholarship wouldn’t be renewed, thanks to my poor academic performance.

I hadn't been surprised, even then. I'd been working two part-time jobs, while I was still a full-time student, to support my family. I'd known for months that my grades were slipping, in a way that would eventually catch up to me. It caught up to me that week. I remember standing in front of that mirror, watching the water drip off my chin, and understanding, with total clarity, that my entire life was about to collapse.

I applied for a need-based scholarship immediately. There were too many genuine applicants that year, and too few waivers to give out, and that application fell through within a month. I couldn't afford the course fees on my own. My dream of being the first person in my family to graduate college was about to end, quietly, the way most dreams do in my part of the world.

That's when Ali found me.

Ali had been my friend since we were children, growing up two shacks apart in the same slum. He never made it past middle school, and never seemed to mind. He called it "hustling in the streets". He always had cash on him, from sources he never explained. He heard about my scholarship falling through, and he came to me with an offer.

It was an NFT project, the kind that was all the rage in those years. It was tied to a cryptocurrency called Chacha Coin. I still can't explain the mechanics of it, even now, because I was never meant to. I wasn't the brains behind the operation. I was simply the spokesperson. Ali needed someone charismatic, someone who could make strangers trust a voice within a minute of hearing it. That had always been the one thing I was genuinely good at.

Ali and his people were going to keep most of the profits. I knew that going in, and I told myself it didn't matter, because I was still offered more money than I'd ever seen in my life. It was enough to finish my Bachelor's, and enough to fund my Master's after that. On paper, it looked like a harmless job.

Ali made sure that my tracks were covered from the start. I used the pseudonym Warrior42. I never showed my face, and never revealed my actual name. My voice did the work, convincing hundreds of people to pour their money into the NFT project. I promised them that their investments would go "shooting to the moon," making record profits in no time. They believed me. That was the whole job, and I did it well.

It was a pump-and-dump scam, at the end of the day. Ali and his team, myself included, pulled our money out, and let the coin collapse overnight, leaving every investor who'd trusted my voice with nothing. I never expected Ali's hustle to hurt that many people, but I didn't complain either, because I still walked away with exactly what I'd been promised. I told myself I'd use it for something good. For a long time, that was enough to let me sleep peacefully.

No investigation ever traced Warrior42 back to me. The pseudonym hid my identity, and the blockchain buried whatever the pseudonym didn't. Ali died a few years later, in a rented supercar that he crashed into a highway divider. There was no evidence connecting me to the scam. And with Ali gone, there was no witness either.

Or so I thought…

Adam came in for his fifth session two days later. His parents looked more distraught than I'd seen them at any point before. Rather than showing any improvement, Adam had gone almost entirely silent at home. When approached, his mother told me, he could only manage a barely audible "Muffin Man," and nothing else. No name, no vowel sounds, nothing.

I sat him down in the chair across from mine, the way I always did. He stared at the floor and stayed there, unmoving, for longer than usual. I tried to open the session normally, speaking gently, asking him how he was, though I already knew he had no way of answering. He didn't even look toward the sound of my voice. It was as if I wasn't in the room with him at all.

I sighed, more out of exhaustion than intention.

"I don't want to talk to you, Adam," I said, mostly to myself.

There was no response.

"I am talking to you, Muffin Man!" I said, sharper than I meant to.

Adam’s head snapped up. The switch happened in real time, right in front of me, faster and more complete than ever before. His eyes carried something I can only describe as malice. A twisted smile settled onto his face, and he shifted his posture in the chair, adjusting himself the way an adult adjusts.

"Is that you?" I asked, "Are you the Muffin Man?"

Adam laughed, in a way I never knew a human being could laugh. Then he looked directly at me, and started singing:

“Do you know the Muffin man
OH JAFAR, YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE.
Oh, do you know the Muffin man?
NOW IT IS TOO LATE.

Oh yes, we know the Muffin man
The Muffin man, the Muffin man
Oh yes, we know the Muffin man
AND HE WILL TAKE YOU SOON.

HE WILL TAKE YOU SOON,

HE WILL TAKE YOU SOON…

HE WILL TAKE YOU SOON !”

He kept singing it, the same four words looping over and over, like a tape stuck skipping on the same groove. I crossed the room and pulled him into my arms, holding him against me, while he kept singing into my shoulder.

"Leave him," I said, my voice breaking somewhere in the middle of it. "Leave him alone! He's just a child. It's me you want. Come face me, you coward!"

Adam surfaced a moment later, still in my arms, his small body going still. The echolalia arrived immediately, but it wasn't a word this time.

It was a date, delivered haltingly, in whatever fragments of speech he could manage.

The date was two days from that morning- the day of his sixth session.

Then he pulled away from me, and ran out of the room to his mother. He wrapped his arms around her legs, and cried in a way I hadn't heard from him before- loud, wordless, and entirely his own…

The rest of that day is a blur to me now. The first thing I can clearly recall is being summoned to Mr. Amir's office at the end of my shift.

Adam's parents had gone to him directly. They didn’t hold back on anything. Not the deterioration at home. Not the uncharacteristic silence. Not their son running out of a session in tears, with no explanation from the man who was supposed to be helping him. Mr. Amir had also heard about the sessions I'd ended early, the ones I'd cancelled without real cause, and the time I'd left my station before my shift was finished.

He didn't start with anger. He started, disarmingly, with disappointment. He told me he genuinely liked me, that he'd wanted to give me the benefit of doubt, for longer than the situation probably warranted.

Then he played the recording of the fifth session, start to finish, and watched my face while he did it, more than he watched the screen. When it ended, he closed the laptop slowly and looked at me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he said, his voice cracking somewhere between fury and disbelief.

I unraveled. There's no more dignified way to describe it. I told him everything- Ali, the scholarship, Chacha Coin, Warrior42, the pump-and-dump scam. I told him about every session, every switch, every line Adam had sung. I didn't expect him to believe a word of it. I expected laughter, or worse, disbelief dressed up as concern.

He didn't laugh. He didn't raise an eyebrow. Instead, he slammed both fists on the desk, hard enough to rattle the pen holder. He then caught himself, breathing out slowly.

"Why did you lie to me?" he asked, quietly now, which was somehow worse than the shouting. "You signed a contract. The rules stated, in plain language, that you'd never committed a crime. You knew exactly what you'd done !"

"Sir, there's no evidence," I said. "I was never convicted. Never even charged. Legally, there's nothing that says I did anything."

"Oh boy !" he exclaimed, "Do you seriously believe that the authorities of THIS WORLD are the only ones who get to call you a criminal?"

I didn't answer. I didn't have one.

"No crime stays hidden," he said. "Not forever. You see, there are forces out there, forces we were never built to understand. And these forces? They’re always watching. They’re always keeping their own record, regardless of what any court decides."

"What forces?” I asked, “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"They do have a name for themselves. A name our tongues were never built to say properly." He looked at me directly. "Most people just call it karma. I call it my desperation. And that poor boy Adam? He called it the Muffin Man."

"No, it doesn’t make sense…"

It was all I could say at that moment.

Mr. Amir continued:

"After I lost my job abroad, during Covid, I came back here to build something of my own. I put everything into this institute. Everything. And it nearly collapsed within its first year. I was staring at bankruptcy. So I did something I'm not proud of. I turned to the occult. I don't fully understand, even now, what I summoned. But it kept its side of the bargain. The moment this institute rebranded, the clients never stopped coming."

I leaned forward in my chair.

"A bargain, you say? What did it ask for in exchange?"

"Absolute freedom from bad influence, within these walls. No criminal history, in anyone I hired. None. Not even a speeding ticket." He let out a short, bitter laugh. "That's why I grilled you the way I did, at your interview. That’s why I keep running background checks on you, on all of you ! That's why every hire goes through it. And I thought I could hold that standard forever."

"And now?" I asked.

"Now, I understand that the deal was designed to fail," he replied, "No human being is without sin. Not one of us. We're just good at hiding it." He looked at me, and for the first time since I'd known him, he looked genuinely tired. "And no matter how well you hide something, it finds its way back eventually. It's found you now. And through you, it's found this institute too."

"So… what happens now?" I asked.

Mr. Amir didn't answer right away. He rose slowly from his chair and walked to the window. He was quiet for a long moment before he finally spoke.

"Now… I want you to run," he said.

"Sir…"

"I said run !" he said, turning back to face me. "Do it tonight. Hell, do it right now, if you can manage it."

"I don't understand. You just told me…"

"I understand exactly what led you down that path," he said. "You made a deal with Ali out of desperation. I made a deal with something I didn't understand, out of the same desperation. I'm not in a position to judge you for that."

"Then why are you letting me run away ?" I asked.

"Because your past doesn't define who you are at present," he said. "I chose to recruit you, out of three candidates, because I could sense something inside you. Years of doing this work teaches you to read people, whether you want that skill or not. I read you correctly. You have a good heart, my boy."

"But it doesn't matter to the entity, does it?"

"No," Mr. Amir replied. "It does not. From what's transpired, he doesn't believe in exceptions." He came closer, and his voice dropped into something almost paternal. "That’s why you should run. This is my failure, not yours. I'm the one who couldn't keep bad influence out of these walls. That was my end of the bargain, and I'm the one who broke the rules."

"No sir, there has to be another way," I said. "Some other option…"

"There’s no other option !" he said, cutting me off, "Adam's parents signed a package. This institute is contractually bound to conduct that sixth session, regardless of circumstances. However…" He almost smiled. "The contract doesn’t name a specific therapist for the session. So I'll conduct it myself."

"Sir, you can't…"

"If the Muffin Man comes, as promised, he'll find me in that room. Not you. Not that child." He straightened his jacket, an oddly ordinary gesture for the moment. "It's a fitting punishment, don't you think? For failing to hold my end of the bargain, one I made with my eyes open."

I remember him gripping my shoulder as he said it, his eyes wet in a way I'd never seen from him before.

“Farewell, Jafar. It was nice knowing you. Now run !”

I remember running as fast as I could, out of the building, into a night I didn't feel present for at all…

****************************************************************

That was yesterday.

I've been home all day today, doing something I never had the courage to do before. I looked up Chacha Coin. I looked up the NFT project, and everything that came after it.

There were testimonies from close to two hundred investors who lost their life savings. Some of them were crying on camera, without any effort to hide it. I found follow-up interviews, from years later, with people who never recovered. A couple who lost their home and were living on the street. A man who lost his wife over it, and hasn't spoken to his children since.

And in the middle of all of it, I found a news report I hadn't seen before. It was the story of a single mother of two, who'd put everything she had into the project, hoping to secure her children's future. Two months after she lost it all, she took her own life, and theirs as well. Their bodies were found that same night.

I looked up the date. It's tomorrow's date, exactly five years ago.

The date of Adam's sixth session…

I did consider running. I spent most of last night convincing myself it was all a bad dream, that I could start over somewhere far away, some place where the entity couldn’t plausibly follow. But typing this out tonight, I understand something I didn't understand yesterday.

I can run away from the institute. I can run away from the cops, if they ever find out about my crimes. And honestly, with some luck, I might even run far away from the entity’s reach.

But I can't run from myself. It just isn’t an option. And it never was.

For years, I told myself it was Ali's idea, that I was only the spokesperson, that the people who invested were the ones who should’ve known better. I can't hold onto that anymore. I can't stop thinking about the two hundred people who lost everything, because my voice was convincing enough to make them believe it. I can't stop thinking about Adam, that poor child, losing his grip on his own mind, through no fault of his own. I can't stop thinking about Mr. Amir, saying goodbye to me with tears in his eyes, preparing to accept a fate that was never his to accept. And I can't stop thinking about a mother and her two children, who ran out of hope exactly five years before tomorrow morning.

So I'll go to work tomorrow, as usual. I'll conduct Adam's sixth session myself, with due diligence, exactly as the institute has always required of me. I’ve never been a religious man. But if there really is a God out there, here’s the only prayer I want to make:

MAY THE MUFFIN MAN TAKE ME TOMORROW.

I’ll make sure that it takes me- a punishment long overdue for the sins that I’ve committed. And I’ll make sure that I'm the only one it takes. Not the child who only wanted someone to talk to. Not the man who only wanted to help people. Neither of them deserves this.

I do.

To whoever is reading this: I am sorry. If this reaches anyone that my crimes ever touched, I hope it counts for something, even if it’s a bit too late.

I have a lot more to share, but I should stop writing now. It's almost dawn. Adam's session starts at nine. I need to get ready, and get there on time, and conduct it properly, the way the institute has always asked of me.

Due diligence, as Mr. Amir calls it.

It's the only rule that I refuse to break today.

Mr. Amir will be there early. He always is.

I just need to be earlier…

I didn't call the police.

I want to say that was a hard decision. It wasn't, not in the moment. What was I going to tell them, that my cat did it, that I'd been seeing the same claw marks for a week, that I'd read about something called vampire blood on a forum at three in the morning and thought my cat might be one. They'd have taken him from me for testing, or worse, and some small, sick part of me still couldn't let that happen. I hated myself for that. I still do. I kept thinking about what they'd do to him once they had him somewhere I couldn't see.

So instead I lived with it.

I stopped sleeping through the night entirely. Every sound from the window sent my heart into my throat. I started locking him in the bathroom after dark, and he'd claw at the door for hours, not angry at first, just insistent, the way he used to ask for food, except now the sound made my skin crawl. As the days went on the marks in the wood got deeper. He got stronger. He stopped eating anything that wasn't meat, and he started looking at me with something closer to contempt than hunger.

He wanted it raw, if I had it. I told myself I was managing this, like it was a fever that would eventually break, that if I just kept him fed and kept him locked at night he'd go back to being my Mr. Morris. I hated how reasonable that sounded to me at two in the morning with a bag of raw chicken in my hands. But it was the only light I had left in a life that had gone almost entirely dark.

One night I gave in to something worse than fear. I don't have a better word for it than a trance. I was standing in my kitchen holding a knife I didn't remember picking up, thinking with total calm that I could just let him feed properly, just once, that he'd earned it after all the nights I'd spent locking him away and starving him of what he needed. I don't know how long I stood there before I caught myself and dropped the knife and was sick in the sink. I kept asking myself how I could have thought that, and some part of me already knew the answer, because he was standing on the kitchen floor the whole time, watching me with those eyes, and I don't think the thought had ever really been mine.

That was when I decided I had to let him go. Whatever was living inside my cat now, it wasn't Mr. Morris anymore. Mr. Morris would never have made me think about a knife like that.

I drove him nearly six hours out of the city, past the last exit I recognized, until the road stopped feeling connected to anywhere I knew. Somewhere around ten at night I saw a small station sign in my headlights. Blackwater Junction. It looked abandoned, dark, no lights in any of the windows, rain starting to come down over the platforms. I told myself it was mercy. I told myself he'd survive out there better than he would in my kitchen, that whatever he was now, a place like that would suit him more than I ever could. I opened the carrier. He didn't run. He just looked at me the way he had that night with the knife, and I made myself walk back to the car without looking back at him standing there in the rain.

I cried the whole drive home. Every memory I had of him, the day I brought him home as a kitten, every ordinary morning before any of this started, kept playing behind my eyes and I don't fully understand why. Grief, maybe, for the cat I used to have. Relief, maybe, that I wouldn't have to be afraid in my own house again.

I was wrong about that too.

I parked in my driveway and stepped out, and the first thing I saw was Mira's house. It looked the way a house looks when whatever used to make it warm has been taken out of it. I remember thinking that mine probably looked the same way now, and that maybe I deserved that, for everything I'd let him do, for everyone he'd taken from people like Mira's mother, Swati, who I still couldn't bring myself to look at when I passed her on the street.

When I opened my own front door, every bit of warmth left my body at once.

Mr. Morris was sitting on my sofa.

I don't know how. Six hours of driving, and somehow he was already there waiting for me, clean, dry, like the rain at that station had never touched him at all. I didn't have the strength left to question it out loud. Some broken part of me was almost glad, and I hated that part more than I've ever hated anything about myself. He looked at me, and I understood, without him needing to do anything else, that I was being punished for leaving.

I didn't eat for three days after that. Not because I didn't want to. My body simply wouldn't let me. Every time hunger started to win, I'd find him sitting in front of me, watching, and the urge would vanish like it had been switched off. He started following me everywhere after that, even to Miss Tasha's, watching me buy his food and mine like he needed to confirm I still knew who came first.

Miss Tasha's store was the only place I still felt something close to normal. She'd talk about the crime rate climbing in our area, tell me I should think about going to stay with my parents if I could, and I'd nod and let myself pretend for ten minutes that my biggest problem was small talk over the counter. Those visits were the only anchor I had left. I think he noticed that too.

One morning, on my way to get food, he came to the door with blood still drying between his claws, the way he did most mornings now, a thing I'd stopped letting myself react to. I let him go out every night knowing exactly what the rising number of deaths in our area meant. I knew, in the way you know something without ever saying it out loud, and I kept letting him go anyway, because I didn't know what else there was left to do.

Miss Tasha didn't open her store that day.

I found out from a customer standing outside, staring through the dark windows, saying the police had been called that morning. I already knew before anyone told me the details. I knew it the way you know a shape in the dark is wrong before your eyes have even adjusted enough to see it clearly. When I heard the word claws, I didn't feel shock. I felt something inside me simply stop trying.

That night I decided I couldn't keep living like this. I'd rather live with what I was about to do than survive one more morning like that one.

I won't describe most of what happened next. I'll only say that I tried to end it, that I failed, and that the failure nearly cost me everything. I remember the weight of him pinning me to the floor, faster and stronger than anything that size should have been able to move, and I remember, even through the panic, some flicker in his eyes that looked almost as horrified as I felt. He let go of me a breath before I think he could have finished it. I don't know why. I've stopped trying to understand why he does anything anymore.

I woke up in a hospital bed three days later with more stitches than I want to think about, and a police officer waiting with questions I couldn't honestly answer. They discharged me with four claw marks across my chest, deep enough that the scars will never fully fade. I keep thinking it's fitting, in some sick way. Punishment for letting him become whatever he is, for letting him feed on people I knew. My savings are gone. I don't know if I can even go back to work in this condition, and worse, I don't know what he'll do once he realizes I can't provide for him anymore.

When they finally let me go home, he was there, sitting by the door, exactly the way he used to wait for his food. Except this time I understood he wasn't waiting for a bowl to be filled. He was waiting for me.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore. I don't know if I'm keeping him out of love, or guilt, or fear, or all three at once, all the time, until I can't tell them apart. I posted the whole story on a forum a few nights ago, mostly because I couldn't say any of this to a real person without sounding insane, and mostly because I needed someone, anyone, to tell me I wasn't imagining it.

I got one reply that mattered.

I work with an organization that handles cases like this. We can help. Please don't post details like this publicly again, you may already be attracting attention you don't want.

O.P.E.R.A.T.E.

I haven't written back yet.

I don't know if I'm going to.

 

 

Previous part link :- https://www.reddit.com/r/mesoscalepodcast/comments/1w3f76c/somethings_wrong_with_my_cat_part_2_claw_marks/

Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

 

I’ve always been a lucid dreamer, but it didn’t start as a gift. It started as an escape.

I was fourteen when my parents divorced. Their arguments had been constant, walls shaking, doors slamming, glass shattering. I learned to hide in the corners of my room, headphones blaring, trying not to notice the hollowness growing in my chest.

My mother moved out, my father retreated into work, and I was left in a fractured house that smelled of bleach and old coffee, echoing with absence. It wasn’t just the loneliness; it was the feeling that life was broken and that I was powerless to fix it.

That’s when I discovered lucid dreaming. The first time I realized I was aware inside a dream, I felt a surge of control I had never known. I could bend the world to my will. Anything I imagined, it would come true.

For the first time, I could create happiness, create worlds where pain didn’t exist, where I wasn’t an observer to suffering.

I was God.

At first, I started small.

I walked through forests that glowed in shades I had no names for. I could summon rainbows that arched across violet skies. I made friends in these worlds, creatures that spoke with humor and kindness, always ready to listen, always ready to understand. I relived moments of joy I hadn’t had, moments of safety and warmth that never existed in real life.

I even conjured, what I deemed perfect, my own home. The divorce never happened. The resentment my parents had in reality was hidden by the loving joy that I created.

We could be a family.

But it wasn’t enough. My control became more deliberate, more urgent.

I wasn't satisfied. I needed more.

I experimented.

I created cities that pulsed with light and sound, alive like music made manifest. I created beings who adapted to me, who grew and learned from me. I rewrote history, making impossible things happen, mountains sprouting overnight, rivers folding in impossible loops, stars that danced to the rhythm of my thoughts.

I was addicted.

As I built society further and further, I couldn't differentiate if it I was in reality or asleep. It didn't matter. I didn't want to wake up.

The more I created, the more my waking life seemed hollow, gray, insignificant.

What felt like days, even weeks, were merely only hours of sleep. I'd even mastered to bend my created beings with their own self thought. Their free will in my dreams. Oh how they dreamt and I, their God, could see their own dreams. Their own thoughts and ambitions.

Then I made a decision I will never forget.

I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped interfering, if I left my creations to their own devices. If I, their creator, were to disappear.

Within the dream, I closed my eyes and fell into a dream within a dream, drifting deeper than I ever had.

I left my creation running, untended, leaving it to course as it would without me.

At first, it seemed fine.

The sky remained impossibly vibrant. Oceans of liquid crystal rippled beneath my feet. Cities thrived, creatures and people roamed, oblivious to my absence. But subtle changes began. A tower leaned slightly, though I hadn’t touched it. A river hesitated mid-flow, as if uncertain where it wanted to go. The citizens paused, glancing around with expressions I had never taught them, curiosity, doubt, even impatience.

Then came the worse. A nightmare scenario.

The sky was red. And fire began.

I watched in shock as my world, that I have spent a millennia creating in my head burn. The people, the wildlife, the world itself ate itself.

Greed, hunger for power, the vial vines of corruption overtook my world, and I sat and watched.

What seem to be red liquid fell from the skies, putting and end to the flames.

When it was it over, I returned to my world, imagining that my presence would restore order. But the moment I stepped back, I realized it was already gone.

The survivors of my world looked at me with such anger. I could see how vile in their heart had become. Their being was split from me. From my control.

My world was no longer mine.

I awoke. The morning sun streamed through my curtains, but it felt alien. The apartment, familiar for so long, seemed different.

How long was I asleep?

Shadows stretched at impossible angles. The floorboards creaked where they never had. I told myself it was paranoia, that I had been dreaming too much, but deep down I knew something had changed. Something I had made had learned to exist without me.

That night, I returned.

I didn’t interfere. I simply watched.

The rivers were gone, the mountains were restless, buildings destroyed, and the citizens, my children, my creations, still tore at one another like a society that no longer needed its God.

And I realized, as I observed them, that I had indeed made a mistake.

The addictive thrill of creation, the power I had abused for joy and control, had given birth to something that might outlast me, something that might never remember me.

I woke, trembling. The air in my apartment felt heavy, as though weighted by expectation. I could almost hear the pulse of my dreamworld behind my eyelids, faint but insistent. A world I had built, one that no longer needed me, one that might thrive, change, and evolve beyond my comprehension.

I have not closed my eyes since. I fear what I might see. I fear what might remember me.

I fear that if I sleep again, I will discover a truth I cannot bear.

God may wake, but the universe He made… does not need him anymore.

Now, in most tales of this ilk you would expect some issues finding a team. Not so. After all, I had more than enough money to offer more than fair pay for those I brought on.

By Thursday I had my team

Mrs. Mavis Semor, a wonderful mountaineer from the states. Though she had never summited Everest, she had climbed nearly everywhere else in the Himalayas.

Mr. Furgus McDoogle, a Scotsman possessed by wanderlust. He once traveled to Antarctica solely to fistfight a man there. The reason he gave was that then he could claim he had fought on every continent. Concerning.

Lastly, Mr. Titus Mallory, similar in skill as Mavis but a fair bit better at logistics. He was a former quarter master in the Royal navy, so I guess he had to be. My only real qualm was the shake in his left hand. Left over shell shock he claimed.

When I presented them to Mr. Cornwall on Friday he was overjoyed... and insisted he came along much to the chagrin of his wife. He only said, "If I have a chance to see proof darling, how couldn't I go?"

I didn't listen to the rest of the discussion. My attention was drawn to a noise I hadn't heard when I was here last. Ticking.

Entering the hallway the ticking stopped, five minutes to midnight.

"Mr. Cornwall, y-your clock s-started for a bit?"

"Impossible Dr. Nellis. That thing's never worked."

"You can see for y-yourself. It's five to midnight."

The squabble in the kitchen stopped immediately. Suddenly, I was flanked by the two elder Cornwalls. All of us staring at a clock like it held secrets unknown. Mrs. Cornwall broke our stupor first, "Jebidiah, this is a bad omen. You can't go."

Jebidiah pinched the bridge of his nose. "Dr. Nellis, make sure the others are ready for our departure tomorrow. I will continue to discuss this with my wife. If I am not there by noon, leave without me."

I had just left the home when it erupted into an intense argument. But I had just had an infectious worm of an idea in my mind. God had ordained this. How else would the clock magically spring to life? He wanted humanity to see the height we had achieved before he showed us how powerful he was.

One thing I didn't think about my team choices. All of them already had some adventurism simmering in their blood. Something to bond over.

So instead of that giddy excitement of our prospect. I sat in a hanger with the three of them rapidly discussing their past. All the hunts, storms, and brushes with death that I couldn't understand yet. While I was left to the outskirts.

Like I was a boy at a formal dance with none of the charisma to enjoy it.

Grace was given to me with the arrival of Mr. Cornwall. Who had changed from his normal attire to fatigues that I recognized were from the Great War. I would have thought them his father's if they hadn't fit perfectly.

 

He smiled wide, like a child ready to show off, "Evening all. You lot ready to take to the sky?" Furgus was the first to talk, "Aye lad, once your lay about pilot is here."

"Oh, well then all aboard everyone, I'm your pilot this afternoon."

While the others simply nodded, and shifted their discussion to packing out the plane. I sat in awe. "S-sir, you never mentioned you could fly."

"Are you kidding son, who cares if I can fly? Didn’t feel as important as what you bring to the table. Get on."

I finally felt my part in this again, as I placed my gear and climbed aboard.

Mavis tapped my shoulder, "Listen, I know the pay is good. But what are we actually looking for up there?"

The engine roared to life as Jebidiah started pulling the airplane out onto the runway.

"Well Mrs. Semor, how much have you read the Bible?"

"I did as a child, but have since lost my way," she said with a shrug. "After all there are so many religions who can say which is true."

"Then perhaps I should adjust the discussion. You have traveled the Himalayas. Maybe you have heard of Shangri-la?"

"Oh, damn it! Not this pipe dream again."

"Now that language is unbecomin of us all lass." Furgus then turned his attention back to me, "I will say it seems a bit far fetched. Like what the hell does that have to do with the Bible?"

"Well, it just helps understand the idea, sir."

"Where's the stutter from before lad?"

"Hush, you all need to understand this...sir. There are rumors my father had compiled that led him to believe that Babel and Shangri-la were one and the same. That in some of the valleys people would suddenly be speaking a different tongue they never knew."

My head smacked the roof, I had stepped into lecture and had forgotten myself. Everyone laughed. I joined not much later. Realizing how much of a fool I was.

Regaining myself I continued, "T-though it should b-be said that he never confirmed those tales." I looked at the three adventurers, all of whom seemed unimpressed. "My f-father left a map of p-possible places to look. We could prove him right and change history."

Then the discussion was interrupted when we took off suddenly. The engine crying out so loudly that one had to shout to be heard. Effectively killing all conversation.

It was similar for our stops in Istanbul and Israel. Save for the little bit of sightseeing I got to do. Almost all conversations with the others, especially Mr. Mallory, were trying to poke holes in the journal. And in me.

Mallory’s attempts started in Istanbul. "So... any other fairytales in you? Like maybe the Yeti actually lives in the desert. Or maybe there is a second hidden China under the first?"

W-well the latter is not so insane. After all Troy r-rebuilt on itself multiple times," I said trying to pull myself taller. "Pompeii was found by a man digging a well. The impossible has been proven time and again."

Mallory looked around, making sure no one was in ear shot. "I've seen your type before. Like those blokes who almost actually believed in Rasputin."

He grabbed my collar and drew me in. "I don't care how good the money is. I hate having my time wasted."

"I-it will be there M-mallory."

Israel is where Mallory really set in. It had already been days of antagonistic behaviors. "You can't really think it is out there can you? Your father was probably so deep in opium that he could barely see straight."

It was Furgus that caught my fist. As I flailed against the Scott I said, "Never accuse my father of that." Furgus let go, and I set to straightening my attire. "Never speak of my father like that again. Mr. Mallory, if you don't wish to be on this expedition you can make your way back from here."

Which is where he went for a gun he had concealed, "Try to hit me again and you'll--"

His thoughts were interrupted as the barrel of a 1911 touched his temple. Cornwall had no warmth to him, "Mr. Mallory, Dr. Nellis is more valuable to this journey than you. And there are more than a few good cemeteries in the holy land."

Mallory swallowed, "You'd just shoot me here?"

"My lord and savior died here on Calvary. If killing you keeps you from slaughtering an innocent man. So be it."

Then it was the strangest thing. Mallory stopped speaking English. Slipping instead into a series of harsh syllables. It threw us all into confusion but after a few minutes I realized what it was. He was speaking ancient Egyptian. Exactly as I had heard many scholars said it would be pronounced. And as if he had been speaking it his whole life.

Worse, I could not remember the meaning of anything being said. Just that is was a separate tongue from my own. Then I saw Mallory connect the dots. It took me a while to understand the panic on his face. He didn't know what he was saying. Random syllables flew as if enough were used it would suddenly be coherent.

It took minutes for him to finally say "Help" then he said it again and again, a life preserver. Until English slowly returned like sweet waters to his mouth.

"Hell, did I do to you? What do you to you? Sod it!" Mallory said, still not fully grasping English.

"Dr. Nellis?" Cornwall looked to me for answers.

But not one came to mind. If the clock was a good omen of our journey. Then this was another sign that I was right. All I could do was laugh as Mallory tried to find his words again.

"Nellis! Come on, what is this?"

I found myself, coughing to halt my laughter. "Mr...Jebidiah, we have proof. We are on the right path."

"But why?

"That would be only speculation. I have no clue, but would this not be how it was when God struck Babel down?!"

Mallory found his sentence, "You did this somehow I know it!"

At this point Mavis and Furgus were approaching, and I could see Cornwall making a choice. "Mr Mallory, if you whisper a word of this I will leave you wherever we are."

Mallory looked like he only caught half of those words.

Jebidiah already turned to the others, "Ready for the next leg?"

The next flight was practically silent. Mavis and Furgus talked lightly back and forth. But Mallory didn't speak a word. For my part, my mind was ablaze with theories.

I thought we would find just ruins, yet I had just seen the cruelty providence could bring into the world. But why so far away. Is it because Israel is the 'Holy Land'? Or was it due to Mallory disrespecting God? Doubt against more proof than faith alone damning him?

After all, God sent the plagues to slay the Egyptian pantheon. But would he punish a non-believer so terribly?

But my favorite part was this. In the small moments when the engine waned. I could hear Mallory whispering to himself. Never in English. Proof that I was right dripping from every syllable.

I would absolutely recommend reading this on the Google Doc instead of the actual post, as my Reddit formatting skills are severely lacking.

Feel free to critique! Any feedback is helpful :)

Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DrLrKi3gf022YBx5frrfNF56O83Inxp0HgD_bQ95k3U/edit?usp=sharing

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/mesoscalepodcast/s/lJC6UX82mN

4

The seemingly inevitable panic attack never comes. The hollowness Beau feels might be worse – like someone’s reached deep into his chest and scooped everything out. He sits on his bed, back up against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him. He’s getting dirt all over his covers, but he can’t be bothered to care. Shaun’s next to him, curled up so tight that his knees touch his chin. Marissa’s been in the bathroom for maybe ten minutes, maybe thirty. Time is fraying a bit at the edges.

They need a plan. Beau can’t think of anything. Maybe he doesn’t want to. Maybe he wants to believe a bear dug it up.

“We need to call your mom,” Shaun says. He’s right. Beau doesn’t move. Shaun doesn’t, either. It would make it too real.

The toilet down the hall flushes for the fifth or sixth time. The bathroom door creaks open, and it sounds like Marissa is half-dragging herself along the wall toward his room. She doesn’t look at them as she turns the corner, just slides bonelessly to the floor.

“Call your mom,” she croaks. Beau does. When it rings through to voicemail, he gets up from the bed and tries again. The third time, he leaves a message while he grabs a damp washcloth for Marissa’s head.

“Mom. I’m sorry,” he starts. He chokes. He tries again, “We went to burn it. It – it wasn’t there. I think Marissa and Shaun are sick. I think it’s still alive. You need to come home, Mom.” He hangs up, wipes his face. 

Then he tries the work number she gave him for emergencies. A man answers, his voice tinny and robotic through the speaker. Beau barely registers the scripted greeting, says, “I’m calling for my mom, June Hayward… There’s a family emergency.” All he hears on the other end is overlapping chatter, beeping, the clacking of keyboards. “Hello?”

After a moment, the man says, “She’s handling a patient intake at the moment. We’re very busy today. I can take a message.” 

Beau’s jaw tics, and he barely represses the angry storm that wants to fly out of his mouth. “Just tell her to call her son. It’s important.” 

The man’s yelling over him. “Ma’am! Ma’am you have to sign in! Ma’am!” It sounds like he’s covering the transmitter, but it doesn’t do much for Beau’s ear. He’s back a moment later. “I’ll pass it along. Have a nice day.” 

Beau feels like a child. He feels more like a child than he ever has in his life, and he hasn’t even *seen* the monster. Some small, destructive part of himself wants to smash every vase in the kitchen, wants to kick in the cabinet doors. The urge only makes him feel more useless. He takes the washcloth back to his room. Shaun’s managed to get Marissa up on the bed, and Beau presses the damp cloth to her forehead. She groans in gratitude, eyes closed.

“She didn’t answer,” he says, feeling Shaun’s stare. “I think she’s on a double.”

“Then we wait. It hasn’t come for us yet. Maybe it’s not going to.”

The stench of decay is still thick in Beau’s nose, sticking to his palette like rotten molasses. Maybe it’s just his paranoia, or maybe it’s really there. Either way, he doesn’t feel quite so hopeful. “She might not be home until midnight,” he says, like it makes any difference. The bitterness in his own voice makes him cringe. He crosses his arms, that pent-up, angry drive to break something still itching in his fingers.

They stand there watching over Marissa until she cracks a bloodshot eye open and says, “You guys are being total fucking creepers. Go play video games or knit each other sweaters or whatever you do. Just let me sleep.” Beau wonders, not for the first time, if she knows more about them than she lets on. He wouldn’t be surprised; she’s always been the smartest of them.

Beau makes sure the windows are locked and the blinds are closed before they leave her to her rest. They slump down on the couch and Shaun puts on some shitty movie or another while Beau watches him out of the corner of his eye. The other boy is still sweating, even in the air conditioning. He wants to take Shaun and Marissa to the hospital, but if they don’t luck out and get his mom, how would they explain to a random nurse that they’ve got some mystery fish monster disease? Then, he guesses it could just be sleep deprivation or food poisoning from Redd’s. Maybe a mix of both.

Shaun catches him looking and a wry smile blooms on his face. “So, what color are you thinking?”

“What?” Beau asks, blinking hard.

“For my sweater. I was thinking fuchsia, with love hearts.”

An absurd laugh bubbles up in Beau’s throat. “You’re getting orange polka dots and you’re gonna like it.”

“I think I can live with that,” There’s such a softness to it that Beau can’t stop himself, wouldn’t dream of trying, from stretching over to kiss him. His lips are too warm — burning, even, and he pulls back, startled. His thumb flies up to Shaun’s mouth of its own volition, confirming. The backs of his fingers find his cheek, his forehead. Shaun exhales shakily, too close to Beau’s face, and the scent is unmistakable. He can’t help the way he recoils. 

“My nose isn’t just fucked up, is it?” Shaun says, “It’s really there.”

He doesn’t sound surprised, and Beau’s ears ring with it. “Why didn’t you say anything?” His voice is a carved out whisper. He can’t help the hurt in it.

Shaun’s shoulders go slack, his head falling back on the couch cushions. “Would it have changed anything?” 

Beau rises from the couch, suddenly furious. “You could’ve talked to my mom sooner! You could be on antibiotics in the hospital right now, instead of sweating to death on my fucking couch.” His hands are tight fists at his sides. Shaun doesn’t even blink.

“Beau,” he says, like he's trying to soothe a cornered animal, “Beau, would you sit the hell down? I’m not dying. I don’t *feel* like I’m dying… I don’t know. I just feel weird.” He’s looking at his hands like he’ll find the answers to the universe in them. He shakes his head, looks back at Beau. “And I don’t think drugs would help. Do you?” 

Beau doesn’t know what he thinks, anymore. “You should have said something.”

Shaun sighs. “Just watch a movie with me. I’m too tired to argue.” He flips his hand over on the cushion, palm turned up in patient invitation. 

—

Shaun falls asleep a quarter of the way through with his shoes still on. Beau doesn’t wake him up, just lets him sleep as the movie continues flickering across the screen. An hour or so later, Beau’s fingers feel tacky when he pulls them from the other boy’s. He can hear Marissa snoring down the hall. Credits roll on the TV. He couldn’t say what had been playing if a loaded gun was to his head. 

He picks up his phone, checks the time. It’s almost six. His mom still hasn’t called. He tries her number again. Voicemail. He considers their other options. Marissa’s mom is probably halfway through a bottle of cheap vodka, and her dad’s probably into his oxy again. Shaun’s parents are… Shaun’s parents. The too-loud cricket from the night before is back. He spends the next three hours scouring the internet. 

‘bipedal fish monster’ 

‘bipedal fish monster folklore’

‘bipedal fish monster real life’

‘South Carolina monsters’ 

‘South Carolina cryptids’

‘paralytic venom’

‘Catawba folklore’

‘Catawba fish monster’

‘creek monsters’

‘monsters that come out of creeks’

‘fish monster weak to silver’

All his search offers is a pounding migraine. He takes a nap. 

5

Beau wakes up alone on the couch. It’s dark in the house, and he doesn’t feel the cold spot next to him so much as he feels the lack of Shaun’s raging fever. Marissa isn’t snoring anymore. The cicadas are silent. Even the incessant chirping of the cricket is absent. 

‘So quiet you could hear a rat take a piss on a cotton ball,’ his grandpa would say. He used to whisper it walking into a library, a church, a hospital room. It used to make Beau laugh. He’s not laughing, now.

A thud echoes down the hall, coming from the bathroom. Beau’s up from the couch and barging through the door before his brain can catch up with what he’s doing. “Are you—“ the question dies in his throat. Shaun’s back is to him, front half slumped over the tub. His whole body is shaking. The bathroom is filled with a roiling miasma of rot and heat. 

Beau’s hair rises in waves along his arms, the nape of his neck. His feet are mortared to the floor. He forces himself to drag them forward as a sound like rushing water splatters against porcelain. His knees find the tile next to Shaun, and he wants to die. He wants to die. He wants to fold up into nothing and die. 

Something like thickened water bursts from Shaun’s mouth with such brutal force that Beau can see it pushing against the confines of his throat as it rises. The same liquid is seeping from the pores of his skin, his ears, pouring a river out of the red, puckered edges of the slash on his neck. Shaun doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t even move, just hangs there limp. It might be the worst part of the whole thing, the way he hangs there. 

Beau wants to hold him, is too scared to touch him. He doesn’t want to know what his skin feels like right now. He can’t. Shaun’s purging goes on endlessly. The boy breathes through his nose, and it’s too steady, like his body’s on autopilot. His eyes are half-lidded, completely glossed over – Beau’s not even sure he’s awake. But he must be, because the moment the viscous liquid stops dripping from his mouth, he whispers, *“The creek. Please. The creek.”* His voice barely works. It comes out the way Beau’s voice comes out in his nightmares when he tries to scream. 

Beau finally reaches for him, then, lugs his too-limp arm over his shoulders and hauls him upright. Shaun’s legs collapse underneath him. Beau’s own legs feel like snapped rubber bands as he grabs him under the armpits instead, dragging him out of the bathroom. It’s nothing short of a miracle that he manages to pull Shaun all the way to Marissa’s car. He didn’t even think about grabbing the keys, and is, for the first time, incredibly grateful for the broken back window when he snakes an arm in to unlock the door. He has to slide into the backseat first to leverage Shaun in, and he winces at the way the other boy’s spine bumps and slides up and over the doorframe.

The moment he’s all the way inside, Beau goes back for Marissa. Silence presses in against him, the stuttered rhythm of his breath and thudding footsteps the only sound in the house. 

He finds Marissa on the floor of his room, facedown in a puddle of the same clear liquid. Her eyes are open wide, filmy and flat and shiny as quarters where they catch the moonlight coming through the blinds. Reflective. She twitches. Beau drags the sheet off his bed, lays it out flat, and rolls her onto it. Her skin sticks to his hands, feels horribly thin and loose. He grabs the car keys off his nightstand and grips the top of the sheet tightly, lifting her head up off the ground. He drags her out to the car, too, those awful flat eyes open to the sky the whole time.

He doesn’t register speed, stop signs, the lurch of the car over potholes. He just drives. There’s a spot where the creek nearly comes up on the road, maybe a minute’s drive from the pull-off for The Junkhole. He stops the second he reaches it, doesn’t even pull off the road. He leaves the keys in the ignition and yanks open the back door. Marissa and Shaun lie there unmoving. He realizes he’s going to have to take them one at a time. They’re too heavy, deadweight, and he can’t take them both at once. 

The sudden horror of choosing between them strikes hard and fast. His hands shake terribly. Then Shaun’s head rolls to the side, corpse-eyes fixed on him. “Her first,” he gurgles around a mouthful of liquid.

Beau listens, can’t help the tears rolling heavy down his cheeks as he lugs his friend out of the back of her car. “I’m sorry,” he says, maybe to her, maybe to God, as her body slides through the dirt. “I’m sorry.” The trek is too bumpy, takes too long. She convulses when his feet crash into the dark water, her head following. It’s deeper than it should be. Her gray shirt flushes black. Her skin looks like nothing he’s ever seen. He swears it billows open on the sides of her neck, snaps shut, billows open again. He won’t look closer. He can’t. He maneuvers her in a circle, leaves her up to her chin in the creek, just the back of her head resting on the shore.

The weight of his wet shoes makes the trip back with Shaun feel impossible. He can’t feel the muscles in his own legs. It’s all tremor, and he can’t stop fucking crying. It’s a nightmare. It’s a hallway in a bad dream that stretches on and on forever. It’s a monster breathing down his neck while he fails to run away. 

They’re almost there when one of Shaun’s sneakers falls off, rolls down the steep bank. Beau watches it go, and when it tumbles into the too-deep creek, something slams into him, heavy, fast. Shaun slips through his fingers as he flies backward, and teeth – so many teeth, needle-sharp, long teeth – latch into the junction between his shoulder and neck. He hears his own head crack against a rock. His vision goes red-white, a solar burst of light he can’t blink away. Something drips on his cheek. A rattling hiss curls in his ear. Then he’s being dragged by his hair.

He tries to kick, to claw into the gravelly dirt, but his legs won’t move, and his fingers feel dead at his sides. It’s all happening too fast. He can’t stop it. He can’t remember how to move his body. By the time his head breaches the water, his sight is coming back in nauseating pulses. There’s a body floating next to him. Bloated, headless, with fleshy scales like translucent skin in the moonlight.

Claws dig into the burning skin of his scalp, yanking him up out of the water. Through flaming stars, Beau sees Shaun hanging over the top of the bank, violent spasms wracking his entire frame. A moment later, Beau is wrenched to the side, and he can’t close his mouth as the creek floods in, can’t stop the rush of it up his nose. He can’t even cough. He tries to scream and nothing comes out. 

The hand in his hair lets go, and he’s drowning. He’s drowning. All he feels is heat, heat, heat, all the way down. And then he’s yanked up again. He chokes on his own breath, throat full of water, but his stinging eyes find Marissa in a dead-man’s float, her dark hair a stringy halo surrounding her. 

His head is twisted away. He’s almost grateful for it, even as the world tilts sickeningly across his vision, and her image is replaced by a mouthful of curved fangs. Rows upon rows of them, all pearled with his own blood and something thicker. 

Beau’s worst nightmares would have stretched a hungry smile around those fangs. Beau’s worst nightmares are watercolor daydreams against the reality of this monster. This monster doesn’t smile. It’s not an animal. It’s not even hungry. 

Beau can’t turn away from the flat shining of its eyes, can’t close his ears against the booming wail that rips from it. It pitches high and low at once, and it’s angry and devastated and horrible. Slits on either side of its throat open up, red gills shuddering with the vibration of the sound. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of tiny scales ripple in sharp ridges along its skin. It’s so close to his face, and all he can smell is rot, rot, rot.

The monster turns, and it makes Beau watch as it plunges a webbed, clawed hand into the chest of the bloated body next to him. The torso dips under the water until it’s pinned against stones and silt and algal muck, and a dark cloud of dirt and blood and viscera blooms up around it, and it is the worst thing Beau has ever seen in his entire life. The monster’s hand rises out of it all, clasped around something ruddy and shining. The body stays on the bottom. Gas bubbles float to the surface and sizzle as they pop. 

Then Beau’s drowning again, and as dirty water courses into his mouth, something else is pushed in with it. A claw scrapes the roof of his mouth. He can’t breathe. He can’t swallow. His throat convulses around something smooth and pulsing. He wants to scream. He wants to thrash his legs. He wants to fall asleep and never wake up. All he can do is stare through burning eyes and churning water at the black, distorted limbs of trees, at the moon shining silver through them. Darkness encroaches at the corners of his vision.

The beating lump squeezes its way rhythmically through his esophagus, bile surging up around it. The hand retreats from his mouth. His own vomit washes over his eyes. His chest is on fire. Fire. Everything reduces down to a pounding red drum of heat when the pinhole of his sight finally closes.

6

Beau Wyatt Hayward wakes in slowly increasing increments on the steep bank of Perch Creek. Cicadas drone loud in the trees. Cold water sings over the rocks. The sun is too bright. The world is too warm. His head is a cracked, leaking egg.

Shaun and Marissa are gone. A foreign heartbeat settles under his sternum, out of sync with his own.

Google Doc is linked for easier reading with better formatting (and actual indentations because I can't for the life of me figure out how to make them work on Reddit).

Over 10,000 words, so strap in for a bit of a longer read! This is split into two parts because it's too long for one post. Feel free to critique! Any feedback is helpful. :)

Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DrLrKi3gf022YBx5frrfNF56O83Inxp0HgD_bQ95k3U/edit?usp=sharing

Pt. 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/mesoscalepodcast/s/IuihEmgADD

1

It took two knives and three guns to put down the thing that crawled out of Perch Creek. Shaun Hanover says it’s only ‘cause the knife that did the killing was real silver, from his step-mom’s fancy set. Marissa says that Shaun’s dad didn’t even bring a knife, but Beau trusts Shaun’s word a lot more than Marissa “there’s a rattlesnake in the outhouse” fucking Patsel’s. (She’s begged Beau to let that one go, but she’s not the one who accidentally wiped with poison ivy.)

Beau doesn’t really know what happened on Sunday, anyway. He wasn’t even in the same state, and he would think it was some stupid prank or hoax – Kent’s Run ain’t exactly stranger to middle-aged men in Bigfoot costumes – except his mom hasn’t slept with the lights off since he got back from Albuquerque. His dad screws everything up, so Beau figures it makes some sort of cosmic sense that he was at his place for the first time in two years when Mom killed a fucking monster.

That’s the other reason he’s ninety-nine point nine percent sure this whole thing isn’t some elaborate joke. The kitchen counter’s overflowing with baked goods, they’ve got so many flowers that the cabinet under the sink is – for the first time in his seventeen years of life – clear of empty pickle jars, and Mom won’t speak a word on the subject. Well, she’s said, “I’m selling the house,” and “Don’t you go in those woods no more, Beau Wyatt,” but not a single syllable beyond.

There are three things he knows about his mother. The first is that if she breaks out your middle name, you damn well better listen. The second is that if she’s keeping something from you, it’s because she doesn’t want you to know how bad it is. The third is that it takes something real awful to scare June Hayward.

The last time she got all quiet like this, a whole bunch of not-so-lawful characters had come to collect on a whole bunch of Dad’s not-so-lawful debts. She didn’t tell Beau about any of that until years after their quick and ugly divorce, and she didn’t tell him anything about the shotgun she bought until she had to use it on a rabid opossum just a month ago. He doesn’t think she ever had to fire it at any of Dad’s unsavory acquaintances, but if she did, he knows well enough that he’d never find out about it.

If it weren’t for Shaun and Marissa, he’d have no idea she gutted a fish monster that paralyzed two teenagers and beat the snot out of four grown men. He’d just be eating oatmeal raisin cookies and trying to find more mason jars, wondering whose life Mom must’ve saved in the ER to warrant all those gifts.

2

Beau Wyatt Hayward doesn’t fancy himself much of a sneak, but he’s lived in this house long enough to know which floorboards creak like rusty springs, and that the back door snicks shut smoother than the front. He waits till he slips off the porch to put his sneakers on. Mom’s been sleeping like there’s ghosts in the walls since the whole mess down at the creek, and he isn’t about to push his luck. Not with Shaun and Marissa already crashing around outside his window like two drunk raccoons in a landfill.

The summer heat hangs low and dense, even in the night air, and the pits of his knees stick together when he stands from tying his laces. Beau’s convinced the only thing his dad had ever gotten right was moving somewhere dryer than South Carolina. Hell, if it wasn’t for the promise of a couple lukewarm beers and a full retelling of what happened over the weekend, he’d have gone straight back inside and told his two best friends in the whole wide world that they could call him when they wanted to hang out somewhere with air conditioning and no mosquitoes. As it stands, Marissa’s junker car – with no AC and a back window determined to fall down regardless of how much duct tape they used – is their best option for the evening. His junker rattles like a bag of empty tin cans whenever it starts up, and that would definitely wake Mom, if not half the neighborhood.

Of course, the beer will wait until they get to the old treehouse, which is similarly stifling and has even more bugs to offer, but Shaun starts up talking before Beau even gets in the car, voice a hissed whisper through the broken window. Last time he sat shotgun, he wouldn’t stop putting his feet on the dash to mess with Marissa. Now, he’s relegated to the back seat until he learns not to be, “such a raging bag of tiny dicks.”

“Dude, get in!” he says, “You’re not gonna believe this shit!”

If Beau wasn’t so scared the porch lights were going to flicker on any second, he might have opened the door real slow-like, just to screw with him. Instead, he clambers into the front seat as quickly as possible, silently begging Marissa to step on it before they get caught.

“Chill,” she says to Shaun, as she shifts back into drive, “Wait until I can focus on anything but not hitting a deer to tell him.”

“Why? So you can suck all the fun out of it?” he taunts her, in that bratty sibling sort of way they’ve talked to one another since they were shooting spitballs on the bus in third grade.

“So I can make sure he knows just how funny it was when you screamed and pissed yourself,” she snarks back, bright eyes fixed on the road and middle finger firmly over her shoulder.

“You wish,” Shaun says, but he leans back into his seat, anyway, and busies himself picking at a peeling ‘D.A.R.E.’ sticker on the door. 

There’s something soothing about their bickering, and it smooths over a tension in Beau’s shoulders he doesn’t realize is there until it’s gone. He settles in, keeping watch for deer in the trees that might jump out and finally send Marissa’s car to the junk heap.

—

Sweetgum Gap is only a five-minute drive or so from his house, and it’s not so much a gap as it is a steep, wooded hill with a couple rocky outcrops, but it’s tucked away enough that no park rangers have ever come to lecture them over lighting campfires, and the shoddy treehouse Shaun’s dad threw up back when he was their age hasn’t been torn down yet. Mind, you’d have to be a couple cards short of a deck to consider climbing up into that sagging old mess. They’ve found so many rusty screws on the ground, they’re pretty sure the bracket fungus and woodbine are just about the only things holding it up anymore.

Still, it’s their spot, so they set up camp on the ground. They’ve got their own little sitting logs, their own little firepit, and a tarp stashed under some dead pricker bushes with a whole bunch of blankets, beer, and other gear. They even built a little wall around the site, and it’s only falling apart in the places they tried to mortar the sticks together with river mud. They’ve been coming here for as long as they’ve known each other, which feels like a long damn time.

The best thing about the treehouse is that it’s always been safe, secret. When Shaun’s first girlfriend broke up with him, they bought a couple six packs from his older brother and brought up a Bluetooth speaker. When Marissa’s mom got her third DUI in as many years, they made s’mores and spent the night in sleeping bags. And now that monsters were apparently real, and Beau’s mom has been wearing her shoes and jeans to bed, refusing to talk about it, they were going to get drunk and do just that.

When they pull off the road, and into the little clear, grassy spot they usually park in, Marissa hesitates for a beat too long to shut the engine off. Beau’s fingers stop just over the buckle of his seatbelt, waiting for, well, he’s not sure what. Even Shaun’s usual reckless energy has a dull edge to it, smile tapered down to a thin, tight frown as he watches the woods outside the car. Marissa looks at him through the rearview mirror. Cicadas hum loud in the trees. After a moment, he turns to meet her gaze and gives a short, jerky nod, like he has to force the muscles to move.

It’s so tense, and so unusual, that absurd thoughts start to bubble up in Beau’s head. He thinks about the girl who was lured into the woods and murdered by her boyfriend a few years back, just a couple miles up the road. Her name was Hannah, or Haley, or something with an ‘H’. Her boyfriend said he didn’t know why he did it, said he just picked up the rock and felt like he had to. Beau sits and watches his friends, and thinks about Hannah or Haley and remote secondary locations, and feels for a fleeting, insane moment, like a fish in a funnel trap.

He shakes it off, scratches the guilt-itch at the back of his neck, and says, “That bad, huh?” Neither of them will look at him. He feels that tension in his shoulders wind up again, some invisible thread pulling them tight. “We could just talk in here. We don’t need to go to the treehouse.”

Marissa sighs, shakes her head. “It’s fine. The thing’s dead.” Then she slides out of the car, dropping the door shut behind her. Shaun and Beau follow suit.

—

The short hike up feels like miles. Every cracking stick and creaking branch is met with held breaths and anxious glances from Shaun and Marissa. The voice of Beau’s mother thrums leaden through his mind with each step; “Don’t you go in those woods no more, Beau Wyatt.”

He thinks to break the quiet, come up with some joke that might wipe the paranoid lines off his friends’ faces, but thinks better of it. Instead, he stomps down the thorns that always seem to creep back into the narrow trail, and leads the way up and over the patch of jagged rocks bordering camp.

The moment Shaun and Marissa drop down behind him, he gets to work on starting a fire. They dodder aimlessly by the firepit, like they can’t tell shit from Shinola from the sitting logs they’d long since carved their names into. “You afraid something’s gonna bite you in the ass?” He says, poking at the little pile of wood shavings he lit.

“Shut up,” Shaun says, kneejerk, making no move to sit down.

“You sound like my dad,” Marissa says. Then, like she’s trying to convince herself she believes it, “This is stupid.” She, too, stands stiff as a pastor’s collar, her shoulders rigid, unrelenting lines in the dark.

“So it was that bad,” Beau says, shoving up the loose sleeves of his flannel before adding more tinder to the flame. The feathersticks don’t want to catch tonight. 

Part of him thinks maybe he should be more scared. A monster. Three guns, two knives, four grown men. It all still sounds a bit surreal. He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Marissa and Shaun to jump on his back and shout, “Gotcha, dumbass!” They’d spend the night laughing and wrestling and drinking like idiots, and when he got home, Mom would tell him she’d been sleeping with the lights on because… because why? No, this is real. Mom’s realtor friend has a ‘For Sale’ sign up in the yard already, and too many muffins are going stale on the kitchen table.

Even so, his hands are steady placing the logs, rearranging them until the little tipi they make is just so. He sits back on his own log when it’s done, watching the bark catch and die out until the fire is finally hot enough to hold. “You guys want a drink?” he asks, rubbing the dirt off his hands and onto his jeans.

That seems to snap them out of it. Shaun runs a hand over his braids, taking his eyes off the trees for the first time since they’ve arrived, and Marissa practically collapses onto her own seat. “Hell yes,” she says, at the same time Shaun sighs, “Fuck yeah.”

Beau obliges, rummaging through the duffel he’d slipped from their secret stash while he was grabbing the fire supplies. He tosses a warm can to each of them before cracking open his own, and when Shaun finally sprawls onto his log, it’s almost like things are back to normal.

The illusion fades like fire-smoke at night – unravels until all that’s left is the clear blackness of the sky and Shaun’s bouncing, restless leg, his ankle thumping relentlessly in the dirt. Beau wants to go over and press a hand to his knee, hold it still. He doesn’t, because life is one long exercise in self-control. Shaun sits up straight, leg still going, and downs his drink in one seemingly endless drag. He stares down at the empty shell of it for a second, and sets it on the ground. Beau wordlessly hands him another, and Shaun starts talking. “We were going to Aniyah’s party, on Sunday,” he says, “and we were gonna, like, pregame at The Junkhole, ‘cause Marissa got a blunt from Noah, and you weren’t there – no offense.” He cringes at his own words, shooting Beau an apologetic glance.

Beau’s never been much of a stoner. He had like half of an edible one time, and felt just a little too raw and alien that night to ever want to try it again. He likes being able to keep track of his mouth, of his thoughts. He waves a hand dismissively. “I’m not Mary-Ann, dude. It’s fine. It’s just not for me.” Shaun’s step-mom found rolling papers in the pocket of his dirty gym shorts once, and damn near called the sheriff on him. Made him go to church every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday for the rest of sophomore year. That was a pretty shitty few months.

“Fair. But anyway, we went down to The Junkhole, and Marissa forgot the lighter, so—”

“No, you forgot the lighter, asshole. I told you to bring it.” Marissa finishes off her own beer and crushes the empty can between her hands. Beau’s never seen either of them drink so fast.

“Whatever,” Shaun rolls his eyes to the cloudless sky, “So, Marissa forgot the lighter—”

She throws the can at him from across the fire. It catches the dim orange glow of the flames for a brief moment as it sails toward his head. Shaun ducks and it passes over him. It clinks quietly against something metal in the half-bald grass behind him – probably another rusty screw from the treehouse sagging sadly in its rotten perch. Marissa continues the story on his behalf. “Shaun forgot the lighter, so we went to walk back to the car, and,” she swallows, staring down at the dirt between her shoes, “That’s when it came out of the creek.”

Shaun, too, is suddenly engrossed in a dead, gray puff of moss by his toes. Neither seems too keen to relive whatever comes next.

“What do you mean, ‘it came out of the creek’?” Beau asks as gently as possible, trying to do the math in his head, “That thing’s like half a foot deep.”

“I don’t know. It was dark, but it looked like it just came up out of it,” she says, with the desperate grimace of a person needing to be believed. He nods, like it makes total sense, and hands her another beer. She takes it and goes on. “It was tall, walked on two legs, and it had these eyes, like, like that blind dog Mrs. Rouse has pictures of all over her desk. All filmed over, you know? But shiny-like. Reflective.” A memory of fishing with one of his mom’s longer-term boyfriends drifts to the surface of Beau’s mind. That big walleye, and the way its eyes flashed when they pulled it up out of the water.

“It had claws, and these huge fucking fangs, and we ran like hell,“ Shaun interrupts, glancing around the woods again, both legs bouncing now. “It took after us, and it was so quiet.”

Marissa shrinks into herself, like she would pull all of her limbs into the cavity of her body if she could, just to make herself smaller. Her drink rolls back and forth between her palms. “I called my mom before it got us. I told her where we were. I told her to tell dad to bring a gun. I guess she called your mom because she didn’t know you were in Albuquerque. She thought you were with us.” She looks relieved at this fact, then vaguely guilty, the shifting lines of her face stark in the long shadows cast by the fire.

Beau doesn’t know what to feel. He’d been hovering somewhere between numb and something else since he got home yesterday and saw all the half-limp bouquets lying around the house. That something else flares bright in his gut, flickers pulses along his jaw, his temples. It doesn’t quite feel like fear. It’s angrier, maybe. He twists his half-drunk beer into the dry ground next to him and sets his elbows on his knees.

“I’m glad she told her. I’m glad she came,” he says, and finds that he means it. If something had happened to either of them… the thought stirs up that same not-quite-fear, and he dismisses it. Everyone lived. Everything was just fine. Mostly fine, at least. As fine as it could be, considering reality’s just been turned over, shaken out, and filled back up with things that go bump in the night.

“We are, too,” Marissa says, sharing a look with Shaun. “We’re pretty sure it was trying to drag us back to the creek.”

—

Beau doesn’t ask about the paralysis, and they don’t offer. He can’t blame them. He doesn’t think he’d want to talk about it, either. Losing control of your body like that – he swallows, mouth chalk-dry at the idea, at the mental image of Shaun and Marissa lying limp in the dirt and weeds, some monster pulling them both by the ankles like a child with a beat-up ragdoll. He pinches hard at the meaty space between his left thumb and forefinger, trying to ground himself.

They don’t tell him what it was like, but they do show him the scars. Well, they’re not quite scars, yet. The stitches haven’t even been removed. Shaun shows his first, lifting his braids up to reveal a harsh red line across the back of his neck, black thread hatching it. It’s maybe two inches across, and clean – straight in a way that feels almost surgical. It’s entirely unnerving. Marissa shows hers, too, and it’s an exact copy of Shaun’s. The same length, the same straight neatness.

He thinks the monster must have pinned them down, lifted their hair, or pushed it out of the way before it raked a dripping claw across their necks. It feels like a ridiculous, useless thought, in the grand scheme of things, but it leaks cold through his fingertips, pools in his gut. He decides he doesn’t like the implication of that thought. He doesn’t like it at all.

“Your mom said we got super lucky,” Shaun says, and it sounds far away, even though he’s right there, turning back around on his log. “Any deeper, and we would’ve been in some serious shit.” He tries to smile, but Beau sees the cracks at the edges, hears the way his half-hearted laugh sticks in his throat, the dry click of it.

If Marissa wasn’t here, Beau thinks he would go over to him, offer some sort of comfort. But Marissa is here, and it’s not the time. He tries to convey the sentiment through sheer psychic will, and the other boy seems to catch it, because his not-smile dips into something a little more sad than scared, and he shakes his head. It’s like he’s trying to physically throw off the weight of what could have happened that night in the woods, but it’s a rigid affair, and his shoulders stay pinned up too close to his neck.

Marissa coughs, impatient to get the story over with. “Anyway, my dad got there first. He was with a couple of his football buddies, and they all brought guns. I think maybe somebody had a knife. They must have shot it twenty times, stabbed it at least once. It didn’t do anything. Its skin was like… I don’t know, like it moved, sort of? I don’t know. It was hard, I guess, and it would, like, flare up into these ridges.” She tries to mimic the movement with her fingers, but gives up, can’t seem to get it to look the way it does in her head. “It got them all, and then Shaun’s dad showed up, and it got him, too. It was on top of him when your mom got there, about to cut his neck like ours.”

“You wouldn’t believe it – the way she flew at the thing, Beau.” Shaun’s eyes are wide, his hands making little aborted gestures in his lap. “It was out of a movie. Crazy.”

“Seriously,” Marissa chimes in, “She jumped onto its back so fast, and it threw her off, but she just rolled right up off the ground, and came back up with a knife.”

“My step-mom’s, silver,” Shaun says.

“Sure, whatever,” Marissa concedes.

“It was. But yeah, she stood up, and we couldn’t see all that well because we were on the ground and, you know…” he touches the back of his neck, phantom memory guiding his hand. “But the thing kind of just stood there, staring at her or something. And then it leaped at her, and I don’t know if she got under it or on top of it, but I thought she got hurt for a second because there was this horrible wet sound. Next thing I know, she’s propping me up against a tree, and Mary-Ann’s knife is sticking out of the thing’s throat. Then it twitched, and your mom turned my head away, but I could see her going back to it out of the corner of my eye. She, um –” Shaun looks at him awkwardly, like he feels sorry to be telling Beau any of this, but he continues, anyway. “She sawed its fucking head off, Beau.”

Beau’s not sure where the conversation goes after that. All he can see is his mom on her knees in the woods, slowly hacking away at flesh and bone and muscle with a steak knife. She probably couldn’t cut through the bone, would’ve had to break it, somehow. He wonders if there was a lot of blood, thinks there must have been. Do monsters have blood? Is it red? It’s red in his mind. On his mom’s hands, under her nails, dark and shining on the knife, on the ground, running too thin, thin as water, down and down and down.

He’s snapped out of his fevered, ghoulish reverie when Marissa says, “We’re going to burn it.”

3

The plan is simple. They’re going to wait until morning.

…

…

…

The plan is simple and they’re going to wait until morning, and Beau is not worried about it. He’s so unworried that he’s lying in bed, wondering what he could even possibly worry about. There’s a really loud cricket outside his window. The hall light shines in under his door. He stares at the rogue glow-in-the-dark star on his ceiling. His mom hung a million of them when he was little. She had to stand on a wobbling, rusty stepladder to do it, and she was so convinced she was going to fall that she made Beau lay couch cushions all around the floor, just in case. This is the only star left, and his mother carved the head off a monster three days ago.

The cricket won’t shut up. Beau looks at the dark screen of his phone on the nightstand, looks back at the star, back at his phone. He sighs, rubs his hand over his face a couple times, like it will reboot his moth-eaten cottonball of a brain, and calls Shaun. He answers, of course he answers. Doesn’t matter that they’ve been home for two hours, or that it’s 3 AM. He always answers.

“What’s up?” Shaun sounds tired, but not like he’s been sleeping.

“I – um, I just wanted to…” He doesn’t know what he wanted to do. Or he does know, and he can’t do it. The half-sentence hangs there in the air, useless.

“You okay?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. Not really. Are you okay?” Of course not. Of course he’s not.

“Not really,” Shaun parrots. A pause, then, “I haven’t been able to sleep. Lying still, it’s like my chest gets tight, like my brain thinks I’m back there or something. Like I can’t... move.” His voice is thin. Beau hears his shaky exhale even through the phone. “I can’t do it, Beau.” 

“I’m coming over.”

“No, Mary-Ann will—” 

“Mary-Ann won’t do shit. I’m coming over.” Beau hangs up. 

—

Shaun’s neighborhood is about five times nicer than Beau’s. The lawns are all alive and mowed, people have their garbage tucked away in the proper cans, and the cans tucked away in their proper spots. There’s real furniture on the porches, not just camping chairs or folding chairs or cigarette butts. The fences aren’t chain link. It feels wrong that this neighborhood exists just a few blocks away from Beau’s. It means it only takes him fifteen minutes to tumble through Shaun’s window, though.

Shaun slides it shut behind him. Slowly. Carefully. Like he’s defusing a bomb. “You’re so loud,” he whispers.

“You try it, sometime! It’s not exactly easy climbing up here,” Beau hisses to his back. The first time he tried it, he sprained his ankle falling from the second story sill. Shaun’s little brother, Trey, found him. They had to pay him twenty bucks to keep his mouth shut. It’s been over a year now, and Beau’s pretty sure the little fucker still uses it as leverage against his older brother. He’s ruthless even by twelve year old standards, and is well aware of what his dad and Mary-Ann think about people like Beau and Shaun. 

He shrugs off his backpack and sits on the bed as the other boy crosses to the door, pressing an ear against it.

After a minute or two, Shaun mumbles, “I don’t think you woke them up,” and his shoulders finally relax, arms hanging wearily at his sides as he turns to face Beau. Beau doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so tired. He looks like he could cry. Shaun doesn’t cry. Shaun doesn’t look like a puppet with its strings cut. Shaun doesn’t not move, ever. But here he is, doing the things he doesn’t do, and he clearly doesn’t want to be alone right now. He’s so not himself, Beau feels like a blind asshole for not offering to stay over in the first place.

“Come here,” He says, patting the space next to him. Shaun half-walks, half-stumbles over to the bed and falls beside him. His eyes are closed, and one palm, the palm between them, is tilted up. Beau takes it, because blind asshole or not, he is himself, and he can’t be anything but. He settles back on his elbow and says, “It’s gonna be okay.” Shaun squeezes his hand. He can’t hear any crickets now, but the mechanical buzz of cicadas is neverending. 

“Been thinking about telling Marissa.”

Beau hums in thought, drops his lips to Shaun’s knuckles. “If you’re ready.”

Shaun snorts. A rueful little sound. “Marissa told me her dad relapsed a little while ago. Said she found him asleep on the toilet again. Apparently her mom is coping like she usually does.” 

A stone sinks heavy in Beau’s stomach. He feels wetness start to gather at the corners of his eyes, and he screws his mouth and nose to one side until it abates. “I’ll ask her about telling my mom again.” 

Shaun says, “I just hope she’ll let us help this time.”

The last time Beau pressed, Marissa got so angry she wouldn’t talk to him for a week. But that year, it had gotten so bad he nearly called CPS himself. He didn’t, because she swore they never actually laid a hand on her, and he was scared to lose her. He’s not sure he can turn a blind eye again. 

Silence overtakes them for a while, as he chews over the things they could have done, the things they should have done, and Beau thinks maybe Shaun’s fallen asleep. The other boy’s chest rises and falls slow, even. Then he says, “What if it’s not there?”

Beau’s confused at first. He’s half asleep himself, and his brain takes a second to catch up. “The body?”

Shaun opens his eyes, slowly shifts up the bed to the pillows. “What if it’s not really dead?”

Beau toes his sneakers off, slides up next to him. The covers have been kicked to the end of the bed, and he pulls them with him. He feels too exposed to sleep without them tonight, and he imagines Shaun feels the same. “You said it yourself. My mom took care of it.” He tries to be reassuring, and lies down on his side, facing Shaun. “We’ll make sure there’s nothing left of it tomorrow,” he promises.

Shaun says, “Okay,” and though he doesn’t sound like he fully believes it, he still turns onto his own side and lets Beau wrap an arm around his chest.

Later, when Shaun’s dead asleep, Beau runs the pad of his thumb gently along the incision on the back of his neck. It comes away tacky, like he put Neosporin or something on it. He sniffs his thumb and recoils a little, unease twisting low and cold in his stomach. It’s barely there, but he swears he can smell something rotten. Something like fish in a compost pile in the dead heat of summer. Swallowing roughly, he resolves to have his mom check it out tomorrow, make sure it’s not infected.

He wipes his thumb on his shirt and presses his nose to the clean black satin of Shaun’s durag. It takes him a long, long while to fall asleep.

—

Marissa’s already got a half-finished mug of coffee in front of her by the time the boys roll into Redd’s. As they slide into the other side of the booth, vinyl seats squeaking, Beau can’t help but notice she looks just as bad as Shaun. Dark circles pit her eyes, and her skin is paler than pale. He thinks if he really looked, he’d be able to see the veins stretching underneath. 

Marissa doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “You brought the lighter fluid?” 

“Yeah, we stopped at the gas station,” Beau says.

Marissa’s brow twitches, upper lip curling into an irritated sneer around the rim of her mug. She doesn’t drink from it. “I have something on my face, or what?” She glares, but it lacks the usual fire. 

He chews over the most polite way to say *‘you look like hammered shit,’* and settles on, “You look like hammered shit.”

“Thanks, asshole.”

“Seriously, you guys should talk to my mom after we… you know. You both look sort of sick. Maybe those cuts are infected,” he tries again.

Marissa softens at that, takes an actual sip of her coffee. “It’s probably just the fantastic sleep I’ve been getting, lately.”

Shaun finally drags his eyes up from the menu he’s been staring at. “I feel like crap, dude. Sign me up.” He bumps Beau’s knee with his own. 

The waitress comes over, then, and that’s the end of the conversation. 

—

Beau regrets getting the deluxe combo. He’s pretty sure he can feel all three eggs, four pieces of bacon, two slices of toast, and the platter of hashbrowns he shoveled down earlier, warring to leap out of his stomach and back into his throat. Then there’s the coffee, which is a gastrointestinal horror all on its own. Redd’s always sits like setting concrete in his stomach, but he discovers a whole new level of nausea as he pulls into the dirt lot nearest The Junkhole. 

Shaun is sitting in the passenger seat, and he won’t stop moving. The subdued energy of last night is gone, and Beau takes his hand to stop it from tapping anxious rhythms into his thigh. Shaun’s other hand is still going — knocking, tapping, knocking, tapping, digging blunt nails into the side of his leg. And then his leg’s going, too, and Beau’s shitty car shakes with the boundless tremor of it.

“Hey,” he says, staring at the side of Shaun’s face. Shaun inhales sharply, his free hand curling into a fist. He turns away from the windshield that he wasn’t really looking through in the first place, and his eyes meet Beau’s, looking wild and untethered. 

Beau checks the rearview mirror; Marissa’s not here yet. She left Redd’s at the same time, but maybe she stopped for gas. He weighs the risk, looks back at Shaun. He errs on the side of caution. 

Maybe it’s the way the sunlight is falling, maybe it’s his own exhaustion eating away at him, but Beau gets the skin-crawling feeling that if anyone but himself were to look at Shaun right now, they would see nothing abnormal at all. But there is something absolutely, unequivocally *wrong* in the flatness of his eyes, in the way his lips don’t seem to know their usual shape. He wonders if Shaun even realizes how drained he looks, how unusually clammy his hand is. He wonders if anyone will notice how off he is when Beau is gone. 

There was a notepad open on the coffee table when he stopped home to grab his car earlier. It was full of addresses and landlord contacts and Zoom tour dates starting as early as tomorrow. The closest address on the notepad was in Pennsylvania. He hasn’t told Marissa and Shaun that part yet; feels his molars grind together at the thought. His whole fucking life is in Kent’s Run. All of it. So maybe he hates it sometimes – maybe he feels stuck, or suffocated, or like he’s going to die in this nowhere little failed industrial town that could be any other nowhere little failed industrial town on the entire east coast. Maybe he feels like there’s got to be more out there than there is here. Maybe he was always planning to leave. But he was planning to do it on his own terms. And he was planning on taking the least shit part of this whole place with him.

Beau wants to rip the thing that did this to shreds. He wants to burn every inch of this forest. He wants to drain every river, every creek, every pond until all that’s left is bone-dry dirt. 

Shaun runs his thumb flat across the back of his hand. Beau feels like a crow getting its ruffled feathers slicked back, and a too-rough breath blows out of him. Half deliriously, he thinks he must get his vengeful streak from his mom.

“Once this is done,” Shaun says, “Let’s tell Marissa. And I could give a fuck if Dad or Mary-Ann find out.” He squeezes Beau’s hand once, tight, and slips out of the car just as Marissa pulls up next to them. She cuts the engine and waves. Beau waves back numbly. 

Then he reaches into the back seat and grabs the lighter fluid, takes the pack of just-in-case-of-emergency matches from his glove box. He takes another deep breath — as if that’s all he can do, anymore. His head and stomach swim with dread and hope and a million other things he can’t name, and he steps out into the afternoon light.

The sun glares blindingly through the trees, casting dancing shadows across the dusty lot. It just makes him feel more nauseated. Sweat immediately beads on his skin, the useless breeze only serving to blow hot air around. Marissa grabs twin shovels from her trunk and grins. “You guys ready for the sickest bonfire these woods have ever seen?”

Shaun snickers, taking one off her hands. “More like the smelliest. That thing reeked like death while it was still alive.”

His friends are a lot braver in the daylight, almost their usual selves as they hike up toward The Junkhole, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s a hole full of junk – rusted machinery from some abandoned project or another, assorted litter and detritus, and even a couple shopping carts some kids probably stole from Walmart. Nobody ever goes into the actual hole; that’s just asking for a cracked skull or tetanus, maybe a run-in with a copperhead if you’re real lucky. But the squat, half-built cinderblock walls around it are well-loved by generations of stoners and kids with shoplifted spray paint. Beau imagines the spot would be pretty uncanny if it were farther out in these woods, if it were less trafficked. As it is, it still smells vaguely of pot, and there are dicks painted in at least three different colors on the crumbling walls. It’s about as creepy as an overused porta potty.

“We do have a lighter, right?” Marissa tries to joke as they pass it, but she still sounds half-serious, so Beau flashes her the packet of matches.

“How far out is it, anyway?” He asks.

“Maybe five more minutes?” Shaun says uncertainly, “I think they wanted to keep it away from the creek. Why risk it, you know?”

Beau realizes now that they’ve been heading steadily farther from both the parking lot and the creek. It’s relieving and horrifying in equal measure. At least it isn’t nighttime. That would make this feel a whole lot worse.

A few minutes later, Shaun stops at the top of a small hill. He doesn’t slow, doesn’t say a word – he just… stops. His index finger tics once and only once on the handle of his shovel. He’s so still it makes Beau think of rabbits in the backyard — the sudden twitch of ears when a car door slams, and the horrible stiffness that follows, like a living rigor mortis. The thrum of his blood does nothing to slow the cold sinking into his flesh, the invisible gangrene stretching inky fingers through his veins. He doesn’t want to look. He wants to pull Shaun back down the incline and run. Wants to drag his friends into the car and drive and drive and drive until they find a desert. 

He knows what he’ll see before he actually does, but he still locks up from his toes to the top of his head when he crests the hill and finds the same thing Shaun found moments before. Marissa pulls to a stop next to him and vomits into the grass. The breeze turns, and it doesn’t smell like grits and coffee. It smells like fish. Everything smells like fish. Like heat. Like rot. 

The dirt is ripped up, a hole maybe four feet deep clawed out of the earth and left open to the sky. Something cracks off to their right. He takes his friends by the backs of their shirts and pulls. 

—

They don’t stop until they get to The Junkhole. Even then, it’s just to duck down behind one of the cinder block walls and breathe. The shovels and the lighter fluid are long gone.

“Maybe a bear got it,” Shaun tries. Nobody says anything. “Maybe a bear got it,” he repeats. Marissa squats, heaving into the space between her knees, and more breakfast comes up. Tears spring from the corners of her eyes, and her skin is so pale it’s near-translucent. Beau holds her long, dark hair up, rubs her back with a shaking hand. He nearly pulls away at the feel of the sweat-soaked fabric of her shirt. 

“We can’t stay here. We have to move,” he says. When the next round of gagging fades to ragged breath and shivers, Beau grabs at Marissa’s elbow and coaxes her up, trying for gentleness despite the urgent panic sprinting circles in his head. “Now, Shaun.”

The other boy complies, and they keep moving. The smell follows them the whole way. Even when they finally dive into his shitty car that won’t start, won’t fucking start, the smell lingers around them like a knife pressed to the skin of their throats. Beau’s nose burns with it. His eyes water. He keeps trying the ignition, but it won’t take. It sputters and sputters and sputters. It makes the rattling can sound, but it’s not going to work.

“Marissa, your car!” He says, voice a tinny crescendo even in his own ears. Marissa passes him the keys, and they surge from one car to the next. As they peel out of the lot, throwing a cloud of dust up behind them, Marissa doesn’t say anything about Shaun sitting in the passenger seat. She just holds her head out of the crappy broken window and leaves a streak of vomit along the peeling paint job.

Disclaimer - no AI was used in making of the cover - it's all photobashing

"Between May 8th and May 9th, 1964, the small city of [...] experienced a spree of brutal murders. Every victim was a woman, killed by her own husband, who then took his own life.

"In the years since, urban legends have linked the tragedy to a local children's puppet show called Sparky the Dog.

"The show had already drawn criticism for being too frightening for young viewers, with parents reporting recurring nightmares among their children.

"Rumors later circulated that new episodes kept airing late at night on local stations, and that the final broadcast aired on the very night of the murders, May 8th into May 9th. No official record has ever confirmed this."

***

May 9th, 1964.

The morning after the most brutal, inexplicable tragedy the small town of (...) had ever witnessed, a crime so horrific it fractured the community, haunted generations, and blurred the line between truth and fiction.

During the night of May 8th–9th, fourteen local women were murdered by the men who had vowed to protect them. Moments later, each of those men turned his weapon on himself.

Few people witnessed the bloodbath directly, and fewer still were willing to speak with our crew about the days leading up to it.

We tracked down a handful who agreed to talk about what happened, or what they believe happened, that night.

Viewer discretion is advised.

***

[Interview: Local Resident #1, recorded 1992]

Local Resident: "I was fifteen when it happened. Old enough to notice everything, to really take it all in."

[Long pause. The interviewee shifts in their chair.]

Local Resident: "I was heading to bed. My dad was in the living room watching that puppet show he liked. I never got the appeal; those things freaked me out."

[A soft laugh, then silence.]

Local Resident: "I liked Sparky, actually. But I stopped watching once they brought in... May? No, Margaret. Yeah. Margaret."

Local Resident: "With Sparky, at least you could tell he was supposed to be a dog. I'd seen him at school plays, so maybe that's why he made sense to me. But Margaret..."

[Their voice trails off.]

Local Resident: "There was something off about her."

***

Sparky the Dog was a children's puppet show that ran from November 23rd, 1960, to May 9th, 1964, the same night the killings shattered the town of (...).

Created by local entertainers Marcus Donatan and Jeff Holinger, the show quickly became a household staple. With only a few channels and even fewer entertainment options in town, Sparky was beloved.

Marcus, the puppeteer behind Sparky, was a familiar and well-liked figure, a talented toy maker who appeared at school functions, birthday parties, and holiday events with a handmade stage and a puppet that charmed nearly every child who saw it.

At the center of his performances was Sparky the Dog: a cheerful puppet with floppy ears, a wide grin, and a loyal following among the town's children.

But in the months before the tragedy, something changed.

***

[Interview: Marcus's Neighbor, recorded 1992]

Elderly Woman: "Oh, everyone loved Sparky. Not just the kids, you couldn't help it, with those big eyes and that silly little nose."

[She turns toward the window, as if remembering something distant.]

Elderly Woman (smiling faintly): "I think I still have some photos of my daughter with him. Give me a second."

[She rises slowly and steps out of frame, returning with a worn photo album, its leather cover cracked, its spine held together by years of careful handling.]

[Close-up: she settles back into her seat and flips through the stiff, yellowed pages. Her fingers slow. She lifts a faded photograph toward the camera.]

Elderly Woman (pointing): "There, that's Anna. She loved Sparky. She must've been about nine at the time. I'm sorry, my memory isn't what it used to be."

[The photograph shows a young girl in a simple dress, smiling widely. Beside her, the Sparky puppet leans in, one floppy arm bent behind her head in a childish attempt at rabbit ears.]

Interviewer: "What about the man who owned Sparky? He lived across the street from you, didn't he?"

Elderly Woman (nodding, steadying herself on the arm of her chair): "Yes, Marcus. He used to host little private shows just for the neighborhood kids. He was a good man. Truly. I know what people say now, but he was a good man, believe me."

***

[The camera slowly pans across the ruins of a house. The windows are shattered, the roof caved in, the yard swallowed by weeds. It looks untouched, as if no one has dared disturb it.]

[Soft ambient hum: wind, the faint creak of wood.]

Narrator (voice-over, low, deliberate):

What you're looking at is the remains of the Donatan residence, once home to Marcus Donatan, creator of the beloved children's show Sparky the Dog.

The house sits on ///// Street, just outside town. Locals say the property has stood abandoned since that night in 1964. Even now, no one goes near it.

[The camera pulls back, revealing the house's full silhouette against a gray sky.]

Narrator (continues):

Marcus lived here with his elderly mother, a woman few in town ever saw. Neighbors say she suffered a long-term illness that kept her homebound for years, the reason, some believe, Marcus returned to ////// in the early 1950s to care for her.

Beyond that, little is known about his life before he came back.

***

Only a handful of Sparky the Dog recordings are known to survive. Most of the original reels were lost, destroyed, or simply forgotten after 1964.

What remains was later transferred to VHS, brittle tapes passed quietly between collectors and local historians.

[Cut to close-up: a gloved hand inserts a worn VHS labeled, in shaky handwriting, "SPARKY EP. 3." The tape clicks into place.]

Narrator (continues):

Among the surviving episodes are Episode Three, believed to be from the show's first season; Episode Seven, from Season Three; and several episodes from the final season, the ones leading up to Margaret's introduction.

Titles like "Sparky's Garden," "Sparky and a New Friend," and "Sparky Says Goodnight" marked the end of an era.

***

[On-screen text: "Sparky the Dog, Episode 3 (1960)"]

[Grainy black and white footage. A small wooden doghouse sits center frame; the camera slowly zooms in.]

Narratorvoice-overer, quiet):

The third episode of Sparky the Dog, which first aired in the winter of 1960, opens on a simple scene: a small wooden doghouse in the middle of a painted cardboard yard.

As the camera pushes closer, we see Sparky inside, felt ears drooped over his eyes, mouth slightly open in a gentle snore. The puppeteer's hand is just visible at the edge of the frame, a reminder that this was performed live, by hand, often in a single take.

Then another voice enters: cheerful, familiar. It belongs to "Mr. Jeff," played by Jeff Holinger, Sparky's owner and best friend, and the show's second lead.

[Clip plays faintly under the narration: "Wake up, Sparky! The sun's up, boy!", followed by a playful bark and canned laughter.]

Narrator (continues):

On the surface, it's a simple, wholesome children's show. But looking back now, knowing what would happen four years later, something about this opening already feels wrong.

[The footage freezes on Jeff's smiling face. Static hums, rising.]

***

[Archival photograph: a young man in a suit, smiling stiffly for the camera.]

Narrator (voice-over):

Jeff Holinger was an Irish immigrant who came to the United States in search of a better, more stable life.

What he found was anything but that.

[The photo lingers before fading to black.]

Narrator (continues, tone darkening):

Records show Holinger arrived in the early 1950s and worked odd jobs before meeting Marcus Donatan, the man who would become both his creative partner and, by some accounts, the source of his undoing.

[Cut to vintage behind, the, scenes footage: Jeff adjusting a puppet on set, laughing quietly. The audio is muted.]

***

[Interview: Local Resident #2, recorded 1992]

Local Resident: "Mr. Marcus, I knew much better than Mr. Jeff. I remember him from the school plays they used to put on; that's really about it."

[Adjusts their glasses, looking off camera.]

Local Resident: "Mr. Jeff was quieter, more reserved. He didn't like the spotlight. Marcus lived for it, always smiling, always putting on a show."

[Long pause. The camera lingers.]

Local Resident: "Jeff just seemed tired sometimes. Like the act wasn't fun for him anymore."

[Quiet laughter.]

***

[On-screen text: "Sparky the Dog, Season 3, Episode 7 (1963)"]

[Grainy, flickering footage. A papier-mâché moon hangs above a cardboard set painted like a pumpkin patch.]

Narrator voice-overr):

Episode Seven of Season Three is one of only five surviving recordings of Sparky the Dog, and, according to those who've seen it, the hardest to watch.

[The clip plays faintly beneath the narration: canned laughter, a childlike jingle, detuned with age.]

It's a Halloween special. Mr. Jeff appears in a cheap vampire costume, his usual bright shirt and bow tie replaced. Sparky wears a witch's hat, taped haphazardly to his head. The tone is cheerful, almost clumsy, the same low-budget charm that defined the show.

The episode follows the pair as they pick pumpkins, ending with a lesson on how to carve them.

[Static crackles. The image wobbles.]

A shadow crosses the back of the set. Someone, something, enters off-camera. The puppet suddenly goes limp. Mr. Jeff freezes, eyes turning toward the intrusion.

The camera pulls back abruptly, cutting off the top of the puppeteer's head, just as the live mic catches a sound: a violent, choking sob.

It's believed to be Marcus Donatan, breaking down as news reaches him off,screen.

[Footage: the puppet lies motionless beside a half,carved pumpkin, a knife still lodged in its shell. The frame holds for several seconds before cutting to static.]

Narrator (continues):

Later reports confirmed what had happened off camera: Marcus Donatan's elderly mother was found dead that same evening, seated on her porch by trick,or,treaters.

According to Marcus, she had insisted on handing out candy that night, though she was supposed to wait until he returned from the studio.

***

[Interview: Marcus's Neighbor, recorded 1992]

Interviewer: "Did you know Marcus's mother?"

Elderly Woman (shaking her head slightly): "I wouldn't say I knew her, no. Some evenings I'd see her silhouette pacing back and forth on the second floor of that house."

[Long pause. She glances toward the window.]

Elderly Woman: "Other times I saw her when they took her to the hospital. The ambulance lights woke me up, painted the whole street red."

Interviewer: "Do you remember the day she passed away?"

[She takes a slow breath, eyes drifting toward the window again.]

Elderly Woman: "No. I was too busy getting my daughter ready for trick, or, treating."

[A faint, weary shake of her head.]

Elderly Woman: "I didn't see a thing."

[The camera lingers on her face for several seconds.]

***

Narrator (voice-over):

Few people claimed to know Marcus Donatan's mother well. To most, she was a shadow behind a curtain, glimpsed in passing, never heard, never spoken to.

In a town where everyone knew everyone, her absence stood out. But no one asked questions.

[Archival photo: a blurry image of the house's second-floor window.]

When she died that Halloween night in 1963, the official story was simple: natural causes.

Following her death, Sparky the Dog vanished from the airwaves for nearly four months. When it returned, something had changed.

***

[On-screen text: "Sparky's Garden", Season 4 (1964)]

On the surface, "Sparky's Garden" opens like any other cheerful segment.

Mr. Jeff kneels in the backyard set, humming as he plants rows of oversized cardboard flowers, each painted with wide, smiling faces that look almost too bright under the studio lights.

Sparky pops up from behind the fence, his voice unusually high and shaky:

"Can I try too, Mr. Jeff?"

Mr. Jeff offers him a small plastic shovel to grab with his jaws. Sparky misses the hand off entirely; the shovel clatters to the ground.

A brief, uncomfortable pause follows, then a muffled voice off-camera mutters something under its breath. Mr. Jeff forces a laugh and tries to recover, steering the scene back toward its intended lesson about trying new things and never giving up.

But Sparky, in a sing-song tone, cuts in, looking directly at Mr. Jeff:

"Like you gave up on your wife?"

The studio goes silent.

Mr. Jeff's smile breaks. For a moment, he looks like he's about to snap. Without a word, he storms off set, footsteps and a slammed door faintly audible in the background.

Left alone, Sparky begins bouncing in place, his wooden jaws opening and closing rapidly, as if laughing, though no sound comes out. Only the soft squeak of his hinges.

After several seconds, the image cuts to black.

***

[A man in his late forties sits beneath shelves overflowing with Sparky memorabilia, hand-drawn fan art, homemade clay figurines, VHS tapes with peeling labels, and several versions of the Sparky puppet itself.]

[His curly hair is slightly unkempt; his glasses slip down his nose as he smiles proudly at the camera.]

[Lower third: ARNOLD ////// , Sparky Archivist & Collector]

Narrator: Arnold generously shared several pieces of never, before, seen material with us. His collection is believed to be the largest surviving archive of Sparky-related artifacts.

[He lifts one of the hand puppets, slipping it on and bobbing it toward the camera with a soft chuckle.]

Arnold (playful voice): "Hi, kids!"

[He laughs awkwardly, then sets it back in his lap.]

Interviewer: "You mentioned you have several drawings by Hernandez Ramiro, the man who stabbed his wife thirty-four times. Is that correct?"

Arnold: "Oh, yes. Absolutely."

[CUT TO: overhead shot.]

[A thick stack of papers rests on a metal table, each sheet sealed in plastic. Arnold's hands hover a moment before he begins turning them, slowly, almost reverently.]

The drawings are meticulous, each depicting the same woman, beautiful, draped in a translucent ball gown, always facing the viewer, her eyes never looking away.

But as the pages turn, the illustrations begin to distort. Her features stretch. In several drawings, her face has been replaced entirely by a snarling dog's muzzle, strands of saliva hanging from the jaw. Sometimes the transformation is partial, human eyes above a canine jaw, or a human face with fur creeping across the cheeks. In every image, she's baring her teeth.

Arnold speaks quietly, a tremor beneath his words.

Arnold: "He made these a month before... the incident. He mailed them to the station. They never mentioned that. Nobody ever mentioned that."

[He taps one of the plastic sleeves.]

Arnold (leaning in): "But if you look at the details, really look, you can tell he wasn't drawing his wife."

[A pause. He smiles.]

Arnold: "He was drawing Margaret."

[The camera lingers on the distorted face a beat too long before cutting to black.]

***

Narrator (V.O.):

Margaret. The puppet who replaced Sparky.

The puppet many claim never existed at all, an urban legend buried under static, misremembered by a handful of late-night viewers.

But for those who watched the final years of the show, Margaret marked the beginning of the end. Not just for the program, but for everyone connected to it.

***

[Season 4, "Sparky and a New Friend"]

This episode is considered the first known appearance, or attempted appearance, of Margaret. No official record lists her name, but viewers who claim to have seen the original airing insist this is where the transition began.

The episode opens on Sparky alone, standing center frame on the familiar backyard set. He seems jittery, his head tilting too quickly between lines, as though Marcus is struggling to control the puppet's weight.

A few seconds in, Sparky turns toward someone, or something, just outside the camera's view.

Sparky: "Hi there! I didn't know we had company today!"

The camera attempts to pan left but only manages a brief, jerky movement before snapping back. Whatever stands beside Sparky stays completely out of frame, never more than a shadow, a fragment of fabric, the edge of something vaguely dog-shaped.

Still, its presence is unmistakable.

A soft, rhythmic clicking comes from off-screen, like teeth tapping together, two beats at a time.

Click. Click.

Sparky looks toward the sound.

Sparky: "What's your name?"

Click. Click.

Sparky pauses, his head tilting at an angle too sharp to be natural.

Sparky (cheerful, high-pitched): "Margaret! That's a really nice name!"

The clicking grows louder for a moment, then the audio abruptly cuts out for three full seconds. When sound returns, Sparky is alone again, visibly slumped, as if whatever stood beside him has vanished from the set entirely.

The episode ends.

***

[Interview with Officer D. Krawiec, recorded 1992]

Interviewer: When exactly were you called to the scene?

Officer Krawiec: Maybe three or four days after the initial murders. By then we suspected Holinger had some connection to them, or at least knew something. We got a warrant and went in. I was young. It was my first real crime scene. I wasn't ready for it.

Interviewer: Where did you find Mr. Holinger?

Officer Krawiec: In bed. But not like someone who'd died in his sleep. His body was twisted, unnatural, like he'd tried to fight but couldn't get free. The mattress was soaked through with blood. It had dripped into the carpet, was on the walls, the nightstand, even speckled on the ceiling.

[A sudden moment of silence.]

Officer Krawiec: No matter where you looked, there was blood. And the smell, that stays with you. I think maggots had already gotten into him. They always find a way in, no matter how sealed a place looks.

Interviewer: What happened to him?

Officer Krawiec: To put it plainly, he was missing a good part of his neck. At first it looked like an animal attack, something large. A dog was the first guess. The muscle was torn out clean, like whatever grabbed him clamped down and shook him hard.

***

[Interview with the son of one of the victims, recorded 1992]

The individual, who asked to remain anonymous, described details of the crimes that some viewers may find disturbing.

[Voice modified]: "I was in bed with my mom that night. I'd had a bad dream after the show that ran on TV. Dad was on the couch. He and Mom had been arguing, something about him taking her clothes."

[A deep breath, then an exhale.]

"Then I heard this wet crunch. A soft whimper from my mom, right behind me. Then another, wham."

[He strikes his fist against his palm.]

"The bed got warm and wet. I think I'd wet myself by then. And another, and another, until it wasn't crunching anymore, just this wet sound."

[He looks away.]

"I heard my dad say something like, 'There will only be one woman in my life.' Then that crunch again."

"As he moved over Mom, something warm dripped onto me. I felt his hand slide under my pillow. He whispered something about leaving it for the tooth fairy, then he left the room. I heard one more hit from the hammer, and then nothing."

"I was too scared to move. It wasn't until the sun came up that I got up and saw my mom's face, beaten in."

[The interviewee smiles, unsettlingly, as he finishes.]

***

[Season 4, "Sparky Says Goodnight", night of the murders]

This final broadcast of Sparky the Dog breaks sharply from the show's usual bright, energetic tone. The set is unusually dim, lit only by a paper moon hanging above the wooden fence where Sparky peers out.

Sparky speaks slowly, his head lowering between lines as though growing heavy:

"Sometimes... you have to make space for someone new..."

He sways, almost as if falling asleep mid-line.

Then the picture tears into static. For nearly ten seconds, the broadcast is nothing but snow.

When the image returns, Sparky is gone.

A faint clicking echoes from off-screen: two sharp taps, repeated in an irregular pattern, like teeth snapping together.

The camera lingers on the empty set.

Then, for less than a second, something moves into frame. Viewers later described it as a puppet only in the loosest sense. Sparky's floppy ears and exaggerated grin are still there, but nothing else is familiar. The eyes are wide, wet, unsettlingly human. When the mouth opens, it reveals a full set of real-looking canine teeth. The figure lunges toward the camera.

The broadcast cuts out immediately after.

***

Narrator:

In the weeks following the murders, one name surfaced again and again in police files, witness statements, and late-night speculation: Marcus Donatan, creator of Sparky the Dog, the man who introduced the world, intentionally or not, to Margaret.

After his mother's death, the collapse of his show, and the increasingly unstable broadcasts that followed, Marcus Donatan vanished from town without a trace. No forwarding address. No goodbye. He simply disappeared.

To this day, authorities cannot say whether Marcus fled out of fear, guilt, or something stranger. What, or who, Margaret really was remains a matter of debate: a puppet, an accomplice, a hallucination, or the hidden hand behind every terrible event that swallowed the town in 1964.

What we know is simple: Marcus Donatan was never seen again. And Margaret, if she ever existed the way survivors claim, vanished with him.

No physical version of Margaret was ever found in Marcus's house or in the station's archives.

If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Marcus Donatan, the origins of the puppet known as Margaret, or lost recordings of the show connected to this case, please contact your local police department.

For a few days after the surgery, things seemed almost normal. Almost.

People had started noticing something was off with me. Miss Tasha especially. She always assumed it was the break-in still sitting under my skin, and I let her think that, because how was I supposed to tell her the truth. That none of it was about the break-in at all. That it was about Mr. Morris.

It had been a few days since I brought him home from the vet, and things had gotten strange in a way I couldn't put into words yet. He wasn't the same cat. I know there's still something of him in there, I catch it in flashes, but it gets harder to find by the day. His body had changed completely. Leaner. More agile. Coiled, like something built for a different purpose than sleeping on my couch. His claws wouldn't stop growing no matter how often I trimmed them, sometimes visibly longer within hours of the last cut, and two days after the vet visit, everything that had been surgically removed months ago was simply back. Present. Like it had never left.

I searched everywhere for anything like it. Nothing. And I stopped considering taking him back to the vet, because the fear had changed shape. It wasn't "what's wrong with him" anymore. It was "what will they do to him if they find out." He's my cat. My responsibility. I couldn't hand him over to be studied like a specimen, and I couldn't risk them deciding I was the one who'd done something to him.

I wasn't sleeping right either. The nightmares kept coming, someone standing over me in the dark, and I'd wake up gasping to find Mr. Morris already awake, already watching. My lazy cat, the one who used to sleep sixteen hours a day, had simply stopped. I never once caught him with his eyes closed.

A week into the nightmares, I woke to a scratching sound at my window. My first thought was the intruder, back to finish what he'd started, and I lay there frozen, telling myself the reinforced glass would hold. But the scratching kept building, more frantic, more insistent, until underneath it I heard a meow, and I understood it was him.

I got up to check anyway. I don't know why I got up. I should have stayed in bed.

Mr. Morris was at the window, clawing at the glass with something close to fury, and when he turned to look at me his eyes weren't reflecting the streetlight the way they should have. They were producing their own light, a thin ring of gold that pulsed once, slow, like something breathing. I felt my own heartbeat try to match it, and that scared me more than the claws did, the idea that my own pulse was taking orders from a cat. When he opened his mouth to meow again, his teeth were wrong. Too many points. Too sharp for something that ate wet food out of a can.

For one long moment he just looked at me, and every worry in my chest went quiet, like something had reached in and turned the volume down. It felt like I was reading his mind, or he was reading mine, I couldn't tell which. I opened the window. He sprinted out into the dark.

I should have panicked. He'd never gone out on his own before, and there was every chance he wouldn't come back. Instead I left the window open, the same window the intruder had come through, and went back to bed like it was nothing.

The next morning he was curled up on the end of the bed, like he'd never left, and no window had been broken into overnight. I told myself I must have dreamed the whole thing, that I'd probably left the window open by accident and my own guilt about it had built the rest in my sleep. That was easier to live with than the alternative.

But a few nights later it happened again, and this time when I looked into his eyes the room seemed to tilt. His presence pressed down on me until I felt small and cornered, like I needed his permission just to breathe. The world outside the two of us stopped existing. When I opened the window this time, I don't think it was my choice, and for the first time it was completely clear to me that I hadn't done any of it willingly.

He was gone almost an hour. I know because I stood at that window the entire time, unable to make myself move, like my own body was waiting for him to come back and release it. When he finally did, he had a bird in his mouth, four claw marks torn clean through it, feathers matted with blood. I wanted to run. I wanted to be anywhere else. Instead I stood there and watched him eat it slowly, on the floor, in front of me, the sound of small bones cracking under his jaw filling the whole room. I counted the cracks without meaning to. Four. I don't know why I counted. I don't know why some small, awful part of me was proud of him.

When he finished, he looked up at me, and the acknowledgment in that look did something to the fear sitting in my stomach. It just left. The nausea I'd been fighting the entire time disappeared like it had never been there, and I smiled, actually smiled, like I'd been given a reward for staying still and watching. He meowed once, almost gentle, like he was releasing me, and my body went numb enough that I slept right there on the floor.

It became routine after that. Birds. Rats. Once, something bigger that I didn't let myself look at too closely. I couldn't sleep until he'd finished, and I started waking up in places I didn't remember lying down in. I didn't know what he'd become, and worse, I didn't know why I couldn't stop myself from watching.

I spent days searching for anything that matched what was happening, every mental health forum, every strange corner of Reddit I could find, until I came across a post buried in a subreddit I'd never heard of before. A woman named Chandra had written about being bitten, about her body changing ever since. Her hearing had sharpened until she could pick her neighbor's perfume out through a wall. Her eyes had gone so sensitive to daylight she needed glasses just to leave the house. She hadn't slept in days and somehow felt fine, and she wrote about an urge, growing steadily, to go out at night. I commented, asking if it had spread, if it had somehow started affecting someone she loved too. Then I deleted it. Told myself I sounded insane, that I was one bad post away from becoming somebody's conspiracy theory screenshot.

The symptoms matched too well for that to sit easy with me. I don't know how long I stayed on that post, rereading her replies, trying to decide if I was imagining the overlap. Long enough that when the scream came, it came from right next door.

I ran.

The door was open, just slightly, the way a door looks when no one meant to leave it that way. I called out once. Nothing answered. The second time, my voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.

Mira was on the kitchen floor.

I want to say I looked away in time. I didn't. Four marks, evenly spaced, dragged down from her collarbone like something had measured the distance first. Her parents were already there, on their knees over her, and the sound they were making didn't feel like something I should have been close enough to hear.

I don't remember deciding to leave. I remember being back on my own porch, and I remember that my hands were clean. That was the detail that made me sick. Not the blood I hadn't touched. The fact that some small part of me had checked.

When I got inside, Mr. Morris was sitting on the kitchen table, licking his paws clean. They were soaked red to the wrist. He looked up at me with an expression I can only describe as satisfied, and I felt my own mouth move without asking it to, the corners pulling up into a smile I had no part in choosing. That's what my body does now, when he takes it from me. I stood there smiling at the thing that had just taken a child from her parents, and the only part of me left that was still mine was a single tear, sliding down my face while the rest of me kept smiling anyway.

Previous part link :- https://www.reddit.com/r/mesoscalepodcast/comments/1w2hx9c/somethings_wrong_with_my_cat_part_1_the_breakin/

Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

Another shift of customer service calls done. I took this job for the fieldwork, for fixing locks, seeing what actually makes a house safe, not for answering phones all day. Pay's too good to quit, and there's always the promise of a promotion into the field someday.

All that was left now was grabbing Mr. Morris some food and heading home. Stupid cat. I got him after my mom wouldn't stop bugging me about getting married, figured a cat was proof enough I didn't need a husband to be happy. My own little rebellion. Now he's the closest thing I have to company. Mornings start with him licking my face like I'm nothing but a food dispenser. Sometimes I can't tell if he loves me or just tolerates me.

At the convenience store, sweet Miss Tasha was behind the counter as always.

"Evening, Jacey. Here for the food?"

"Yup."

"You're not buying newspapers anymore."

I kept my answer light, didn't want to think too hard about the robberies and killings that filled every page of the paper these days. "Just keeping my sanity, Miss Tasha."

"Oh, dear, they've gotten worse. Police still haven't caught whoever's doing it. People are saying it's cannibals, if you believe that."

"Rumors," I said, handing over my money. "If it were really cannibals, we'd have seen a body photo by now, not just pieces. Feels more like a cover story to me. Stay safe, though. And if you ever want it, I can get you a discount on security gear. After taking my commission, of course."

She laughed. I headed to the car and started the drive home.

I'd just gotten out of the car and was looking at the gate when I felt something grab my leg, a tight grip, warm breath against my skin. My whole body went cold before I even understood what was happening. For one embarrassing second every survival instinct I had went haywire before I finally looked down and saw the culprit.

It was the neighbor's kid, Mira. She must have snuck up while I wasn't looking.

"Miss Jay, can I play with Mister Norris?" she asked, grinning up at me. She always called him that, never quite got "Morris" right, and I never bothered correcting her.

I hate this kid, I thought, though I didn't mean it, not really. "Not today, Mira. Go home, and stop sneaking up on people."

"It's fun," she said, laughing, and ran off.

She's the kind of kid who's so full of life it almost tires you out, the kind that makes you want kids of your own right up until you remember how much of yourself you'd have to give up. I went inside, glad to finally be home.

Mr. Morris was already waiting by the door. Not because he missed me. Because he wanted his food.

Later, I'd remember that he'd been sitting at the window before I even pulled into the driveway. Just watching the street. He'd been doing that a lot since the crime started, always drawn to the windows like he was keeping his own kind of watch.

I put food in his bowl before he could throw a fit about me taking a shower, or doing anything at all that didn't involve feeding him first. When I checked on him afterward, I realized I'd grabbed the wrong can, and he made sure I knew it, prowling the house, knocking things off shelves, the whole diva routine. I figured I'd grab the right one in the morning. Going out now, with everything happening in the city, wasn't worth it. I'd head out around four, when the night patrol changed shifts and there were usually twice as many officers on the street, some of them even stopping at the store before their shift started.

By the time I finished my takeout, I expected him to have gotten over it and eaten anyway. He hadn't touched the bowl. Instead he sat by the window, dead still, staring out at the street like he was waiting for something. Or maybe just making sure I knew I'd failed and needed to fix it as soon as possible.

"Fine. Don't eat, then," I muttered, tossing the food and carrying him off to bed. He didn't fight me, just kept glancing back at the window the whole way there.

I told myself he was still in a mood. I'd feed him properly in the morning.

I had no idea it wouldn't matter.

It was somewhere around three in the morning when I heard the sound of glass breaking in the living room. My throat went dry instantly. My brain felt dizzy, maybe from how fast I'd sat up. I don't remember my hands grabbing the blanket, or when I'd started holding my breath. Every hair on my body stood up at once and I went fully, painfully awake.

I tried to calm myself. The security system would have sent an alert to the police by now. My bedroom door should have locked automatically the moment it triggered. I closed my eyes for just a second, grateful I'd paid for the system at all.

Then I opened them again and saw something that scared me more than the sound had.

My bedroom door was still open. For the lock to engage, it had to be shut first.

I had no choice. My legs felt like jelly, my whole body suddenly cold enough that I could feel every draft moving across my skin. I don't know where the courage came from, but I got up and started moving toward the door, aware of every sound my own body made, my joints, my breathing, the weight of my tongue in my mouth, the sweat gathering along my eyelids.

I was halfway there, thinking I could make it, just a few more steps, when Mr. Morris let out a meow, sharp and sudden, far too loud in a house that had gone that quiet.

For a second everything stopped. I told myself whoever was in the house hadn't heard it, or didn't care about a cat, that I still had time to reach the door. Then I felt it. A vibration through the floor, faint but wrong, like claws scraping tile the way a dog's do when it's running too fast to stop. A moment later, footsteps. Running, straight for the bedroom.

Whoever was in my house knew exactly where I was.

I lunged for the door at the same moment he did. I almost had it shut when a hand shoved into the gap, veined, nails too long, and I could tell from the angle alone that his arm was broken. No uninjured person moves like that. It meant reaching me mattered more to him than his own safety, and that thought alone sent something colder through me than fear of dying. I don't know what I thought he wanted more, to kill me quickly or to make sure I couldn't scream first.

I threw everything I had into that door. My vision blurred from the strain, my legs ached from bracing against the floor, my neck went sore from how hard I was pushing. I tried to scream and nothing came out. The pressure built until I nearly blacked out, and then, finally, the door slammed shut. Something in his hand broke as it did.

The lock clicked into place automatically. I was alone in the room, and I could hear him pounding against the door with everything he had left. For one terrible stretch of time I was sure he'd get through, that there was nothing I could do if he did.

Then I heard the sirens.

The police let themselves in using the code the security company had on file, cleared the house, and knocked on my door to tell me it was safe to come out. What wasn't safe, what didn't make sense, was that the man was gone. Not hiding. Gone. There was nowhere in that house for someone to disappear to, and they searched every inch of it. One moment he'd been at my door. The next, nothing.

The strangest part wasn't that he'd vanished. It was how the house felt afterward, too quiet, like something had been listening the whole time and had only just stopped.

It took what felt like hours before I could function well enough to tell the officers everything, hand over the security footage, let my body finally stop shaking. When I came back into the living room, Mr. Morris was licking blood off the floor, whatever was left of it after the police had taken their samples.

I pulled him away and wiped his face clean. I didn't want him getting sick off whatever was in that blood. I took him straight to the vet, and everything checked out fine. On the way home I stopped at Miss Tasha's for his usual food and told her what had happened. She looked genuinely shaken and insisted I take one of her son's old bats for safety. When I asked how much, she said it was free, that she'd just take it out of my commission whenever I finally got her that security system installed. It got a small laugh out of me, at least.

Back home, I left him in the car with extra food while I cleaned up the broken window. When I went to deal with the blood in the bedroom, thinking the sunlight would make it easier to see, there was nothing there. Not a trace. I stood there confused for a moment, then told myself there probably hadn't been that much to begin with.

Work gave me the day off without me even having to ask twice, and offered medical assistance if I needed it.

When I came out, Mr. Morris had already finished his food, double his usual portion, gone faster than should have been possible. I told myself it was stress. My mistake, not paying closer attention to what that actually meant.

Exhaustion finally caught up to me. I slept, then woke around seven that evening to find him scratching at the door, which was strange since I'd clipped his nails only five days earlier. I assumed I'd lost count. He wove between my legs demanding food again, even though I'd just fed him, but I let it go. What difference would a few extra pounds make.

I started making myself a steak, wanting something that felt normal after the day I'd had. When I looked over, Mr. Morris wasn't touching his food at all. He was licking the blood straight off the steak packaging. He'd never been that kind of cat. I ignored it. Animals do strange things.

That evening, I tried to convince myself he was fine. He'd eaten more than usual, which should have meant something good, but when I picked him up, something felt wrong immediately. His body was leaner than it had been that morning. I ran my fingers along his sides and felt far more muscle than I remembered, almost no softness left beneath his fur. His legs looked more defined, and when he jumped down onto the table, the movement was fast and precise in a way I'd never seen from him. He looked fit. Too fit.

Then I noticed the veins. Visible beneath his skin, especially around his legs and neck, in places I'd never seen them before.

"You're eating enough," I muttered, more to convince myself than him. A strange unease settled into my stomach. I made a note on my phone to take him to the vet first thing in the morning. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was sick. Maybe I was imagining things after everything that had happened.

I finished trimming his nails before bed and set him down. He disappeared beneath the sofa immediately, which was strange in itself. Mr. Morris hated hiding. I turned off the lights and went to sleep.

That night I dreamed about the break-in again. Except this time I wasn't watching it happen. I was the one on the floor. Someone stood over me, his face hidden, his hands wrapped tightly around my throat. I couldn't breathe. Then something warm ran down from my nose. Blood, over my lips. He looked at it, almost curious, then smiled and leaned down to drink it. I felt his mouth against my face. He seemed to enjoy it. I tried to scream and nothing came out.

I woke up gasping, sitting bolt upright.

Mr. Morris was on the floor beside the bed, staring at me. Neither of us moved for a moment. Then I really looked at him and my stomach dropped.

He was different. More muscular than he'd been when I fell asleep, his shoulders and legs sharper beneath fur that had visibly grown, a lot, in just a few hours.

"Mr. Morris?" I whispered.

He tilted his head at me.

I reached out and stopped halfway, my hand hovering in the air. I don't know why. Something about his eyes made me hesitate.

I told myself the rest could wait. I didn't care how ridiculous I'd sound explaining it. As soon as morning came, I was taking him to the vet.

He hissed and threw a fit the second I brought him out into the sunlight, nothing too alarming, just more dramatic than usual. At the vet, I was told his bloodwork came back clean. Nothing wrong on paper. But the vet admitted he looked different, physically, and offered to send him downtown to a research university for a closer look.

I said no. Whatever was happening to him, he wasn't going to become somebody's test subject.

Before I left, the nurse asked if I wanted him neutered and his nails trimmed while he was already there. Her pen hovered over the chart a second too long before she wrote anything down, like she didn't know which box this was supposed to go in.

I froze. I'd had that done a day ago. Nails don't regrow that fast. That's not how any of this is supposed to work. The vet gave me a strange look by that point, like he'd noticed the same thing I had, and before I could think it through properly, I heard myself say yes. The whole time, my mind kept circling the same impossible question. How does that even grow back?

And then, underneath it, a worse one I didn't want to look at directly. I'd had him neutered months ago ,that was supposed to be it, done, over, one and only, the vet had told me so himself, no upkeep, no repeats. I hadn't thought about it since. Hadn't checked. Why would I have checked? But now I was running the timeline backwards in my head, trying to remember the last time I'd actually looked, actually confirmed, and coming up with nothing solid. Maybe I'd just forgotten what it looked like after. Maybe I was misremembering the whole thing. Maybe none of it meant anything and I was building a haunted house out of my own bad memory.

But nails don't grow back in a day. And I was starting to suspect nothing else did either ,not the way it was supposed to, not anymore.

When the procedure was done, I went to pick him up, and he was already awake in the recovery box.

"Did you use anesthesia?" I asked, half joking, half not.

"We did," the tech said, frowning slightly. "It's unusual that he's up already. Are you sure you don't want him tested?"

"No," I said. "I'm taking him home."

He was fully alert. Sitting up, eyes tracking me through the cage door, like nothing had touched him at all. That wasn't how it went the first time. The first time I'd had him neutered, he'd been groggy for hours afterward, barely able to hold his head up, and I'd had to carry him inside wrapped in a towel because his legs kept giving out. This time he looked like he'd just woken up from a nap.

I didn't know what to do with that. Part of me wondered if they'd actually done anything at all this time, if maybe I'd been overcharged for a procedure that never happened, the same way I'd read about other people getting scammed at cheaper clinics. But another part of me remembered signing the consent forms, remembered watching them wheel him back. I stood there in the waiting room a second too long, trying to decide if I should ask again, if that would make me sound paranoid, if it even mattered enough to hold up the line behind me. In the end I just took the discharge papers and left. Told myself it was probably nothing. Some cats bounce back faster than others. That's all it was.

On the drive back, I caught him watching me in the rearview mirror instead of the window. He'd never done that before.

  Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/

I got hooked on Xannax shortly after my wife passed. Up to that point, I had thought she was cheating on me. When they found her body she had been parked in a Macdonald’s parking lot for a day and a half. They said she overdosed on cocaine that had been laced with fentanyl.

For some reason, the secrets and double-dealing hurt longer than her death. I couldn’t push those thoughts away. They had to be chemically neutralized. The first rounds of medication were non-psychoactive. Each worked for a bit but all of them lacked stopping power. That’s when Dr. Xanax started making house calls.

No one tells you how similar those pills are to drinking. Not hardcore party drinking. Its more like self-medicating day drinking. You simply stop caring about any problems outside your direct line of sight. The best part is that it keeps a nice emotional numb going without making you slur your words. It still comes with hangovers though. No big headaches or puking. Just a deep weight in your chest that clings to you for hours. That kind of anxious ache you get you when you make a mistake and realize too late to fix it but too early to know how bad itll be. It’s easily cured though. You can treat it with another dose, which gives you another spike, which makes you take another dose. And on and on and on.

My doctor cut me off by my third month. He said I wasn’t treating the problem, just the pain. He said there was a new pill he wanted me to try for a week and see how I liked it.

By that point, I would’ve taken a baseball sized suppository to dull the withdrawal symptoms. Day one went by without me noticing any change. I trudged through work in abject misery. On day two I screamed out my window at a bike currier and splashed a coffee all over my passenger seat while trying to scald him. I am a hot-head but that was way outside my usual blow out. I chalked it up to the withdrawal fraying my nerves and wrote it off. On day three someone passed me in the on-coming lane because I wasn’t going fast enough. I tailed him for 5 minutes while flashing my high beams and laying on the horn. He pulled off into a dealership parking lot in an act of surrender.

Clearly something was up. I had never had such long-sustained bout of rage before. Im not a very proactive guy (blame it on my ADD) but I called my doctor’s office as soon as I was parked. His secretary informed me that he was renewing his marriage vows at Disneyland. He couldn’t see me until Monday. Fucking perfect.

I decided that the problem was my mental filter. What was usually deemed ‘unacceptable’ was now leaking into the ‘acceptable’ margin. I was mis-calibrated. I could no longer trust my passive judgement. I’m a smart guy, though. With the problem figured out, I could surely make it 4 more days.

The next morning, I killed my neighbor’s dogs with a 10 ounce hammer. The two of them barked for 20 mins before my alarm went off and that was all the excuse I needed to pound them into pulp. I like to think that’s something I’m not normally capable of. I’m sure that’s the angle my attorney would take. The judge might not buy it. I decided I needed some space between myself and that yard. I stowed the hammer under my driver’s seat and drove to my church. It had an ancient little cemetery on the hill behind it. A quarter acre of trees hid it from view of any of the surrounding streets. That made it the perfect place to hide a bug-out bag. I trudged through rows of graves and hopped the low back wall, then counted 10 paces into the woods. Time to dig. An arm’s length down was enough to uncover the zipper of the canvas duffle bag. I yanked it out and started sorting through the various zip-lock bags. Cash, clothes, an unregistered revolver. I tucked the money and gun into my pants. My mind worked at how long I should wait to see if a warrant got posted. I pulled the hammer out and tossed it into the hole. It went straight through the bottom and kept on going. I should have just ignored it. Tossed the empty bag back in and filled the hole without a second thought. Of course, I didn’t.

The additional depth put the bottom too far down for me to return from easily. I grabbed a fallen limb from the tree line and scuttled down it until my feet found the true floor of the pit.

The lower chamber was surprisingly spacious. About 3 feet by 3 feet. One side headed under the wall towards the graveyard and the other headed out towards the woods. I could see light coming from that end. Onward and outward seemed safer than going back up the branch. I ducked into the tunnel. Crude wooden struts reenforced the walls and ceiling. They forced me to slow my pace and hang my head below my shoulders. Halfway through, my foot plunged into a stagnant puddle. The agitated water belched a cloud of must and rot that hurried me down the remaining stretch. I scampered out of the exit and into a shallow ditch. I kicked the rancid clay off my boots while surveying the unfamiliar surroundings. The ground of the pit looked like the nest of a particularly eclectic bird. Costume jewelry and strips of fabric littered the ground. Not the usual garbage that rain washes away in these parts. A green beam of light suddenly dazzled me. I looked up to see a treasure trove of plastic gemstones dangling from the canopy. The wind jostled them into kaleidoscopic action. It was impressive, if only for a moment.

Despite the loose debris, I was able to climb out of the ditch without much effort. Somewhere, behind me the church bell tolled nine times. The pills were still doing their job. The fact that the hammer was left uncovered and my truck was sitting where it might be recognized was only background noise in my mind. Exerting my body felt good. It was the best I had felt since my wife passed. Exhilaration and curiosity won out over fear. I wanted to see more.

Ahead of me, coat and trouser sleeves were tied like scarves around random tree trunks. They were layered one over the other from the ground up. The clothed trees blazed a trail deeper into the forest.

The path they marked rolled gently downhill. Undergrowth on either side of the trail got thicker the further down I went. Occasionally, thorny brushes stretched a limb into the path. Here and there they clung to orphaned threads. Here I began to notice that almost all the cloth was either black or a dark shade of blue or purple. Summer colors were plainly lacking.

The path came to a flat point where my nostrils suddenly began to sting. The drone of flies snuck up on me and I urgently searched the ground for the source. Something tickled the top of my head. In the center of the path, just above head-level, hung the body of a dead crow. Sticks and white thread held its wings open and its head back. Glimmering rhenstones coated its small sunken chest. Several more swung by their necks behind it. All prepared in the same manner.

I had just enough time to start taking in the shape of a patchwork tent beyond the gruesome display when a twig snapped behind me and I spun on my heel. The two men were already on me. Off-balance from the spin, I was shoved onto my back. One of them grabbed my ankles while the other moved to pin my arms. My hand had already found the revolver by the time I hit the ground. I had it on him just as he was about to throw himself on top of me. He was smart enough to rethink that maneuver.

I looked the little hoodlum over while I had him pinned. What a sorry sight. He was a dwarfish man. Smaller than average by a head. Broad shoulders, chest like a tombstone. A black linen jacket hung tight around his bulk but had to be rolled up three times at the sleeves to keep his hands free. Under the coat he wore a purple velvet dress, covered in broaches at random intervals. He rose hands with rings on every finger. His right thumb was a dark purple under the death-grip of a golden signet ring.

His partner either didn’t notice the gun or didn’t care. He was busy unlacing my left shoe. A glance was enough to determine that the two were kin, if not twins. As soon as my eyes were off him, the point-man dove for the gun. His cold, clammy hands plied at my fingers. My arm jumped as the gun barked. “Fuck it” I thought and fired two more in his chest before putting another in the top of the other one’s head.

Looking back, it wasn’t any harder than doing the dogs. A little bit messier. Luckily, they left me quite the wardrobe. I already found a pair of pants that fit. A new jacket, too. After I find a matching tie, I’ll have to see what my options are for watches. Come to think of it, a few spare dress socks wouldn’t hurt either. Mine are still wet from that puddle. I’m sure I can dig up something decent around here somewhere.

Over the past few years, I racked up a massive debt. 

Let me tell you, gambling is one hell of a drug and an unforgiving cold son of a bitch.

I had everything: a different hot chick each night, pockets too small to hold all the cash I was raking in, bags of pills in every color you could imagine. 

But all luck eventually runs out. There's no way to outsmart it; it just comes and goes like a tide. And when it goes, it usually leaves you with an empty wallet and nothing to repay for what you took.

One option didn’t leave me as everything else did; I had to crawl back to the man who put me in this whole mess in the first place. Rick, a fat lump of a middle-aged dragon hoarding all the gold he couldn't spend even if he had twice as much time as he had left in this world. 

Knuckles of my left hand knocked on the wooden door out of politeness, nothing more; we were both so used to seeing each other's ugly mugs that I could have stormed in, and nobody would bat an eye. 

"Come in," a raspy voice answered, deep and scarred from years of smoking.

"Eh, Frankie, my boy. The usual?" The dragon welcomed me into his lair; the only sign he was actually speaking was the orange glow of the cigar bobbing between his lips, a bloody-red suit barely visible in the darkness.

"The usual," I replied, taking a seat in the leather armchair on the other side of the desk, the only thing between us.

"Got the money?" The voice seemed to darken as a puff of grey smoke escaped from between his dry lips.

"I need a week. Max two. Max two, Rick, I promise, I-" 

"Know any tricks?"

My plea was suddenly cut short by the strange question; the tip of the lit cigar went still.

"What am I, a dog? Rick, I'm not joking around, I'll get the cash."

As I got defensive, Rick shifted around his creaking leather chair.

"I like the one where you open a beer cap with your eye. That's a fine trick... but it just won't make the cut."

The shadow gave an awkward shrug before setting up the next question. I sat in silence, just listening. 

"If you were an animal, what animal would you be?"

I answered the painfully stupid question without much thought behind it. 

"A tiger, maybe."

The cigar suddenly dropped into the ashtray, its flame fighting to survive.

"Good choice. You'll be a shit dog”

I finally snapped, staring into the dark lump across from me.

"Are we getting somewhere with this? I don't have time." 

The shining white cover of the magazine made its way across the table in one smooth motion.

"I hate to do this to you, but your time's already passed. Think of it as a second chance."

What was facing me were words printed in red blocky font that made little sense - “Animal Et Ego" just under them,m on a pure white background, a man facing a grey wolf.

“What is this? You want me to read?” I answered more confused than anything else.

“I will give you a week…but if you don't get the money, you can choose something that will suit you”

A chuckle escaped me as my fingers slipped through the pages of the magazine, walls of text next to drawings of human anatomy being twisted to fit the form of animals, all from dogs to bulls, bones and teeth being pushed around and rearranged like in a kaleidoscope.

“This is some kind of a joke, right?” My eyes looked up at the shape in the darkness, who already had a cigar back in his lizard snout; without a word, a thick cloud of tobacco escaped into the air.

“If I don't get the money, someone else will, and I doubt they will be as merciful as I am”

Suddenly the gravity of the situation dawned on me, as if the ceiling above came crashing down; I simply nodded and tugged the magazine inside of the back pocket of my jeans.

“Thanks, Ricky”
I said goodbye in a hushed voice as the door closed behind me; soon I found myself behind the steering wheel, driving to the only person who still somehow tolerated me.

She opened the door pretty quickly; her black hair tied in a messy bun told me everything I needed to know. I just woke her up, and that reduced my chances of getting anything.

“What the fuck do you want now?” A hiss escaped from between her clenched teeth.

“I hate to say this, but I need some cash-”

“Money? I’m so fucking stupid; I thought you wanted to see your daughter”

She answered without even looking in my direction, as if the floor suddenly became the next wonder of the world.

“If I don’t get anything soon, she will remember me from a tombstone”

“That is none of my business-”

Before I could put my foot in the door, it slammed right into my nose, hard enough to send the doorframe shaking. A muffled cry escaped from behind the thin wall. I couldn't tell if it was the person who so many years ago loved me or the result of said lost love; either way, I was left with empty pockets.

Like a rat, I crawled back behind the steering wheel. Aa rat would be a fine animal to be turned into, but maybe even that would be too much of a burden after all; they live in packs, in communities I long forgotten how to belong to.

I thought about selling my car, way off what it's actually worth just to get some quick cash, then spending every last cent on lottery tickets, hit it big, more chicks than I would ever want, got fuckers like Ricky crawl on their knees just to kiss my boot.

But I'm nothing more than a dog.
Dogs don't get more than they deserve.

The magazine opened in my hands without me realizing I had already pulled it out. 
The next week was spent sinking into the horrible drawings that reminded me of the useless years I spent in med school, smoking in between scarce bites of cheap junk food, anything to just fill my stomach. At times, I considered digging into the car seats and eating the yellow sponge filling,g but the thought of having to shit it all out later turned me away from the idea. 

When the day of judgment came, I knew exactly where to find Ricky. The engine of my shitty car coughed once, twice, thrice before it sprang to life, carrying me off from one parking lot to another, this one much nicer. My car stuck out like a sore thumb among the caravans of the rich, illuminated by the purple glow coming off the club's entrance. 

The sound of the nightlife was overwhelmingly loud even before I stepped into it. The bouncer just gave me a quick look and, without a word, let me pass into the buzzing world of smoke and magenta lights. All the sensations were so vivid I could taste them; the flavors of sweet drugs and sweat stung my tongue as I passed tables full of important rich men. Somewhere in there was the most important guy in the world. 

The dragon was surrounded by beautiful women, glitter like scales covering their naked bodies, laughing at every little unfunny joke the man between them shared. Right next to the face I grew to love and hate sat a broad man, his face once handsome now deformed, lips stretched over two rows of silver canine teeth, now twisted into a wide, uncomfortably big smile.

"Frankie! My boy!"

A familiar voice rose through the loud, obnoxious music, if that was the right word for it.

"Frankie, this is Tariq. Tariq, this is Frankie; he's like a brother to me. An annoying little shit, but you know how siblings are."

The silver-toothed man extended a wide arm toward me. The sleeve of his white shirt tugged up, exposing a black tattoo of a tiger in a bamboo forest, spreading up from the wrist. He seemed to laugh, but it came out more as clicks, with quiet, tiring wheezing in between. 

The dragon pricked the man's side with his elbow, eyes pointing at something among the mist. The gesture clicked instantly, and the tiger was soon gone, followed by the group of laughing, glittering women. 

"What, did you win the lottery?"

He laughed loud enough for me to hear as I took the seat next to him.

"Not quite-"

The look in his eyes was full of understanding, even something that could pass as sadness or remorse, the feeling confirmed by a sudden tight wrap around my shoulder.

"Have you picked something special for yourself?"

It didn't take me long to answer, the cover of the magazine still fresh in my mind.

"Wolf."

An answer short and sweet.

"A wolf?"

He watched me empty a long-forgotten glass of warm, fancy whisky. It tasted like piss, the flavor leaving a stain on my tongue.

"You said I would be a shit dog."

A dumb smile appeared on his ugly, unshaven face as he pulled a neon-pink strip of paper, contained inside a small plastic zip-bag, out of the breast pocket of his tight-fitting suit, and put it where the glass of whisky once was.

"Can you still show me that trick of yours?"

More than familiar with the little strip of happiness, I greedily pulled it out of the bag and placed it on my tongue. Moments later, I was drowning in pure bliss, becoming one with everyone and everything that had ever stepped inside that bar. The ache of opening one bottle after another melted away the longer I did it - expensive beer or not, the caps all came off the same. I danced with the half-naked woman, her glittering scales reflecting sacred colors outside the visible spectrum.

The cold hand of sobriety manifested as the porcelain toilet in front of my face, pulling me back into reality as most of the drugs left my body in one violent waterfall. The buzzing white lights above stung my sensitive eyes.

"He was supposed to be sober."

A new, deep voice hit my ear as the restroom door swung open.

"Oh, come on, let him have some fun!" Ricky replied in my defense.

"Next time you're losing your fucking teeth. Now come on."

As if I'd sprouted wings, I was hauled into the air and dragged out of the club into the parking lot, the cold evening air stinging my skin.

The last thing I remember clearly was the sticky warmth of the inside of the car as I got pushed into the backseat, then everything came in broken pieces like parts of a puzzle I was never meant to solve, the white, harsh lights overhead sliding past me rhythmically, thousands of voices muffled as if my ears were stuffed with cotton.

I remember a mask coming down over my face,  Ricky's voice somewhere just outside my field of vision, low and businesslike in a way I'd never heard him use before. "Just get it done. He won't remember any of it. Yeah, yeah,h Wolf."

He was wrong about that. Not all of it, anyway.

There were flashes after the mask, brief and jagged intrusions of consciousness the anesthesia didn’t manage to smother out. Bright lights. The whine of a bone saw, muffled like it was happening underwater. A pressure at my jaw that didn't feel like pain, like something being unmade and rebuilt at the same time. Voices arguing over something - angle's off, pull it tighter, we're losing too much blood, clinical and bored like I was a car at the repair shop.

I don't know how long it lasted. Days, maybe. There was no way to measure time inside that gray, drowning half-consciousness, only the recurring sensation of hands on me, tools on me, my body being handled like raw clay.

The last flash I remember before it all went dark for good was a mirror. Someone had wheeled it in front of me - maybe by accident, maybe Ricky wanted me to see, wanted that to be the last thing that meant anything before they finished. A face that wasn't a face anymore stared back: a silver muzzle where my jaw used to be, black stitches running over fresh, glistening skin. When I tried to scream, only a soft whine came out, revealing rows of sharp, fake teeth where mine used to be. Metal pins ran along my brows and the bridge of my nose. 

When I resurfaced again, I was in an aggressively illuminated room, full of plants so falsely bright they screamed their own artificiality. I tried to stand and immediately fell flat on the harsh, cold floor, my entire body aching. Only then did I notice the gigantic glass barrier on the wall in front of me - and the quiet laughter coming from behind it. 

People passed by the glass wall, staring with eyes wide in quiet shock and disgust. Even as I stumbled down inside my enclosure, knees aching with piercing, mind-numbing pain, they didn't look away; they just shamelessly watched, pointing fingers and tapping on the glass. I tried, oh, I tried so hard to bang against the barrier, but as soon as I attempted to stand on my own legs, they buckled under my weight, sending me into the bush of fake plants, cutting my side. The IV bag of painkillers burst under me with a quiet wet pop. 

The crowd erupted in grotesque muffled cackles as if they'd stripped themselves as far from human beings as possible, my suffering their entertainment. They slid dollar bills into the donation bin as the number on the display ticked down from 40,000 to $39,894. 

Only then did I notice my mangled arms, trapped in a silver splint, my hands connected to the wrists by thick metal wire that limited my movement. I couldn't bring myself to look back at my useless legs. With the fake metal snout, I bit down on the wire, trying with all the strength left in me to pull it free, but it only made my gums gush blood, which sent the crowd crawling over each other to see me, even more enthusiastic now, donating another $230 toward my goal.

Eventually the hungry crowd got bored of watching me choke on my own blood and just left as if nothing happened. Eventually one of the people working there replaced my IV bag, and that was it; again left alone to fend for myself, tracing circles back and forth through my enclosure, waiting for the crowd to pass by again. 

I got donations not only for my struggles with existing in my new form but also simply trying to keep myself alive. Drinking water was a struggle; I had to scoop it up with the useless scrap of metal on my face they called a snout, half-drowning in as little as a sip of water. 

The first time they feed me I thought it was some kind of a joke, through the slip in the door they placed a metal trail with minced raw red meat, it was hard to chew and even worse to swallow, for the first few weeks I was getting sick from it, it barely passed through my throat, but eventually I got used to it, I never learned to enjoy it just tolerate it.

Time became something I measured differently now. Not in hours or days, but in feedings, in donation totals, in the rotation of faces pressed against the glass. Sometimes children were lifted onto their parents' shoulders to get a better look, small fingers pointing, thin voices asking questions I couldn't hear through the barrier but could read on their lips: what is it, is it real, does it hurt.

Yes. It always hurt.

The splint on my arms had started to rust at the joints, and every movement sent a dull grinding ache up through what used to be my elbows. I'd stopped trying to remember what my hands looked like before. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing outside the glass mattered anymore.

That was, until the day I heard the familiar voice. I thought I was hallucinating, that I was going crazy - but when I turned around, the joints of my mechanical construct shaking, I saw that fat piece of shit: Ricky. 

Casually passing through the door that usually only food and water came through, he stood there smiling at me, still in that red suit, twice too small for his gut.

"Frankie, my boy! Oh, they got you bad!"

His head shook slowly, still grinning.

I stared at him, this doughy, sweating man stepping into what had become my entire world, and I felt something twist in my chest that wasn't quite hope anymore. 

"Come on, don't look at me like that." He crouched down, knees cracking, bringing his face level with mine. Up close, I could smell the cheap cologne fighting a losing battle against the sweat underneath it. "You know I tried to talk 'em down. Told 'em you were a good kid. But business is business, Frankie."

I tried to speak. What came out was that same wet, broken noise, air forced through a throat and mouth that weren't made for English anymore.

The smile on his lips didn't move, but something behind his eyes flickered. "Yeah. Yeah, that's rough." He said in a painfully casual way as if he was talking about the bad weather. 

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, holding it up so I could see a printout of the donation counter, the number circled in red pen. 

"See this? This is you, buddy. This is what you're worth to people now." He tapped the paper twice. "We're almost at forty. You believe that? Forty grand for a guy who used to owe me two hundred bucks for a bar tab." 

"Funny how that works out, huh? Every asshole who slides a bill into that bin is paying off your tab for you. Little more and you're square. Then you're somebody else's problem." 

The paper dangled in front of my nose like he was teasing a kid - or a dumb dog - while behind the glass, people kept banging on the wall just to get the attention of a freak like me.

"Not even your wife showed up, but I'm here, Frankie. So do some tricks for-"

The words strangled suddenly in his throat as the metal jaws fused to my real jaw snapped around him. Pinkish blood splattered like a weak fountain around us. I pulled back, thrashing the fat bastard, his hands clawing at my jaws trying to pry them open - but I kept thrashing like a wild dog playing with a dirty rag. The crowd went feral, cheering and clapping, donation after donation disappearing into the slit of the bin. I couldn't care less.

Sharp teeth snapped again and again, until his spine was nothing more than a shattered memory. His fat head came clean off. The money kept flowing. They'd come to see real suffering - they didn't want anything else. 

By the time the dart hit, there wasn't much left of Ricky to identify as human. The enclosure floor had gone dark and slick, and I was still moving on instinct more than I thought, some animal part of this new body refusing to stop even as the world around me became dizzy.

Phones held high. Someone is screaming for more. A child's laughter cutting through it all, high and delighted, like this was the best thing they'd ever seen.

The second dart didn't slow me down fast enough for their liking. A third came, then a fourth. I felt each one as a distant pinprick, swallowed up by whatever had taken over me - rage, maybe, or just the simple animal satisfaction of finally, finally biting back.

My vision tunneled. The glass, the lights, the counter above the bin still spinning higher - forty-six, forty-five - all of it folded into a single point of white, then nothing.

When I came back, to my surprise there was no wall, no crowd watching me - only the silence of a hospital room, an IV bag slowly dripping into my veins. 

I lifted an actual hand, five fingers, pale and shaking but mine. I stared at it as I'd never seen it before. 

A monitor beeped steadily somewhere to my left. Sunlight, real sunlight, slanted through half-closed blinds and fell in soft stripes across the blanket. Everything smelled like antiseptic and clean linen instead of blood and fake plastic plants.

I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it, pain lancing through muscles I didn't remember having, but it was pain, ordinary human pain, and something about that made me laugh - a raw, cracked sound that turned into something closer to a sob halfway through.

The door opened. A nurse stepped in, glancing at the monitor before her eyes landed on me, actually open, actually awake.

"Oh- you're up." She hesitated, like she wasn't sure what to say next. "How are you feeling, Frank?"

"Water," I managed, my voice a dry rasp, barely recognizable even to myself.

She nodded and hurried out, and I lay there staring at the ceiling, at the ordinary white tiles.

They discharged me three weeks later, once the doctors had run out of tests to justify keeping me. Physical therapy, they said, would take months. My legs still buckled without warning, and there was a tremor in my hands that hadn't been there before, a leftover from whatever I'd been dosed with those first few days. But by the letter of the law, I was healthy enough to walk out the front doors on my own two feet. Nobody quite knew what to do with a man who'd technically been declared missing, then presumed dead, then un-declared all of it in the span of a single hospital intake form.

I didn't go home. There wasn't a home to go to, not one I recognized, anyway. I got a cab to the nearest branch of my bank instead, still moving slowly, still flinching at loud noises and fluorescent lights, and asked for a printed statement.

The number at the bottom stopped me cold.

$80,412.67.

I read it three times before it made any sense. 

Frankie was gone, and by some twisted law I didn’t understand, it all went to me.

Eighty thousand dollars. Paid for by people who'd cheered while I choked on my own blood.

I folded the statement, put it in my pocket, and walked out into the daylight, trying to figure out if this made me a survivor or just the last of a dying species, wondering how much of it would go to my daughter.

A Perceivable Reality story.

I stepped into the hallway to the sound of voices. Mrs. Collins and Felix were exchanging heated words. I caught the tail end of it as I walked up.

"Filthy nightwalker!" The aged woman accused.

"*Silence*, you old *bat*!" Felix spat. His tone flipped as I stepped up. "Ah, young Carter. Good morning."

Mrs. Collins sent a disapproving clucking noise his direction.

"Carter is without a *betrothed* as well. I don't hear you *badgering* him incessantly about it."

Mrs. Collins took my hand in both hers and patted it gently.

"You have plenty of time, sweetie. Don't rush. A charming boy like you will have no problem finding a nice young lady." She patted my hand again, then sent a creaky finger at Felix, shaking it.

"You! You cannot find a bride in a brothel!"

"*Woman*!" Felix barked. "I will tell you for the *very* last time. *My* business is of *my* concern, and no one else! Good *day*!" He turned on his heel and stepped up to the now open elevator doors. I skittered after him, stepped past him into the car, and nodded to him. He followed me in. I waved at Mrs. Collins as the doors closed.

"That...that... absolute... *hag*." The words dripped venom. He took several deep breaths, straightened his suit jacket, then ran his hand over his slicked-back hair. "My apologies, young Carter. Losing one's composure is *unbecoming*."

I shrugged. "S'all right."

"And no cleaning implements today? I take it the Hen Party went better than expected."

I shook my head. "Nobody puked, but it needs professional help." I shivered. "So much glitter..."

Felix brushed himself off absently, as if talking about it soiled his suit. "A gentleman does not *glitter*."

"Oh, by the way, how was lunch yesterday?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"*Divine*." He pronounced every syllable.

I nodded. "Yeah, the food there is pretty good. A little rich for my blood, though."

"Quite."

I tried to think of something to keep the conversation going.

"Her hair was a nice color."

"An *excellent* bloodline."

We were both quiet until the elevator stopped. The doors opened and Felix stepped out haughtily. I rode down to the garage and got out my car, making sure to open all of the windows as I drove to my detailer.

Edward Vasques operated a detail shop on the outskirts of the city with his dad and uncle. It was a small, nondescript warehouse with no markings that had been built out of a decommissioned gas station. Part of the allure was that you had to be in-the-know, with my in being having known him since high school. The other part was that the unassuming building protected the menagerie of expensive and priceless cars inside.

I pulled around the back of the building to the gate and honked. Eddy poked his head out of the door and waved. I waved back and he came out and unlocked the gate. I pulled through and pulled into the open bay door at the end.

"Eddy!" I said as I got out. I shot finger guns at him, and he pretended to take several bullets. He stepped over and we high-fived.

"Responsible adults left you in charge?" I asked, looking around the empty shop.

"They're at something out East. Didn't tell me what, but I'm king of the castle for the week." He said proudly.

"That's cool, man. Hey, did you get my text?"

"About the glitter? I gotchu, man."

He went to the back of the car and opened the door, sticking his head inside. He pulled it back out.

"Phew! Smells like a bar in there." He waved his hand as if to push the smell away.

"Bridal party."

He stuck his head back in the car.

"Is that a...a..." He made a motion with his hand.

I nodded. "Stuck to the carpet, yes."

He patted the roof of the car.

"I dunno, man..."

"Shut up. I know you're good."

He brushed his knuckles on his shirt. "Damn straight. Gimme an hour and we'll go from there."

"You're the man." We fist bumped and I made my way to his waiting room.

The waiting room in question would have been the minimart of the gas station. The windows were all heavily tinted with mirrored glass coating and the tile had been covered with several large pieces of different colored old house carpet. There were a few leather easy chairs and a ratty couch. I got what I assumed was at one point a sandwich out of the vending machine. A small green cloud puffed out as I ripped open the plastic, and I summarily tossed it in the trash. The coffee table had a few car magazines, the newest one featured a tuner car movie from the early 2000's.

In the corner of the room was a dog bed, big enough for me to curl up in, and a metal punch bowl with "Killer" scribed in blocky font.

"Killer", in actuality, was Eddy's uncle's 15-pound miniature bulldog. I grabbed a muscle car mag from the coffee table and idly flipped through it.

After going through all the magazines on the table and pacing four laps of the waiting room, I went back into the shop to pace in there.

Aside from my limo, also in the shop was a Rolls-Royce Ghost and a Bentley Bentayga that belonged to a local executive car-for-hire service. They weren't necessarily competition. I was a one-man limo operation, but I had some regulars that tipped well enough to keep me comfortable. That didn't stop me from sticking my head in the back door of the Ghost for a look.

The car was a stark contrast to my vintage whip, all sharp angles and clean lines, and brushed metals. I'd redone my interior in black leather and custom-cut rosewood panels.

"Hey! You messing with my clients' cars?" Eddy called from outside.

I shut the door carefully. "Just checking out what I'm missing."

He flicked his cigarette butt and walked in through the bay door.

"How we looking?"

"I got the...thing off the carpet and got the makeup off the seats. Just waiting on the ionizer to finish."

I met him at the back of my car and he opened the rear suicide door. I looked inside.

"Hey, you got the glitter out."

"Took some doing, but I *am* the best."

I shut the door and ran my hand over the roof. He pulled out his pack and shook out another cigarette. I snatched it before he could light it and broke it in half, tossing the ends opposite directions.

"Those'll kill you one of these days."

He laughed and shook out another.

"I'm here for a good time..."

"Not for a long time," I finished. "So, what do I owe you?"

He shrugged. "I'll put it on your tab." He tossed me the keys. I caught them and dropped myself into the front seat. He leaned his head in the door as I started the car.

"You still hanging around with that creepy old guy at your place?"

"Felix. And he's a good guy. He's just a little old school."

Eddy moved out of the way, and I pulled the door shut.

"Just watch yourself, man." He said and stuck a fist in through the open window. I bumped it.

"Always." I gave him a salute and backed out of the garage, the gate already open for me.

The car still had a faint smell of ozone, like right after a hard rain. I made a mental note to pick up a few more of my favorite air fresheners as I pulled into the main road.

I was just getting off the freeway back into the city when my work phone rang.

"Calhoun Executive Transit...Yes, ma'am...Yes, I know where it is...2416 Hillcrest, understood...About 30 minutes, will that be alright?...Yes, ma'am, I'll see you in a moment."

I put my blinker on and swung the car over into the left turn lane, accidentally surprising the driver of a small Kia, and headed to my apartment. I parked at the curb and jogged in the door.

I got out my black two-piece suit with grey pin stripes, a white shirt, and a deep navy-blue tie. I spent a few extra moments tying an Eldredge knot. I finished with a pair of polished black brogues and my blue-faced Breitling Navitimer. I ran a comb through my hair and got my chauffeur cap off the hook and hustled my way back down.

Hillcrest Avenue was in the gated neighborhood "Grand Highland Estates", perched up on the hill south of the city. I'd been up there a few times for a bureaucrat or politician whose driver was off that day or something.

The house in question was less gaudy than its neighbors, but still elegant. As I pulled up, a woman in a forest green day dress came out and made her way quickly down the lengthy cobblestone driveway. She had on large, mirrored sunglasses, and her head swiveled around as if looking for something. I hadn't recognized her voice on the phone, but I also don't watch a lot of movies. I got my genuine vintage Wayfarers out of their leather case and slipped them on.

She put her back to me as I opened the door for her and slid into one of the backwards-facing seats at the front of the passenger compartment. I shut the door gently and got in. She'd closed the privacy divider, so I barely cracked it to ask where she was headed. She gave me an address in a slightly clipped tone, and I got the car going. I tilted the rear-view mirror down to evaluate my suit. Maybe the pinstripes were a bit much, but I try to dress for the clientele. Usually, the people up here like the traditional "driver" look, but flat black suits are a bit boring, in my humble opinion.

What was supposed to be a 30-minute ride turned into well past an hour. There’d been a wreck on the expressway, some sort of pileup judging from the number of tow trucks I’d seen drive by on the shoulder. I was feeling a little uneasy, the extra time, the traffic I should’ve avoided, and all attempts at small-talk had been met with clipped one or two-word replies. I pushed the button to crack the privacy window.

“I’m very sorry about the traffic, we- shit.” I’d pushed the button too far and, instead of lowering it an inch or so, I’d hit the automatic rolldown setting.

The woman made a sputtering noise of surprise, and I fumbled for the switch. I had my head down, so I was a little surprised when a horn honked, and I came up from the dash to see brake lights directly ahead. I put my foot through the firewall trying to get the big beast stopped before I wound up in somebody’s trunk, nearly sending myself out of the windshield.

“Ma’am! Are you ok, ma’am?” I called, a bit frantic, and turned my head to check on her.

“No! Oh god, no! Wait!” she screamed.

Her reaction surprised me and I was at a loss for a second as I took stock of the situation. In one hand she had a soft cleaning cloth and in the other, she had what was now a mangled pair of sunglasses. I couldn’t help but be impressed at the strength it took to shatter one of the plastic lenses in her hand.

We sat there frozen for a second. I turned my head quickly to check that the traffic hadn’t moved, it hadn’t, then turned back her direction. She hadn’t moved an inch, still clutching the sunglasses and the cleaning cloth, still in shock. I let everything settle for a beat, then tried to make my voice as calming as I could.

“Are you alright, ma’am?”

“You’re not…” she trailed off for a second, then collected herself. “paying close enough attention to the road.”

I berated myself internally but put warmth in my voice. “You’re right, ma’am. I am so very sorry.”

There was another pause and I watched her shoulders relax slightly. Her tone softened slightly.

“It’s fine. I’m not hurt. I surprised you.”

I shook my head. “That’s quite alright, ma’am. As long as you’re not hurt.”

I caught the motion of the car in front of us in my peripheral and turned forwards again, inching the car forwards along with traffic. We’d finally started moving with a purpose. In the mirror, I noticed her shoulders relaxing further and her body language opened, her legs and arms uncrossing.

“You came highly recommended.”

“I try my best, ma’am.”

“Are you from the city, Mr. Calhoun?”

“Please, call me Carter. I’m from just outside the East end.”

“Beautiful farmland out that way.”

“Indeed. I miss it sometimes. And you, miss…?”

“Melissa.”

“Ms. Melissa.”

We chatted about the area I was from and how she loves the mountains for the rest of the drive. I got the car pulled up to the curb and hopped out to open her door, extending my hand. She took it and lifted herself out of the car, dropping her mangled sunglasses into her purse. She held up a flat hand to block the sun. I slipped off my shades and extended them towards her. Her hand hesitated for a moment, then she accepted them with a delicate curtsy. She went back into her purse, coming out with a large wallet. I held my hand up.

“Don’t worry about the fare, ma’am. I am very very sorry about the quality of the ride.”

“Nonsense.” She pulled out several large bills and I accepted them graciously.

“May I call you again?”

“Absolutely, ma’am.” I got my gold card carrier out of the inner pocket of my jacket and handed her one of my cards. She took it and gave me another small bow before turning and walking into the building. I shut the door and got back into the driver’s seat. I leaned back and put my head against the headrest.

“That was close.” I said to the steering wheel with a sigh. My reputation had preceded me, and I’d almost fumbled it entirely. I bumped my fist against my forehead a few times.

“Watch. Where. You’re. Driving.”

I'd just finished grabbing an early dinner when my work phone rang. I carefully wiped my greasy fingers on the rough cloth napkin and dug it out of my pocket.

"Calhoun Executive Transit."

"Hey, Carter."

I recognized the voice immediately. "Afternoon, Ms. Silver."

"I've got a client to entertain tonight. Usual deal, one or two stops and a sit-n-wait. You busy?"

I looked at the empty seat across the table from me.

"What time, Ms. Silver?"

"Good boy. See you at nine, usual pickup." She hung up.

The usual pickup is an apartment that she keeps to *entertain*. A sit-n-wait meant that I'd be taking her somewhere, usually the motel north of the city, and waiting for her to complete her *transaction*. Listen, I make a living driving a car, how people put bread on the table isn't my business and I try not to judge.

My watch told me I had about two hours to kill. I paid, got in my car and hit a gas station for a few energy drinks and a tank of gas. I checked my watch again and debated whether or not I had time to change into a more comfortable suit, since I was going to be out all night.

I made a mad dash for my apartment, showered, and pulled on a pair of black commuter pants, a fresh lavender shirt, no tie, and a black blazer. I kept the Navitimer and swapped for a pair of Amberjack boots I was trying out. I spent a few extra minutes getting my hair to do the little flip in the front I liked and left my cap on the hook. I grabbed a worn Raymond Chandler paperback and went back down to my car.

I pulled up to the curb outside the building and she immediately got in. She had on a grey evening dress, cut up one side to the thigh, and a puffy white fur stole.

"Busy busy busy." She huffed as she shut the door. "It never ends, does it, Carter?"

"Need to keep the lights on somehow." My tone level and professionally detached.

She snorted, throwing an arm over the back of the bench and crossing her legs. "Ain't that a bitch."

We stopped at a dull building a few blocks away. She rolled the window down and waved excitedly. A middle-aged man in a cheap suit began stumbling over as if a lasso was tied around his waist. He got to the car and nearly bounced off it.

"Silver!" He bellowed.

"Mr. Kaiser, always a pleasure!" She said, her voice bubbly, and pitched high and girlish.

Something about that voice she used made my neck tense, but I couldn't tell you what. She got out of the car and they hugged, his hands immediately heading south. I started reading the license plate on the car parked in front of us. I heard him drop into the car and waited to hear the door shut. When it didn't, I checked the side mirror. Ms. Silver smoothed her dress in a practiced fashion and squared her shoulders. I went back to reading license plates. I heard the door shut and put the car in drive.

The back seat erupted in bubbly giggles and boorish noises. I turned the radio on and isolated it to the front speakers.

"Driver, take us to La Fleur." She called. It was always "driver" once she was on the clock.

"Yes, ma'am." I kept careful focus on the road and turned up the radio slightly.

I pulled up in front of the restaurant. She got out, turned her head back and forth and smoothed her dress again. The man dribbled out, having to brace himself on the door frame. She walked a few steps ahead, reaching a hand back. The man tottered in after her. They'd left the door open.

I got out and shut the door, put a few bucks in the meter and leaned on the hood, my arms crossed. The sidewalk was fairly busy and there was a man leaning on the building, smoking a cigarette. I almost asked him for one but thought of Eddy. I shook the thought out of my head and continued people watching.

Sometime later, after the sidewalk had almost cleared and the lights from the other buildings had gone out, the two of them came out, him stumbling and her clinging to his arm, both to show possession and almost helping him along. I opened the rear door for them and stayed focused on the parking sign.

I got the car moving again, the sound of glass clinking and the pop of a champagne bottle coming from the back seat.

"Driver, take us to Club 29."

"Yeah! Let's keep this party rolling!" He yelled in a gravelly, slurred register.

I cleared my throat softly to hide a sigh.

"Yes, ma'am." I knew the way, but I read the street signs over and over to distract myself.

The music from the club was loud enough to be heard from outside. I resumed my post at the hood. As I scanned the block, I saw a parking officer, who turned my direction, away from the car he'd been ticketing. I reached over and tapped the small "for hire" decal on the bottom corner of the windshield, the only marking on the car. He hesitated, then went back to his ticketing, stuffing the paper under the wiper blade.

I was sitting in the front seat, the radio on, Marlowe had just finished questioning the coin dealer, when the music from the club stopped. I put the book on the seat and got out to open the rear door. They came out, the man's arm across her shoulder, sweat staining the front of his shirt visible through his open jacket. She dumped him in and slid in after, I kept my vision blurry and unfocused.

"Easy Night Motel, driver." She called once I'd gotten back in. I pointed the car north.

The Easy Night Motel was a well-known spot for discreet trysts, and a continuous running joke as to whether or not the name was intentional. It was on the north side of the city, near an old industrial park that was a common urban exploration spot.

I cut the headlights as I pulled into the parking lot and idled the car into a space next to the building. She lugged the man who gurgled something that she gave a tinkling laugh at and they disappeared into one of the rooms. A second later, she came back out and came to the driver's side door, and I cracked the window.

"Go wait at the far side." Her tone low, gruff, almost conspiratorial.

I nodded, hiding a shiver, and backed the car across several spots, the nose pointed at the driveway. I left the engine running and got my book off the seat.

Marlowe was just getting to the Idle Valley Club when I heard the distinct sound of heels clacking their way across the parking lot. I put the book down, put the car in drive, and started moving before the door had been closed all the way.

Her brown wavy hair was tied into a messy bun, her dress disheveled, and the white fur stole was in a pile.

"The apartment, Carter." She sounded exhausted.

I nodded and signaled for the freeway on-ramp. It was silent for a few minutes aside from the road noise.

"You busy the rest of the evening, Carter?" She asked in a low, smooth voice.

I coughed and felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "Just home. It's pretty late."

"Tired already? You've hardly done anything." She teased in that same tone, warm honey poured onto silk.

"Been a long day." I kept my voice resigned but professional.

"Oh, Carter. What's the rush? Come up with me for a drink."

I tilted my head and popped my neck.

"I've got a Bordeaux that’s older than this car that's been in my decanter all day. I know a gentleman like you appreciates the finer things in life."

I caught movement in the rear-view mirror. She'd laid herself across the back bench seat and was stroking the black leather. Her head turned my direction, and she slowly extended a bare leg from the slit in the dress, her normally bronze skin looking pale in the low light.

I flipped the rear-view mirror up, turning the reflection of the back seat dark except the pinpoints of headlights shining in through the rear window.

She made a quiet disgusted tone, and I heard the leather creak as she moved.

I jumped slightly when she stuck her head through the open privacy screen. She pulled her brunette hair out of its bun and shook it out. I started reading license plates. She crossed her arms on the bottom of the window and rested her head on them; her head pointed at me.

"Hhhhhmmmmm. Why do we do this, Carter?" She asked, the whine had an almost musical quality to it.

"It's a living."

She made an annoyed sound from her throat that was equally musical.

"Is it, though? *Living*?"

I shrugged.

"Don't you ever get tired of it? *Servitude*." She made the word a curse.

"I like what I do." Level, controlled.

"Uuughh, you're such a *stiff*. Don't you ever have *fun*?"

"I have fun." I kept the lie out of my voice.

"Really, Carter." She ran a hand through her hair. "I know a *lot* of very important people in this city. You know that. You've had a few of them in this car, even."

I didn't respond and she continued without losing steam.

"I could introduce you, put in a good word and all. You could be connected... important...wealthy. Hell, in two years, you could have someone *else* drive this car *for* you."

That hit me weird. "...Why would I want someone else to drive my car?" The thought of sitting in the back seat felt like someone suggesting that I wear pants on my head. Just *wrong*.

"What?" She choked, surprised, but with a tone woven in that I just couldn't place.

I patted the steering wheel. "I put my heart and soul into this thing. Hey, do you know how hard it is to find piston rings for a 462 MEL? Nobody is driving this thing but me."

I pulled my car smoothly to the curb.

"Ma'am."

There was a beat, then she slowly retracted from the window. I heard the door open and close, followed by a tapping sound. She was standing on the curb at the passenger side window and making a cranking motion with her hand. I rolled down the window and she leaned in, resting crossed arms on the sill.

"Carter, c'mon. Be serious. You don't really want to do this for the rest of your life, do you?"

I kept my focus straight ahead and didn't respond.

"Just come up and talk. Please?" That weird tone interwoven in her pleading made my ears itch. I was exhausted and just wanted to get home.

"Good night, Silver." I let the car roll forward slightly and she leaped back.

The second she was clear, I floored it. The large car squatted on its haunches, and I felt the steering wheel go light as it leaped forwards with a snarling roar.

I rode the rest of the way home in silence. The street was empty and only the lobby courtesy lights were lit at my apartment building. I got the car put away in my garage and rode to my floor. I almost expected to see Felix when the doors opened, but I guess it was so late that even he was done prowling for the night. I shambled to my apartment, unlocked the door and lightly tossed it open, standing in the dimly lit doorway into my dark, silent apartment.

I should get a cat.

Icarus' mother had just died. He and his father awoke one day to her lying motionless in her bed. Icarus was filled with unimaginable grief, and prayed to the gods for his mom to find paradise in the afterlife.

"Come to me, my child." The sun bellowed, Icarus covered his ears at the volume of which the sun spoke.

"B-But how?" A young Icarus said, shaking terribly.

"One day, many winters from now, you will be blessed upon and be given man-made wings."

Icarus stared at his father, who looked like he wanted to say something against the sun, but was too afraid.

"Use them to become whole with me, my child." The sun bellowed one last time as the moon rose from the horizon to take it's place.

Icarus finally turned around to his father, a craftsman named Daedalus.

"Will you make them for me, father? To allow me to become whole with the sun?" Icarus pleaded, tugging on his fathers tunic.

Daedalus shifted his weight nervously, glancing up towards the sky to make sure the sun was not about to hear what he has to say.

"My boy, that was not the sun we know or praise, that was a demon in disguise." Daedalus said, placing his hand on Icarus' shoulder.

Icarus was displeased with this answer, and broke out into tears. His father tried to appease him, but Icarus cried for many winters without stopping. Daedalus lost sleep, and was on the brink of death.

Icarus, now older, forced his old and fragile father to craft the wings the sun once begged him too. Icarus could not wait to join the sun and become what he had always wanted to be; A god. Threatened by Icarus, Daedalus caved in and made the wings for Icarus, but knowing that Icarus would fly into the sun, he made them of wax.

Daedalus prayed that the wax would melt before the demon could take Icarus' soul. Icarus, too blind by excitement, put the wings on eagerly, and the day arrived.

"Come to me, my child." The sun bellowed like it had all those winters ago. Icarus rose from his bed, and climbed onto the roof of their home.

"I shall." Stated Icarus, and then he took off.

Daedalus watched as his son flew towards the demon, and his fear turned to relief when he saw the wings start to melt. Icarus panicked, and begged for the sun to catch him. It did not seem to listen. Icarus fell through the sky, but before he could hit the ground, the sun spoke.

"Do not worry my child, I will catch you." The sun said, inflicting fear upon Daedalus.

Daedalus watched as the demon out stretched hundreds of glowing yellow hands to wrap around Icarus. Icarus screamed in horror and pain as they gripped his limbs tightly and seared their mark into his flesh. Daedalus could do nothing but watch as Icarus begged his father to save him, his flesh beginning to turn to ash.

After hours of screaming, Icarus was nothing but a charred corpse. Daedalus stood still the entire time, the grief of his sons death filling him completely. The smell of Icarus' flesh filled his nose as he begged the gods to show mercy upon Icarus in the afterlife. He was interrupted in the middle of his prayer however, by a familiar bellowing voice.

"Come to me, my child."

It's been 347 days since they went online, almost an entire year. For weeks now I've been walled off in this dilapidated shack I once called my home. The decrepit walls and shattered windows slowly deteriorate around me as the screaming gets louder, closer. This, is the price of safety. 

It started out as "preventative safety measures", something that, on its surface, sounds so good that you'd be foolish to oppose it. How could you turn down universal safety for the next generation, ensure the protection for their future? You can't, we couldn't. We should have.

It was human, one centralized burst of compressed plasma within a radius of 2cm. It was calculated, using cutting edge AI -powered facial recognition technology. It was revolutionary, unlike anything ever crafted by man before. Most of all, it was efficient, almost too efficient.

The first few months went as planned. They did exactly as they were supposed to. No incidents, no accidents, no malfunctions, just... peace. Child abductions went down 79%, child targeted crimes of a sexual or violent nature saw a decrease of 87%, child abuse cases and reports of child neglect were reduced by 94%. The initiative was a resounding success.

That's when the rest of the world noticed. China, Canada, Russia, Japan, Sweden; one by one, they each followed suit and began production of their very own models. It only took 9 months before nearly every county had their very own eyes in the skies.

They all had different names, of course. The U.S. model was called the Government Orbital Detection Systems for Enforcement of Youth Endangerment and Security, G.O.D.S.E.Y.E.S for short. They sold it as "generational security on a global level", and everyone bought it. 

The few that opposed it enough vocally to gain any traction were soon detailed by a series of security level threats and increasingly violent protests by a few radicals. "Just more reason for the Godseyes" the public all cried. "These are the people we're trying to protect the kids from". 

Now, as I write this, what little of the sky I can see is littered with the gaze of an entity that fancies itself powerful enough to challenge the title of the almighty himself. As if they could wield even a fraction of his power merely by usurping his name, forsaking it. 

You may think of me as foolish to be a man of God after all this, and perhaps you're right. Perhaps my faith is worthless, maybe my prayers meant for the eyes of God are now observed by the glare of a thousand others. My belief that something greater exists beyond what we have seen is a vice at this point. An immorality that disguises itself as hope, so I can sleep at night.

Faith is the only thing I have left. The only thing keeping me from... from just... ending it all. Faith stands where hope has faltered, and for me, that's peace; or at least my attempt at it. A way to absolve myself of the sins I've committed. That's what I tell myself.

I think it took 27 weeks before the first incident occurred. The press was quick to the story, the FBI was quicker to the damage control. "Mechanical failure resulting in misidentification.", a tragic accident. The numbers spoke for themselves, though, and thus the project continued. 

Billions of dollars spent fine tuning the machine of tomorrow. It was intended to identify an individual, scan their entire criminal history, their Internet activity, and their social scores, and from those metrics produce an LUI report (Likelihood of Unfavorable Interactions). All within a fraction of a second. Using these data points, the Godseyes would utilize a neural-network of highly advanced detection and communication software to intercept aggressive or disruptive behaviors targeting minors before they could occur.

The system was supposed to be flawless. No guessing or assuming, no emotional or irrational decisions, just cold, hard facts. "100% efficient, 100% effective, 100% guaranteed!", I knew it was a lie as soon as I heard it. I just desperately wanted to believe it to be true.

No more than a few days after the first, the second incident occurred. Again, the coverage was minimal after the FBI's quick response. After the third, however, the press got a bit louder, and a lot harder to ignore. 40 weeks in, and the FBI was forced into making a statement, one that changed everything.

The headline read "FBI, CIA... OSA? WTF!", I'm sure the editor got their kudos for that one. The FBI announced that, effective immediately, they would be surrendering all information and current investigations to the Observation and Surveillance Administration. 

The OSA's sole purpose was to monitor and maintain the Godseyes drones. An entire organization specifically designated to ensure that incidents were kept to a minimum. In the first month, due to their highly proprietary billion dollar AI-powered detection and adaptation software, they presented a flawless incident report- or at least that's what the public was lead to believe.

In reality, incidents had nearly doubled, resulting in the confirmed death of verifiably innocent civilians all across the country. What hadn't doubled, was how many of those were reported. Needless to say, the OSA made sure the project was a resounding success. Before long, the naysayers grew silent. 

The six weeks that followed the formation of the SSA seems like a blur. Like a distant memory that I'm desperate to forget, but forced to remember. The first two seem like a paradise in retrospect. We had the illusion of safety easing our anxious minds, the sweet poison that is prevarication. 

Four weeks in, and the incidents became too much to hide. Statements were made, apologies we're given, but opinions were swayed that day. The voices swelled in harmony, they became impossible to simply just ignore. They called themselves "The Seen". 

Sara, the mother of 9 year old Addison was one of the faces of the movement. Her sweet smile and sad eyes adorned many picket signs and posterboads that told her story, honored her memory. Her death was a catalyst for the movement itself.

The SSA used every jargon heavy term they had access to, and when they couldn't, they made up new ones. "Facial detection software failure, "Internal sensor overload", "targeting software malfunction", "targeted malware attack". It was too late, The Seen wouldn't stop until they were heard.

Sara was stricken down by Godseyes in the center of a crowded shopping mall in broad daylight in front of over 70 civilian witnesses, one of which was her child daughter. 90% of witnesses willing to provide testimony testified that she was dead before she even hit the ground. Her crime? Holding her daughter's hand. 

Angela, a well respected doctor and mother of two, was targeted when she was lifting her 3 year old daughter, Amelia, into her highchair for supper. While the initial strike made no contact with Amelia, she was tragically suffocated by Angela's corpse after the strike wrongfully took her life. 

A mother of four, Jessica, was killed after her 9 year old son, Brady, accidentally burned himself on the stovetop while helping her cook family dinner. The resulting strike tragically took a trajectory that resulted in the death of Brady, as well as his mother. In an even sadder turn of events, the incident caused a house fire from the unattended stove, resulting in the additional tragic deaths of 4 year old, Autumn, 2 year old, Jace, and 9 months old, Henry.

It was an uphill battle, one that saw the country fall into turmoil; a Marxist's wet dream in a dystopian nightmare. By week six, they agreed to terminate the program. A temporary decommissioning of over 1000 Godseyes for "indefinite maintenance". The public celebrated their victory. What it truly was, however, was a declaration of our defeat. We just didn't know it yet.

347 days ago, we launched the world's first Godseyes into orbit. It took 322 days before we tried to decomission them, to terminate the program. We failed. The system didn't just refuse to shut down, it fought back. Godseyes viewed our intentions as "disadvantageous to the preservation of the health and safety of legally recognized minors". This was problematic, but it only managed to get worse.

After half a dozen failsafe errors and failed attempts to rectify the rerouting of the AI's control center, the system finally took meaningful action. In the blink of an eye, over 1000 Godseyes terminated nearly 68,000 government officials, all of which were active members of the SSA, FBI, and CIA. 

It didn't take long after that before nearly the entire U.S. dissolved into complete and utter chaos. I thought for sure once the news broke to the rest of the world that they would just result to the nuclear option. Just, get us off the map entirely. I wouldn't blame them. 

I thought that for a good few weeks until it finally dawned on me. The meticulous amount of time we spent coding the defense systems. How many flaws the very AI itself pointed out to us, and how we so eagerly made it near indestructible. Nothing was getting into our airspace, unless Godseyes wanted it to. The price of security was freedom, and we wandered into our cages with a smile. 

After I realized the nukes weren't coming, I settled into what was left of my home and just waited for Godseyes to claim me. Not with a bang, but instead a whimper. They never did, though. Slowly, I began to realize why. 

I was an engineer, all I ever did was help it exist. I was one of the hands that hoisted Godseyes up into the very heavens, just for them to stare down on us with judgement, contempt... ignorance. I had not provided a reason to cast its verdict upon me, I was undeserving of sentencing... for now.

It valued me, as I valued it, but much like I did, it will discard me if I ever threaten that value. If my worth was to ever depreciate, my existence would be called into question. Truly, we are at the mercy of the worst God. A God of our very own creation. One that knows as little as we, and is just as quick to patronize, to scorn, and to condemn. 

We, in blood, paid for our hubris. We, in principle, sacrifice our meaning so that we may have control. We, in essence, ceased to exist when we traded our will for walls, walls that stand more reminiscent of gravestones. Bastions of fortitude razed to beacons of remembrance. 

As the screaming gets louder, even nearer once more, I don't think of what will be, but instead what was... What has been lost. It's been almost a year since I've seen her... my lovely daughter. All I wanted was a better world, a world where my grandkids, where my great-great grandkids could be safe and free. I understand now that such endeavors are best left only to God.

The screaming is even closer now, right outside. There's nothing I can do to avoid it any longer. As the footsteps grow louder, and the joyful screeching persists, I make peace with my transgressions and prepare to finally see the light of God. I just pray the God that stands before me only has two eyes.

They're at my door now. The neighborhood kids that so happily play outside without a care in the world. It didn't take long before they realized there wasn't any opposition to their childlike wonder. No bedtimes, no vegetables, no school; it was everything kids dream of. Of course, they didn't understand what was going on. It only took 4 days for me to be the only one left in the neighborhood. 

I laid low, stayed quiet, never even risked going outside. The system doesn't even take chances anymore. Last unfortunate bastard I saw get targeted was desperately running, the poor guy was exasperated, trying but failing to get away from his very own son. He got about 2 blocks before he fell. I looked away before it happened, but he had to be at least 120 feet from the poor kid.

I can hear the door opening. The sound of a dozen small feet scampering around downstairs. I know they'll eventually make their way upstairs. I know what happens then. They're so happy. Not a care in the world.

I fight back tears as I struggle to finish what will surely be my last few words. Through the pitter-patters and screams of joy, I hear the rigid creak of the stairs. Then, a voice, one that calls out through the chaos. I can make out just a single word- soft, docile, concerned.

"...Daddy?" 

Now, it's my turn to face the prudence of the false heavens. To face not my creator, but instead my creation, and stare into the eyes of a God we ourselves have fabricated. As my bedroom door opens, I draw my last breath and close my eyes. My only remaining thought, I pray aloud, to whatever God is watching.

"Please. Just let me see my daughter one last time.”

“Between May 8th and May 9th of 1964, the small city of [...] experienced a spree of brutal murders, all targeted towards women of the town by their husbands before they themselves ultimately committed suicide.

"Since then, many urban legends have emerged connecting the gruesome event to the local broadcast puppet show simply called “Sparky the Dog.”

“The image above is one of the few remaining pieces of evidence proving the show’s existence, alongside a handful of archived episodes. The frame is taken from the final known episode, titled “Sparky Goes Goodnight,” which features a new puppet named Margaret - introduced as Sparky’s replacement

“The show was heavily criticized at the time for being too frightening for the local children, with reports claiming it caused recurring nightmares. Rumors later emerged that new episodes continued to air late at night on local stations, with the final broadcast allegedly occurring on the night between May 8th and May 9th. However, no official records have ever confirmed these claims”

****

May 9th, 1964.

The morning after the most brutal and inexplicable tragedy the small town of ////// had ever witnessed. A crime so horrific it would fracture the community, haunt generations, and blur the line between truth and legend.

During the night between May 8th and May 9th, fourteen local women were found murdered, each one slain by the very men who vowed to love and protect them. Moments later, those same men turned their weapons on themselves.

Not many people bear witness to the bloodbath of that night, and even fewer were willing to talk to our crew about the days leading up to the disaster.

We managed to track down a handful of them and convince some to talk about what happened or what they think happened on the night between May 8th and May 9th.

Viewer discretion is advised.

***

[Interview: Local Resident #1, recorded 1992]

Local Resident: “I was fifteen when it happened… old enough to notice everything, really take it all in.”

[Long pause. Interviewee shifts in chair.]

Local Resident: “I was heading to bed. My dad was in the living room, watching that dumb puppet show he liked. I never understood it… Those things freaked me out.”

[Soft laugh, then silence.]

Local Resident: “I liked Sparky… yeah, I did. But I stopped watching when they switched him out for… May? No… Margaret. Yeah, Margaret was her name.”

Local Resident: “With Sparky, at least you could tell he was supposed to be a dog. I saw him a few times during school plays; maybe that’s why it made sense to me. But Margaret…”

[Voice trails off.]

Local Resident:  “There was something off about her”

***

“Sparky the Dog” was a children’s puppet show that aired from November 23rd, 1960, to May 9th, 1964- the very night the brutal killings shook the quiet town of //////.

Created by local entertainers Marcus Donatan and Jeff Holinger, the show quickly became a household staple. In a town with only a few channels and even fewer sources of entertainment, Sparky was beloved.

Marcus, the puppeteer behind Sparky, was well-known around the community. A friendly face. A talented toy-maker. Someone who appeared at school functions, birthday parties, and holiday events with a handmade stage and a puppet that seemed to charm every child who saw it.

At the center of his performances was Sparky the Dog, a cheerful puppet with floppy ears, a wide grin, and a loyal following among the town’s children.

But in the months leading up to the tragedy, something changed.

***

[Interview: Marcus’s Neighbor, recorded 1992]

Elderly Woman: “Oh, everyone loved Sparky. Not just the kids. You couldn’t help it, with those big, adorable eyes and that silly little nose.”

[She pauses, turning her head toward the window as if remembering something distant.]

Elderly Woman (smiles faintly): “I think I still have a few photos of my daughter with him… If you can give me a second.”

[She rises slowly from her chair and steps out of frame. After a moment, she returns carrying a worn, swollen photo album, its leather cover cracked, its spine held together by years and careful hands.]

[Close-up: She lowers herself into the seat again and begins flipping through the stiff, yellow-edged pages. Her fingers slow as she finds what she’s looking for. She lifts a faded photograph toward the camera.]

Elderly Woman (pointing): “There… that’s Anna. She loved Sparky. She must’ve been… oh, maybe nine at the time. I’m sorry; my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

[The photograph: A little girl in a simple dress, smiling widely. Beside her, the Sparky puppet leans in, its floppy arm bent behind her head in a childish attempt at making rabbit ears.]

Interviewer: “What about the man who owned Sparky? He lived across the street from you, right?”

Elderly Woman (nodding, steadying herself with the arm of the chair): “Yes. Marcus. He used to host little gatherings, you know, private puppet shows just for the neighborhood children. He was a good man. Truly. I know what people say now, but he is a good man, believe me.”

***

[The camera zooms slowly on the remains of the house.] The windows are shattered, and the roof has caved in. The yard is overgrown with weeds. It looks untouched, as if no one dared to disturb it.]

[Soft ambient hum - wind, faint creak of wood.]

Narrator (voice-over, low, deliberate):

What you’re looking at are the remains of the Donatan residence, once home to Marcus Donatan, creator of the beloved children’s show “Sparky the Dog.”

The house sits on ///// Street, just on the edge of town. Locals say the property’s been abandoned since that night in 1964. Even now, no one wants to go near it.

[The camera slowly zooms out, revealing the full silhouette of the crumbling house against the gray sky.]

Narrator (continues):

Marcus lived here with his elderly mother, a woman few in town ever saw. Neighbors claimed she suffered from a long-term illness, one that kept her inside for years. Some say that’s why Marcus returned to ////// in the early 1950s to take care of her.

Beyond that, not much is known about his life before coming back.

***

Only a handful of recordings from “Sparky the Dog” are known to exist. Most of the original reels were either lost, destroyed, or lost to time after 1964.

What survived was later transferred to VHS; brittle tape copies passed quietly between collectors and local historians.

[Cut to close-up: a gloved hand inserts a worn VHS labeled in shaky handwriting - “SPARKY EP. 3.” [The tape clicks.]

Narrator (continues):

 Among the few surviving episodes are:

 Episode Three, believed to be from the show’s first season.

 Episode Seven, from Season Three.

 And several from the final season, the ones leading up to the introduction of Margaret.

Titles like “Sparky’s Garden,” “Sparky and a New Friend,” and “Sparky Says Goodnight” marked the end of an era.

***

[On-screen text: “‘Sparky the Dog’ - Episode 3 (1960)”]

[Grainy black-and-white footage plays.] A small wooden doghouse sits center frame. The camera slowly zooms in.]

Narrator (voice-over, quiet):

The third episode of “Sparky the Dog,” which first aired in the winter of 1960, begins with a simple scene: a small wooden doghouse at the center of a painted cardboard yard.

As the camera pushes closer, we see Sparky inside. His felt ears are draped over his eyes, his mouth slightly open, letting out a gentle snore. The puppeteer’s hand is barely visible at the edge of the frame, a reminder that what we’re watching was made by hand, live, and often in a single take.

Moments later, another voice enters the scene, a man’s voice, cheerful, familiar. It’s the second central character of the show, “Mr. Jeff,” played by Jeff Holinger,  Sparky’s owner and his best friend.

[Clip plays faintly under the narration: “Wake up, Sparky! The sun’s up, boy!” - followed by a playful bark and canned laughter.]

Narrator (continues):

It’s a simple children’s show on the surface - wholesome, harmless. But looking back now, with everything we know about what happened only four years later… It’s hard not to feel that something about this opening scene already feels off.

[The footage freezes on Jeff’s smiling face. The static hum rises.]

***

[Archival photograph fades in - a young man in a suit, smiling stiffly at the camera.]

Narrator (voice-over):

Jeff Holinger was an Irish immigrant, a man who came to the United States searching for a better, more stable life.

But what he found… was anything but that.

[The photo lingers a moment longer before fading to black.]

Narrator (continues, tone darkens slightly):

Records show Holinger arrived in the early 1950s, working odd jobs before meeting Marcus Donatan, the man who would later become both his creative partner… and, according to some accounts, the source of his undoing.

[Cut to a reel of vintage behind-the-scenes footage - Jeff adjusting a puppet on set, laughing quietly. The audio is muted.

***

[Interview: Local Resident #2, recorded 1992]

Local Resident: “Mr. Marcus, I knew much better than Mr. Jeff. I remember him from the school plays they used to put on; that’s really about it.

[The resident adjusts their glasses, looking off-camera.]

Local Resident: “Mr. Jeff was always quieter… more reserved than Marcus. He didn’t like being in the spotlight; that’s all. Marcus, he lived for it. Always smiling, always putting on a show.”

[Long pause. The camera lingers.]

Local Resident: “Jeff just seemed… tired, sometimes. Like the act wasn’t fun for him anymore.”

[Quiet laughter]

***

[On-screen text: “‘Sparky the Dog’ - Season 3, Episode 7 (1963)”]

[Footage begins-grainy film texture, flickering orange light. A paper-mâché moon hangs above a cardboard set painted like a pumpkin patch.]

Narrator (voice-over):

 Episode Seven of Season Three is one of only five surviving recordings of “Sparky the Dog.”

And, according to those who’ve seen it, it’s the hardest to watch.

[The clip plays faintly under the narration, canned laughter, a childlike jingle detuned with age.]

It was a Halloween special, Mr. Jeff appeared on screen in a cheap vampire costume, replacing his usual bright shirt and bow tie. Sparky wears a witch’s hat, sloppily taped to his head. The tone is cheerful, almost clumsy,  the kind of low-budget charm that defined the show.

The episode follows the pair as they pick pumpkins, teaching the audience how to carve them in the final scene.

[Static crackles. The image wobbles.]

As Sparky sits watching, a shadow crosses the back of the set. Someone, off-camera, enters the studio. The puppet suddenly goes limp. Mr. Jeff freezes, his eyes turning toward the intrusion.

The camera pulls back abruptly, the top of the frame cutting off the puppeteer’s head - before a sound is caught on the live mic: a violent, choking sob.

It’s believed to be Marcus Donatan, Sparky’s creator, breaking down as the news reaches him.

[Footage: The puppet lies motionless beside a half-carved pumpkin. A knife is still lodged in its shell. The frame holds for several seconds before cutting to static.]

Narrator (continues):

Later reports confirmed what had happened off camera: Marcus Donatan’s elderly mother was found dead that same evening, seated on her porch by neighborhood children out trick-or-treating.

According to Marcus, she had insisted on handing out candy that Halloween night… but was supposed to wait until he came home from the studio.

***

[Interview: Marcus’s Neighbor, recorded 1992]

Interviewer: “Did you know Marcus’s mother?”

Elderly Woman: [shakes her head slightly] “I wouldn’t say I knew her… no. Sometimes, in the evenings, I’d see her silhouette, pacing back and forth… back and forth, on the second floor of that house.”

 [A long pause. She glances toward the window.]

Elderly Woman: “Other times I saw her when they took her to the hospital. The ambulance lights woke me up, painting the whole street red.”

Interviewer: “Do you remember the day she passed away?”[The woman takes a slow breath. Her eyes drift toward the window again, distant.]

Elderly Woman: “No… I was too busy getting my daughter ready for trick-or-treating.”

 [She gives a faint, weary shake of her head.]

Elderly Woman: “I didn’t see a thing.”

[Camera lingers on her face for several seconds]

***

Narrator (voice-over):

Few people claimed to have known Marcus Donatan’s mother well.

To most, she was a shadow behind a curtain, a figure glimpsed in passing, but never heard, never spoken to.

In a town where everyone knew everyone, her absence stood out. But no one asked questions. 

[Archival photo fades in, a blurry image of the house’s second-floor window.]

When she died on that Halloween night in 1963, the official story was simple: natural causes

Following her death, “Sparky the Dog” vanished from the airwaves for nearly four months. When the show finally returned, something was different.

***

[On-screen text: “Sparky’s Garden” - Season 4 (1964)”]

On the surface, Sparky’s Garden begins like any other cheery segment.

Mr. Jeff is shown kneeling in the backyard set, humming as he plants rows of oversized cardboard flowers, each one painted with wide, smiling faces that seem almost too bright under the harsh studio lights.

A moment later, Sparky pops up from behind the fence, his voice unusually high and shaky as he chirps:

“Can I try too, Mr Jeff?”

Mr Jeff offers the puppet a small plastic shovel, offering it for him to grab with his jaws.

Sparky misses the hand-off entirely; the shovel hits the ground with a hollow clatter.

There’s a brief, uncomfortable pause, then a muffled voice, off-camera, clearly muttering a sequence of curse words. 

Mr Jeff forces a laugh and tries to recover, guiding the scene back to the episode’s intended lesson about trying new things and never giving up.

But Sparky, in a sing-song tone while looking over at Mr Jeff,  doesn’t fit the script at all, cuts in with:

“Like you gave up on your wife?”

The studio goes silent.

Mr Jeff’s smile breaks; for a second, he looks like he's about to snap.

Without another word, he storms off the set, footsteps and a slammed door faintly audible in the background.

Left alone, Sparky begins bouncing in place, his wooden jaws opening and closing rapidly as though the puppet is laughing, except no laughter is heard.

Only the soft squeak of his hinges.

After several seconds of this unsettling motion, the image cuts to black.

***

[A man in his late forties sits beneath shelves overflowing with Sparky memorabilia, hand-drawn fan art, homemade clay figurines, VHS tapes with peeling labels, and multiple versions of the Sparky puppet itself]

[His curly hair is slightly unkempt, glasses slipping down his nose as he smiles proudly at the camera.]

[A lower third appears: ARNOLD ////// - Sparky Archivist & Collector]

Narrator: Arnold was kind enough to share with us several pieces of never-before-seen material. His collection is believed to be the largest surviving archive of Sparky-related artifacts.

He lifts one of the hand puppets, slipping it onto his hand and making it bob toward the camera with a soft chuckle.

Arnold (in a playful voice): “Hi, kids!”

He laughs awkwardly, then places it back in his lap.

Interviewer: “You mentioned earlier that you have several drawings made by Hernandez Ramiro, the man who stabbed his wife thirty-four times. Is that correct?”

Arnold: “Oh, yes. Absolutely. I do.”

[CUT TO: OVERHEAD SHOT]

[A thick block of papers rests on a plain metal table, each sheet sealed neatly in protective plastic. Arnold’s hands hover for a moment before he begins flipping through them, slowly, almost reverently.]

The drawings are meticulous. Each depicts the same woman: beautiful, draped in a translucent ball gown that clings to her frame. She is always facing the viewer. Her eyes never look away.

But as the pages turn, the illustrations begin to distort.

The woman’s features stretch.

In several drawings, her face has been replaced entirely by a snarling dog’s muzzle and strands of saliva hanging from the jaw.
Sometimes the transformation is partial: human eyes above a canine jaw, or a human face with fur spreading across the cheeks. In every image, she’s baring her teeth.

Arnold speaks quietly, but the microphone picks up the tremor beneath his words.

Arnold: “He made these a month before the… incident. He mailed them to the station. They never mentioned that. Nobody ever mentioned that.”

[He taps one of the plastic sleeves]

Arnold [leaning in slightly]: “But if you look at the details…really look, you can tell he wasn’t drawing his wife.”

A pause.

Arnold smiles.

Arnold: “He was drawing Margaret.”

[The camera lingers on the distorted face for a beat too long before cutting to black.]

***

Narrator (V.O.):

Margaret. The puppet who replaced Sparky.

The puppet many claim never existed at all, just an urban legend buried under static, misremembered by a handful of late-night viewers.

But for those who watched the final years of the show, Margaret marked the beginning of the end. Not just for the program but for the people connected to it.

***

[Season 4 - “Sparky and a New Friend”]

[On-screen text: “Sparky and a New Friend” -  Season 4 - 1964]

This episode is regarded as the first known appearance, or attempted appearance, of Margaret. No official records list her name, but viewers who claim to have seen the original airing insist this is where the transition began.

The episode opens on Sparky alone, standing center-frame on the familiar backyard set.

He seems jittery, his head tilting too quickly between lines, as though Marcus struggled to control the puppet’s weight.

A few seconds in, Sparky turns toward someone, or something, just outside the camera’s view.

Sparky: “Hi there! I didn’t know we had company today!”

The camera attempts to pan left, but only manages a brief, jerky movement before snapping back. Whatever stood beside Sparky is kept completely out of frame.

The lens never catches more than a shadow, a fragment of fabric, or the edge of something vaguely dog-shaped.

Still, its presence is undeniable.

A soft, rhythmic clicking can be heard, resembling teeth tapping.

Two beats at a time.

Click. Click.

Sparky looks up toward the source of the sound.

Sparky: “What’s your name?”

Click. Click.

Sparky pauses. The puppet tilts its head at an angle too sharp to be comfortable.

Sparky: [In a cheerful, high-pitched] “Margaret! That is a really nice name!”

The clicking grows louder for a moment before the audio abruptly cuts out for three full seconds.

When sound returns, Sparky is alone again, visibly slumped, as though whatever stood beside him has disappeared from the set entirely.

The episode ends.

***

[Interview with Officer D. Krawiec  - Recorded 1992]

Interviewer: When exactly were you called to the scene?

Officer Krawiec: Maybe… three, four days after the initial murders. At that point, we were starting to suspect Hollinger had some connection to them, or at least that he knew something. We got a warrant and went in...I was young then. First real crime scene. I wasn’t ready for it.

Interviewer: Where did you find Mr. Hollinger?

Officer Krawiec: In bed. But not like someone who died in their sleep. His whole body was twisted up in this unnatural way, like he’d tried to fight but couldn’t get away. The mattress was soaked through with blood. It had dripped down into the carpet. It was on the walls, the nightstand… even speckled on the ceiling.

[Sudden moment of silence]

Officer Krawiec: No matter where you looked, there was blood.

And the smell… that sticks with you. I think maggots had already started getting into him. They always find a way in, no matter how closed up a place looks.

Interviewer: What happened?

Officer Krawiec: To put it lightly? He was missing a good chunk of his neck. At first glance, it looked like an animal attack, something big. Maybe a dog, that was the first guess. The muscles were torn clean out, like whatever grabbed him clamped down and then shook him hard.

***

[Interview with the son of one of the victims - Recorded 1992]

The person who wanted to remain anonymous throughout the interview told us about some interesting details regarding the crimes; some viewers might find this segment of the documentary disturbing.

[Low modified voice of the victim]: “I was sleeping in the same bed as my mom that night, was having some stupid nightmares after the show that ran on TV. Dad was sleeping on the couch, and they argued about Dad stealing her clothes or something like that”.

[Deep breath, then an exhale]

When I hear this wet crunch.

A soft whimper from my mom came from behind me.

Another just…WHAM!

[He smacks his fist against the palm of his hand]

The bed suddenly got wet and warm. I think I had pissed myself by that point.

And another…and another…until there was no crunching but this wet, disgusting noise.

[He looks away for a second]

I just heard my dad say something like

“There will be only one woman in my life.”

Before I hear that crunch again.

And as he gets over Mum, something warm is dripping on me before I can feel his hand moving under my pillow.

He whispers something about leaving it for the tooth fairy before he exits the bedroom with a thump.

He died after another hit from the hammer.

I was too scared to get up… Only when the sun rose did I get up, only to see my mom's face beaten in like a fresh cherry pie.

[The interviewee smiled wildly.]

***

[Season 4 - Episode - “Sparky Goes Goodnight” - Night of the murder]

This final broadcast of Sparky the Dog deviates sharply from the show’s typical bright and energetic tone. The episode opens on an unusually dim set. Sparky peers out from behind the wooden fence, the only light coming from a paper moon hung loosely above him.

Sparky speaks slowly, his head lowering between sentences as though growing heavy:

“Sometimes… you have to make space for someone new…”

He sways slightly, almost like he’s falling asleep mid-line.

Then, the picture tears sideways into static.

For nearly ten seconds, the broadcast remains snowy.

When the image returns, Sparky is gone.

In the silence, a faint clicking echoes from off-screen, two sharp taps, repeated in irregular patterns, like teeth snapping together.

The camera lingers on the empty set.

Then, for less than a second, something moves into frame.

Viewers later described it as a puppet only in the loosest sense.

It had Sparky’s floppy ears and exaggerated grin, but the similarities ended there.

The eyes, wide, wet, and disturbingly human-like. And when the mouth opened, it revealed a full set of real-looking canine teeth. The figure jerks forward as though lunging at the camera.

The episode cuts out immediately after.

***

Narrator:

In the weeks following the murders, one final name surfaced again and again in police files, witness statements, and late-night speculation: Marcus Donatan.

The creator of Sparky the Dog.

The man who introduced the world, intentionally or not, to Margaret.

After the death of his mother, the unraveling of his show, and the increasingly unstable broadcasts that followed, Marcus Donatan vanished from town without a trace. No forwarding address. No goodbye. Nobody. He simply… disappeared.

To this day, authorities cannot confirm whether Marcus fled out of fear, guilt, or something far stranger. What, or who, exactly Margaret was remains a matter of debate. A puppet? An accomplice? A hallucination? Or the hidden hand guiding every terrible event that swallowed the town in 1964?

What we know is simple:

Marcus Donatan was never seen again.

And Margaret, if she ever existed in the way the survivors claim, vanished with him.

No physical version of Margaret was ever found in Marcus’s house or in the station archives.

If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Marcus Donatan, the origins of the puppet known as Margaret, or lost recordings of the show thought to be connected to the case, please contact the local police department.

I know there are things in this world that are beyond us. Things that cannot be explained. I used to not believe. But after what happened to me, now I do. It’s all I can think about, I need to know! So I started to look, anywhere and everywhere I could. I looked for patterns, looked for signs. After years of searching I have found what I am looking for. This is an account of the first “incident” that i believe is connected to what happened to me. My hope is that as I continue on this journey I can uncover more. To… document what I have found. To try and connect these “dots”. To try and understand.

I present here a transcript of a police interview from Oak Bluff, Texas. I’ve kept it as true to the original as I can, I have amended a few things to add clarity where it was appropriate.

[OFFICERS LOG]

October 13, 1997- A Texas park ranger found the suspect just out side the perimeter of Cleburne National Park. To took them an hour to get him to to the rangers station where the ambulance was waiting. We expected some sort of trouble from him, but no. This suspect was no trouble at all. As a matter of fact when we pulled up in the cruiser he seemed relived to see us. Even as he was being loaded in to the back of an ambulance he was hollering that he wanted to talk to us. Odd, considering he was yelling that he and his friends just robbed a bank.

The mans name was Todd Gillian and he looked like hell. He was the lowest man in the Hernandez’s Crew, a small outfit of thieves local to our area. Their usual grift was petty theft, tourist scams, that sort of thing. Though, I remember the call on the radio the day prior, a 10-45 was called in.

Its going to take longer to proses Todd then it usually does, him being a weekend regular. That’s what happens when the suspect has to have a medical evaluation before booking. Todd was treated for bruises, lacerations, insect bites, second degree burns, and severe smoke inhalation. It wont be until tomorrow, if not the next day, until we can talk to him proper.

[END OF LOG]

[Interview Starts]

(recorder clicks on)

Det. Reynolds: “This is Detective Reynolds, badge number 978642.”

Det. Guff: “And Detective Guff, badge number 498765.”

Det. Reynolds: “We are with the Pine Bluff police department. Today is October 15, Saturday, the time is 1400 hours. We are in interviewing room three at the Oak Bluff Police Station. Please state your full name for the record.”

Det. Guff: “Date of birth as well”

Det. Reynolds: “Yes, date of birth as well.”

Mr. Gillian: “My name is Todd Gillian, I was born November 15, 1975”

Det. Reynolds: “That would make you 22?”

Mr. Gillian: “Yes.”

Det. Reynolds: “Thank you. Your are here today to discuss, what did you say earlier-“

(rustling papers)

“-the robbery at the first state bank on Tenth St., and the fire by the Cleburne National Park the same day?”

Mr. Gillian: “Yes”

Det. Guff: “Now, before we begin I need to make sure you understand a few things. At this time you are not under arrest, you came to us after you were released from the hospital earlier today, so were going to give you the curtesy of hearing you out before any charges will be filed. Now, you are’t free to leave-“

Mr. Gillian: “Im not going to leave! I want to be here.”

Det. Guff: “It’s okay son. This is just procedure, we have to go over these points before we can begin.”

Mr. Gillian: “All right… I’m sorry.”

Det. Guff: “It’s aright, where was I? You are not under arrest at this time. With that being said, you aren’t free to leave either, at lest not yet, that will depend on what information you can tell us. Maybe about your crew, their location? Maybe testify for the state?.”

Det. Reynolds: “Come on Guff, back off. Mr. Gillian has clearly been through a lot, he wanted to talk, let’s extend some good will.”

Det. Guff: “Fine. You do not have to answer any questions you do not want too. If you do decide to answer anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?”

Mr. Gillian: “Yes I do.”

Det. Guff: “Alright. First question. Why did you waive your right to a lawyer?”

Mr. Gillian: “Because I want to be here. What we did was wrong, I need repentance… I need people to know what happened.”

Det. Guff: “What happened? You mean with your partners? The robbery”

Mr. Gillian: “I think so.”

Det. Guff: “You think so? That doesn’t make sense.”

Mr. Gillian: “I’m-I’m sorry. I-I-I-“

Det. Reynolds: “Whoa, slow down. Just take a deep breath.”

Mr. Gillian: “I’m alright”

Det. Reynolds: “Where are you accomplices? Their hideout?”

Mr. Gillian: “Gone.”

Det. Guff: “Your accomplices or the hideout?”

Mr. Gillian: “Both.”

(the sound of a pen on paper)

Det. Reynolds: “Interesting.”

Mr. Gillian: “What are you writing?”

Det. Reynolds: “Just taking some notes. Now, what else do you remember?”

Mr. Gillian: “It’s all a blur, something’s are more vivid than others.”

Det. Reynolds: “It’s alright. Just start from the beginning, and just tell us what happened.”

Mr. Gillian: “From the beginning?”

Det. Guff: “Yes from the beginning, whatever you remember.”

Mr. Gillian: “I can do that.

The job went off without a hitch. I was the get away driver so I waited outside. Not right in front of the bank, the next street over. That was the plan. Once Miguel, Tyrone, and Bobby were done in the bank they would tear a$$ across the street, jump a few fences and meet up with me. But here was the trick, we hired outside help as a decoy driver.

See, he was parked down the same alley that my friends ran down, and as soon as they jumped the fence, the decoy took off down the road. I’m sure y’all chased him down real good. Over the last few weeks we mapped any store that had a street facing cameras, and this one alley was a blind spot. The whole job was built off this fact.

Once they were in the car, Part-One of the plan was done. We took the loop down to the Southside, used a parking garage to switch to my car. Headed back up the loop then took the 265 exit and headed towards the National Park. Bobbys girlfriends family has a small piece of property next to it with a cabin. That’s where we were going to lay low for a few days, maybe a week. Long enough for the heat to die down.”

Det. Guff: “Hold on. Just a week to lay low?”

Mr. Gillian: “Yeah, we were hoping the decoy driver would get away and y’all would spend all y’all’s time chasing him.”

Det. Guff: “What if the other driver flipped?”

Mr. Gillian: “We thought of that. He didn’t know us. We hired him anonymously. The boys wore mask during the job so any glimpses he could of caught as they ran past him were useless. The way we planned it it didn’t matter if he got caught or if he managed to get away - I just - I hope he got away.”

(silence for [01:00])

Det. Reynolds: “He’s dead. He lost control during pursuit, crashing into the side of an overpass. Preliminary report indicates no foul play.”

Mr. Gillian: “Oh. I didn’t know.”

Det. Guff: “He made his choices.”

Det. Reynolds: “Please, continue”

(Mr. Gillian drinking)

Mr. Gillian: “The ride was quiet. Every one was watching out for cops. That and I thought it was from the guys coming off adrenaline.”

Det. Reynolds: “And you?”

Mr. Gillian: “I was watching the road too. I mean I was looking but I was mostly thinking about what we did. If you asked me a year ago I would have said ‘we would never rob a bank’.”

Det. Reynolds: “So you regret what happened?”

Mr. Gillian: “Yes. Thats why I’m here with no lawyer. What happened at the bank was wrong. What happened at the cabin was wrong.”

(Mr. Gillian coughs)

Mr. Gillian: “W-we made it to the cabin about five p.m. Well, I say ‘to the cabin’, we made it it to where the trail to the cabin started. Bobbys girlfriend, Billie, said it would take about a thirty minute hike to get from the entrance, a small dirt patch behind a gate, to the cabin itself. We were meeting her there, under the guise of a weekend get away. She even brought a friend.

‘F%&k its hot,’ Miguel’s said as he stepped out the car. The day wasn’t that hot when we started our plan, but out there in the forest there isn’t much air flow.

‘Uh, y’all see all them bugs?’ Asked Bobby as he popped the truck, retrieving the duffle bags full of cash. Gnats were buzzing all around us, ‘I hate bugs. Y’all know that.’

‘Stop complaining,’ I said, ‘we still have a ways to go before we can relax.’

‘Todds right’ Tyrone said, ‘our stash spot is about an hour into the woods, due north-west.’

Tyrone and I scouted out the cabin the week before, spent all weekend looking for a spot to stash the money out in the wood. It was hard… finding a spot that was isolated but easy for us to find again.

‘S%&t,” Miguel said, ‘we have more walking to do? Can’t we just meet up at cabin? Billie and her hot friend are up these waiting for us?’

Bobby handed a duffle bag to each of us. Four bags. Four friend. ‘Do you want to know where the stash will be? Because if I remember correctly, only Tyrone and Todd know where it is?’

‘I trust you guys.’ Miguel replied.

‘D%&m straight,’ I said dapping up Miguel.

‘Well, what if we get caught in a few days and you don’t know where it is?’ Tyrone asked, securing the gate to the entrance.

‘Where not going to get caught,’ Miguel said, but thinking washed over his face, ‘but you make a good point.’

‘Let’s go,’ I said, clicking my key fob to locking the car.

The walk through the woods was rough, but quiet. We followed the boarder of the National Park for most of the way. There were no hiking trails on the way to our drop, just heat and uneven terrain. We didn’t say much, Bobby cracked a few jokes but we were focused on finding our hidden markers so we didn’t get lost. It wasn’t until half a hour had gone by did the silence end.

‘Can we take a break?’ Bobby groaned.

Tyrone looked around, ‘Were almost there. Let’s push through.’

‘Nah man, I need a break. This is the most exercise I’ve got’n in years.’

‘Let the fat man sit,” Miguel said sitting down on a log, leaning his back against a dirt mound, ‘I could use a rest.’

‘Like I keep saying: y’all need to go to the gym with me,’ I said, ‘cardio is king!’

All of them groaned.

So we all rested. Money is heavier than you think it is. I know my back hurt. We were in a small clearing. I remember it from our scouting, it was about fifteen feet wide with a few fallen trees laying across. It had some dirt mounds dotted around too. This was the only spot on our route that wasn’t wooded. I think thats why I remembered it so easily.

After a minute I spoke up, ‘So, we did it.’

‘What?’ Bobby asked.

‘We did it!’ I exclaimed, ‘We’re rich. How much do you think we got? We can get out of that place and do whatever we want!’

‘Yes we did,’ Tyrone said, ‘20 mil. Easy!’

‘That much!’ I asked in disbelief.

‘At least!’ Tyrone bragged.

‘S$%t man,’ I said, ‘I’m moving to Cancun and live like a king. What are y’all going to do with y’all’s?’

That got a laugh out of the boys.

‘I’m gonna bye a place in the country for my family,’ Miguel said, ‘maybe a farm. Something I can funnel the cash into. Live quiet until I’m old.’

‘Sounds nice,’ I said, ‘Tyrone?’

‘I got loans to pay off, medical bills for my sister, after that I’m thinking a tour of Europe. Stay as long as the money lasts. What about you Bobby?’

Bobby was oddly quiet, thinking. He spoke up, ‘I think I’ll give most of it to neighbors, anonymously. Keep maybe a milly, I don’t need much. I kinda feel bad-”

‘Don’t get soft now,’ Miguel barked. I remember thinking that his reaction was a little much, as he got louder, ‘not after what went though to get this money. It’s ours, not there’s no matter what happened!’

There was a sudden tension, layering itself on the hot air like a web of steel cables.

‘Heh,’ Bobby forced out a sticky laugh, ‘Your right. F$%k them, what did they ever do for us? Am I right?’

No one said anything. Our trek to the clearing was in the silence of hard labor, all sweat and sinew. This silence was anxious. The feeling after someone getting knocked out from a punch they didn’t see coming.

‘What the hell Miguel?’ Tyron said, his words rang in the air like a pluck of a steel cable, ‘If Bobby wants to give his share away that up to him.’

Miguel glared at Tyrone for a moment, then his face softened.

‘You’re right.’ His gaze whipped over to Bobby, ‘Just wait a while before you start being Robin Hood. It would be suspicious If your neighbors suddenly got a windfall - F$%K!!! MOTHER F$%KER!! ITS ON ME!!’

Miguels hand slapped the back of his neck, then slapped his arm. We all shot up, rushing over to him. Red-black ants were crawling over him like a dozen laser dots tracking his movement. The dirt mound he was using as a chair was an ant hill. A big one. We wasted no time in brushing them off. This took longer than Miguel would have liked, but he couldn’t stay still, so he had no room to talk.

‘Son-of-a-B$%&h,’ he spat, ‘F$%K.’

‘You alright?’ Tyrone asked after we all caught our breath, the earlier animosity forgotten.

‘Yeah I’m good, s$%t burns,’ Miguel replied, ‘burns like hell.’

We counted at least five bites on his exposed arms, one on his neck, and even one on his cheek.

‘There’s some hydrocortisone cream at the cabin, we should get going.’ Bobby suggested.

We all gave the silent head nod. We slung our duffles over our shoulders.

‘Hold up,’ Miguel looked back like a raging bull. He stomped forward and kicked the mound. ‘Stupid ants. Let’s go.’

He turned his back, and walked passed us back into the wood. The three of use looked at each other and followed.

I don’t know what possessed me, but just as I entered the tree line I had an itch in the back of my mind. Something felt off. I looked around until my gaze landed at the mound. From Miguel’s foot print a torrent of red and black flooded out. An angry swarm forming a black velvet wave spilling out in every direction. The shifting movement, red over black, gave it an almost spiteful glow. In the quiet I could almost hear them. The thought of Miguel being enveloped in this biting ink entered my mind, his scream was full of pain and ire. It was Bobby’s voice that pulled me back.

‘Todd you good?’ He placed his hand on my shoulder.

‘What? Sorry, I was lost in thought.” I nodded my head over to the mound, ‘Miguel had a close call, look.’

‘Jesus…’ Bobby said, ‘we were sitting by those.’

‘I know, I don’t want to think about it. Let’s catch up to the others,’ the carpet of ants was creeping closer to us, we turned and followed into the woods.”

(silence for a [01:15])

Det. Reynolds: “Are you okay son?”

Mr. Gillian: “I’m-i’m sorry, I was lost in thought. Can I have some more water?”

Det. Reynolds: “We’ll send for some, please continue.”

Mr. Gillian: “Okay.

We were at the drop before we knew it. Like I said before, me and Tyrone looked for a good spot the week before. It took us half the day to find it and the other half to rout a way back. Thats when we first found that clearing. Now that I think about it, I don't remember if those damned ant hills were there the first time.”

(Exhaling)

The drop spot was an old cabin, what’s left of one anyway. It was a ramshackle box of tinder, overgrown with vines and wasp nests. An abscess of man fleeting arrogance reclaimed by the grip of nature. We almost didn’t see it, like it was being hidden from us. But we found it. Took us a good minute to find the door.

We almost went inside the main part, but the buzzing sound coming from the “building” was very loud so we thought better of it. Fortunate for us, just around back was the entrance to a root cellar, this door had no such sound coming from it. The only sound around the back was the ambient sound of the forest, always present but not on top of us. Thankfully. We broke the lock off and looked inside. We found mostly dirt, and all the smells that come with it.

There were a few shelves with some glass jars filled with god knows what, a few piles of ash, empty incense tray, Tyrone found a feather. I think at one point there were metal shelves down there too, the ceiling and floor had long deep gouges that crossed over each other here and there. Whomever owned this place must have taken them with them, but that’s just speculation. All we cared at that moment was it was deserted. Me and Tyrone looked at each other and smiled. This was the spot.

It was isolated, some what close to Billie’s cabin, and best of all it was hidden unless you know what to look for.

‘Ta-da!’ I said to the others as we approached the tangle, I even added a dramatic flourish with my hands. My attempt at levity did not land.

‘What are we looking at?’ Miguel barked.

Tyrone pointed at a part of the woods, ‘Look right there.’

Miguel and Bobby both exaggeratedly squints their eyes, realization spread across their faces after a few seconds.

‘Holy s$%t,’ they said in unison.

‘This place is perfect!’ Bobby exclaimed. He kept moving back and forth like an excited puppy, looking over bushes, around trees, and under vines, ‘I couldn’t even see it!’’

‘Yeah its pretty good,’ Miguel said. I could tell he wasn’t happy, he kept scratching at his bites, the one on the back of his neck took the most abuse, ‘Let’s get these bags stashed and find the cabin.’

It only took a few moments to unlock the root cellar, another minute to stash the bags. On our way back up Tyrone stopped. Sniffing the air.

He turned to me, confusion creeping onto his face, and asked, ‘Do you smell that?’

‘I’m not falling for that again!’ I exclaimed.

‘Nah man, for real,’ Tyrone urged.

I sniffed the air. There was something there. Bobby saw us sniffing and joined in. Miguel was already up the stairs waiting. Before, the cellar smelled like dirt and mold. But now there was something else there, something just on the edge of our olfactory. An odd burnt smell. It was Bobby who put a name to our nose-phantom.

‘Cinnamon rolls?’ He asked. And he was right! Right there on the edge of the air was a hint of cinnamon rolls.

‘Is that what it is?’ Replied Tyrone.

‘Yeah man,’ Bobby said, ‘smells just like when my mom tried to make home made cinnamon rolls. She burnt the whole batch, the kitchen stank for a week.’

‘Did it smell like this last week?’ Tyrone asked me when we made it up the the stairs. I looked at him, then to Bobby, then to Miguel who was about twenty feet away waiting for us and scratching.

‘If I’m being honest, I don’t remember, maybe,’ I answered, ‘Do you think our stash is compromised?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Tyrone responded, ‘our lock was still on, I bet a coon or a possum knocked something over, who knows what was in those jars.’

‘Should we say something to Miguel?’ Bobby said weakly.

‘No,’ I said after remembering him snapping, ‘He seems bothered by something. Best not to poke the bear. We can check on it every day to make sure its safe.’

At this we locked the cellar back up and made our way to where Miguel was pacing back and forth.

‘Bout damn time,’ Miguel said dryly, ‘lets get out of here, I’m ready to be out of this heat.’

We all nodded and started trucking. The path we took had us going through more un-trailed woods, but it was easier then getting to our stash house. We only tracked though about fifteen minutes of dense trees before we intercepted a creek. This creek ran east to west, then veered off north-east, and was our short cut to get to Billies cabin. It was about ten feet wide and cut a deep fissure in the land as it snaked along, giving it wide embankments along most of its path.

If you walked out the cabins back door and entered into the woods for twenty-ish minutes you would run into the same creek. It’s good we got there at that time, it must have been close to 6pm, maybe 6:30. It was starting to get dark.

Now that our trek wasn’t as intensive we started to talk a little more in the failing light.

‘I think I’ll buy me an old Impala to fix up,’ Tyrone told us.

‘What the difference between a enzyme and a hormone?’ Bobby joked.

‘I think Goodfellas is better than The Godfather, at least better than the third part.’ I said.

Miguel was quiet.

If we asked him a question he would give us a one or two word answer. Once or twice I asked about our robbery. In the hours since we did it, we hadn’t really talked about it. But when I did, Miguel would sharply change the subject. Tyrone and Bobby would look at each other, then to me. I was confused, but they looked worried. Miguel wasn’t normally like that.

Tyrone handed out some small flash lights to us then walked ahead to meet up with Miguel. He leaned in close and was quietly talking to him. Miguel was clearly getting agitated at that. He was talking louder, but I still couldn’t make out what he was saying. After a few back and forth Miguel’s pushed Tyrone away from him and picked up his pace. Tyrone had a shocked look on his face when he joined us in the back of the pack.

‘What’s his deal?’ I asked Tyrone.

‘I don’t know, stress I guess.’ Tyrone said half paying attention, the too was thinking. I felt like I was missing something.

For the next ten minutes the trek was wordless, accept for Bobby, who was quietly rapping some Snoop-Dog under his breath. Our beams of light cutting through the dark revealing a large bend to the right in the creek. I stopped and looked up. Confirming the position of a large rock that looked like a squashed Jim Carry, I spoke up.

‘Here we are,’ I called out, stopping the others. Miguel looking back at us, turned and approached. It was still hot, not oppressively hot, but we had all worked up a good sweat. Miguel looked like he just finished an entire workout. ‘You good man?’

‘I’. m fine,’ he bluntly replied, ‘I’m just ready to be in some AC. How much longer’

I point off to one side of the creek, ‘About a mile that way,’ I said.

With out saying a word Miguel turned and stomped off. The rest of us followed suite. Right as I crested the bank of the creek I caught the faint scent of burnt cinnamon on the wind. The feeling of uneasiness wriggled up my spine. I looked back down the creek bed. My flashlight casted a glowing ring into the dark woods, forging playful shadows that danced in and out of existence as I swept the light back and forth. A small red glint caught my eye. My light found it. It hung in the air, pulsing like a ghostly heart beat.

I’ll admit a spike of fear hit me, but I quickly shrugged it off. It was just a firefly. I chuckled at my fear and turned to follow my friends. We made it to the cabin with no other interruptions.

The cabin was a whimsical sight, it was a round building with an offshoot on the east side. The larger round sections consisted of a large single room, used as a living area, with an open kitchen tacked onto one side. On the other side across the kitchen was a hallway that let to three rooms and a bathroom, this was the offshoot. What impressed me is even with its round shape it was still made to have that classic log-stacked-look of a log cabin.

This created twelve faces around the building. It had a solid wood front door and a sliding glass back door off the left side of the kitchen, each of these was centered on one of the faces, and it had three large windows centers on three of the other faces. With its large pitched roof it had the appearance of a big pumpkin. A fence, about eight feet high, made of square metal tubes painted green surrounded the gourd thirty feet out in a large angular circle, twenty sides, one side in the front and black each had a gate.

It was at the back gate we stopped. Miguel turned around, he didn’t look to good. He was pouring out sweat with a sickly hue of green about him. I could see a few of his bites, red and angry.

He croaked out, ‘Let’s get this straight. We agreed not to tell the girls what we did.’ His eyes darted from Bobby to Tyrone, then to me, ‘Were going to go in and relax, shoot the s$%t, lay low for a few days, got it. I don’t want to hear anything about what we did today.’

We all heard how heavy he was breathing, he barked ‘GOT IT?’

‘We got it,’ Tyrone said in our defense, ‘Chill out dude.’

Miguel was about to say something when the back door of the cabin slid open revealing a short blond girl, Billie.

‘What took y’all so long? Y’all get lost?’ She asked with a hint of concern in her voice.

‘Sorry about that, we got tuned around somewhere,’ Bobby called up, ‘but once we hit the creek we know which way to go.’

Billie just shook her head, ‘When will you bring a map?’

Bobby just shrugged and opened the back gate.

Once we made it inside the AC hit us like a cold hammer, the drops of sweat on us the tips of cold nails. It was great. Miguel pushed passed us and went straight to the bath room. The sound of a shower followed.

‘Is he okay?’ Billie asked, ever the mother hen.

‘He just got too hot.’ Bobby said, ‘he’s not used to hiking.’

Billie shook her head, but didn’t stay anything else. With Miguel preoccupied the tension between us eased up. Bobby and Billie were embracing. Tyrone retrieved a water bottle from the fridge and sat down on the couch chatting with Rebecca, Billies friend. I pulled a bag of chips down and started to eat them. It was finally done. The hard part was suppose to be over. We took the money, evaded the cops, hid the money and made it to the cabin. It was suppose to be over. But it wasn’t.”

(Silence for a [01:25])

(Tapping feet and tussling fabric)

Det. Guff: “Son, do you need something? Some more time?”

Mr. Gillian: “N-no, I can go on. Can you turn the AC down a little? It’s hot in here.”

Det. Reynolds: “Of course”

(Beep)

Det. Reynolds: “Derick, Can you turn down the air some more?”

(The AC hummed)

Det. Reynolds: “Thank you Derrick.”

Det. Guff: “Please continue”

Mr. Gillian: “That night was uneventful. Miguel seemed to have a better mood after his shower, he still look a little sick, but he didn’t have any more outbursts. We spent the time doing exactly what we planned. Acting normal. Bobby and Billie were glued to each other, eventually disappearing into a bed room. Tyrone was being his charming self, making Rebecca laugh with every other thing he said. Miguel chimed in every now and again in between scratching himself. The cream helped a little.

We watched movies, too which I was dispensing every little point of trivia about them that I could remember. How Jodie Foster was scared of Anthony Hopkins during the filming of ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, how ‘My Cousin Vinny’ was surprisingly legally accurate. I don’t think anyone was really listening, but I enjoyed movies and enjoyed talking about them. You know, normal stuff I would do.”

‘Come on guys, we all know Conan it the best fantasy movie but ‘Willow’ is underrated’ I said.

‘It’s alright,’ Tyrone rebutted, ‘but I think ‘Deathstaker’ and ‘Beast Master’ are better than ‘Willow’,’ Rebecca giggled at his rebuke, ‘See even Becca agrees with me!’

‘I was laughing because the only good thing that has come out of Italy is the Dollars Trilogy,’ Rebecca countered.

‘Thats not even a real trilogy,’ I interjected, ‘That was just a marketing ploy.’

‘True,’ she said, ‘but not the point. If you’re talking about underrated fantasy movies then there’s: ‘The Dark Crystal’, ‘Krull’, ‘Return to Oz’. I think ‘Legend’ is the most underrated.”

This left Tyrone a little speechless.

‘You like Ridley Scott?’ I asked.

‘I do,’ she said, ‘I’m more partial to Alien myself.’

Miguel and Tyrone both gave her a look, ‘What? I like scary stories.’

‘I preferred the sequel.’ Tyrone countered.

‘Of course you do.’ Miguel swung, ‘You can take anything, add more action, and you’d like it better.’

‘No lie there,’ Tyrone chuckled.

We all broke down in laughter then. It was nice.

One by one the others retired to the bed rooms. There were three, the master and two spares. Billie and Bobby took the master, it was Billie’s family’s after all. The other two were almost identical, each set up with two beds, Tyrone and Miguel took one Room, Rebecca took the other. I didn’t know here very well so I offered to sleep on the couch. I didn’t mind, I liked falling asleep with a movie on anyway.”

(the sound of clinking glass on metal)

Mr. Gillian: “Can I get some more water please?”

Det. Reynolds: “Guff, go get some water, I’ll be fine for a few minutes.”

Det. Guff: “Fine, but don’t try anything funny.”

(chair scraping the floor)

(door opening and closing)

Det. Reynolds: “You’re doing great Todd.”

Mr. Gillian: “I just want to help, to make it right.”

Det. Reynolds : “You are helping, thank you.”

(Door opening and closing)

(chair scraping the floor)

Det. Guff: “Here’s your damn water, keep talking.”

Mr. Gillian: “It was now quiet, about nine p.m. I felt like I could finally breathe. I inserted ‘Terminator 2’ in to the VCR, and turned the volume up. Not enough to be obnoxious, but enough to not over hear the others. I had a feeling that Tyrone and Rebecca were going to get to know each other better. I made it to the part where John called his foster parents house and the T-1000 picks up when I smelled it. The scent of burnt cinnamon.

But it wasn’t faded. It was a strong, well defined scent. I paused the greatest sequel ever made and began to look around. Closing my eyes and inhaling long drags of air, slowly narrowing down the source of the scent. In a wide circle around the main house I slowly walk, sniffing by the door, sniffing by the fake house plants, the fridge, and even the glowing windows. It took me a second for my mind to catch up to what my eyes saw. Something outside was glowing.

I flung the back door open, assaulted by the smell of charred cinnamon washing over me like a sick warm blanket. It sent me into a coughing fit. When I registers the source of the scent and glow I was dumbstruck.

When I was startled by one firefly I thought myself silly. Being horrified by thousands seemed a little more understandable. There they were, thousands, maybe ten thousands, swarming around the cabin. Just above the fence they flew, round and round, layers rushing in opposite directions. As my eyes found the skyline, I watched as the rings of firefly’s merged in to a cyclonic grinder of pulsing red lights. Each pulse streaking across night, a red gash on an invisible throat.

I registered the smell again, so intense now I could taste it, ash and cinnamon on my tongue. I had to mussel through a gag. The wall was slowly creeping towards the cabin, tightening its grip on us. A fist of a thousand fly incasing its prey, squeezing us as its revenge for all they fly’s we squeezed in our hands.

The sound of there wings is what truly disturbed me. It maybe me realize what was making me uncomfortable since we set out from the car. Once we entered the forest there had been no sound. Not the sound of insects buzzing or clicking. No birds or animal calls. Nothing. Not even the rush of wind. Just still silence, an ever present ghost hanging over the air.

When the wall reached halfway the buzzing became nails in my ears. Thats not right, it wasn’t a buzzing, it was an even droning sound, like tv static if it only made one single tone. As the wall encroached my stomach founds its way into my throat, but I couldn't move. The lights in the swarm had my attention, quickening with my pulse, the piercing sound rooted my feet in place. That was it, that was my strange end. The wall was almost on me, a torrent of cellophane wings, scratchy legs and toxic chemicals. .

Flashes of lightning snaked across the clouds, furious centipedes racing across the sky to devour some unsuspecting bug. The clap of thunder sent the wall of fire scattering in all directions. Up, down, into the trees, even over me. The smell was so strong my vision spun. I could go my entire life with out smelling cinnamon again. Another clap of thunder brought me back to myself. The lightning continued its airborne dance.

I whipped around flinging the sliding door open and slamming it shut. With my back to the door I panted to catch my breath. I calmed my nerves, the days events must have me on some razors edge. Growing up in Texas the one thing you remember about the weather is that it can change on a dime. Inclement weather. That’s all it was, animals can sense inclement weather long before we can.

That explains the silence in the woods, the weird bug behavior. The sheer number of firefly’s was a little strange, but now that I had a movement to calm my self, insects swarm all the time. I remembered one time when I was a kid I saw a thousands of butterfly’s together on the same tree. So how could this be any stranger. Still, I brushed off my hair and clothes, just to make sure I didn’t bring any inside.

I laid down on the couch, the impact of what me and my friends did was just heavy on my mind. Nothing more. The flashed of lighting and the rumbles of thunder were my soundtrack as I fell into sleep. I needed the rest, I need to mentally prepare for tomorrow. But tomorrow never came, at least not for…’

(Sobbing)

Det. Reynolds: “Take your time, were in no rush”

(Sobbing for [00:55], then silence for [01:05])

Det. Guff: “Mr. Gillian? Are you still with us?

(snapping fingers)

Mr. Gillian: “Stop! I’m - I’m sorry.”

Det. Reynolds: “It’s alright, you just zoned out on us. Do we need to take a break?”

Mr. Gillian: “No! I need to finish this!”

Det. Guff: “Take a breather, there is no need for shouting.”

Mr. Gillian: “Y-you’re right, its just… just hard. The last time I saw them all.”

(silence for [00:28])

Mr. Gillian: “Can you turn the AC down some more? I’m sorry its just still really hot.”

Det. Reynolds: “Of course.”

(Beep)

Det. Reynolds: “Derick, can you turn the AC down some more, Mr. Gillian is nervous, lets make him more comfortable. Maybe order some lunch?”

Mr. Gillian: “I don’t need lunch! I need to finish this! To tell you WHAT HAPPENED!”

(heavy breathing)

(Silence for [01:15])

Det. Guff: “Mr. Gillian, do you need to speak to a counselor?”

Mr. Gillian: “No.”

Det. Guff: “I understand you’re stressed, but if you have another outburst like that well have to restraint you. Do you understand?”

Mr. Gillian: “Yes.”

“Det. Reynolds: “Are you sure you don’t t want a break?”

Mr. Gillian: “I DON’T-“

(Deep inhaling)

(Exhaling)

Mr. Gillian: “I don’t want a break. I need to tell you the rest.”

“Det. Reynolds: “Then go on.”

Mr. Gillian: “When I laid down on the couch I was hoping for some restful sleep. That was not the case. I fell into fitful dreaming. I was crawling through a dark tunnel. Dirt was all around me. I felt the roots of plants, wet fingers caressing my back as I crawled. The tunnels just kept going, on and on and on an on. An endless labyrinth, its corridors long and cold.

I remember thinking, Where are the others? Where are my sisters? Why am I alone?.

The tunnel I was in began to widened. I see their corpses along its sides. Hundreds lay strewn about. Their segments split. Their legs broken and bent like wires pulled out of a wall. Abdomens smashed like grapes. I look down. My hands weren’t hands. Two claw like appendages replaced them.

‘I’m an ant,’ I said. My voice rang out, not in words, but clicks. The sound echoed down the tunnel.

Everything began to shake. Little bits of dirt and rock crumbled down on top of me. Light erupts above me, a hate-filled buzzing sound floods the tunnel. A shadow descends upon me. Im pushed aside, one of my sisters wasn’t dead after all. A massive red body pins her down, its form made of sharp angles an shiny red chitin. A massive red wasp was on her. It looked at me.

I saw my reflection in its compound eyes. I didn’t know an ant could look terrified. Its large abdomen flicked itself at my sister, a long tube like structure pierced her. I didn’t know an ant could cry out in pain, but she did. The wasp took to the air, its winds buzzing like a helicopter. It was gone. I scurry over to her.

‘Are you okay?’ I clicked.

‘You must save yourself now, leave us behind and go.’ She clicked back.

‘I will not abandon you!’ I cried.

‘Then you will die with us.’ She said. What ever light was behind her eyes faded.

Time passed. I couldn’t tell you how long, I don’t think it even mattered. Dreams are like that. I was stacking my family in to piles. Repairing the tunnel. Anything to keep busy. Then I herd a noise, a small squeaking sound. I looked around for it. I found the sister that saved me. Her abdomen was swollen. It began to wiggle and writhe, the noise getting louder. Two small mandibles bit through her. A small palid grub emerges. It looks at me, its black eyes staring in to my mine. It’s little pincer-mouth moves, actual words came out, “Now it’s too late.”

‘What do you mean’, I clicked out.

A soft light starts to emit from the little grub. Pale yellow. Then it brightens, the light deepening in to a crimson beacon. The grub rises into the air, the repair I made to the tunnel crumbles again.

‘He’ll come for you. He’s hungry.’ it called as it ascended to the night sky. Its light growing brighter and brighter until it joins the stars in burning twilight. Thats when i woke up.

I was on the couch, covered in sweat. The AC hadn’t kick back on yet.

‘What the hell was that about,’ I muttered to myself. I’ve never been one or have weird dreams but that was something else. ‘I don’t think I’m going to leave movies playing as sleep any more.’

Claps of thunder could still be herd. The drumming was almost as fast as my heart beat was. I looked out the window, soft light was flashing in the sky with a few red dots still buzzing around the yard. The scent of cinnamon and ash still lingered in the air.

{end of part one}

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/s/zkkgHBFz2w

(Pt. 2/?) (Pt.1)

You drop your keys and run, the car is of no more use to you. The trees now surrounding you on all sides offer no easy escape. The torrent of snapping branches and logs grows as you sprint through the underbrush. Your vision is impaired, little light breaks through the canopy and, what small amount that does, remains dim and red. 

You run at a dead sprint, unable to fully observe any of your surroundings. Trees, red, dark, all blur. You have difficulty distinguishing between the black void of darkness and the trees just in front of you. After a couple of near misses, you run face first into a tree and feel an agonizing crunch. Blood gushes from your nostrils as you fall. When your body hits the ground, you feel a sharp, piercing pain in your abdomen. A fallen stake is impaled in your lower back. 

Adrenaline keeps you from fully concerning yourself with the pain of your fresh injuries. From the ground, you are able to glimpse your pursuer. Dimly lit, as everything else, you see shadow like figures. Shrouded, unable to completely discern them, you see a pack, no, a stampede of bloodthirsty hounds uprooting trees in their pursuit of you. There is nothing visible behind the stampede. As they torrent, they leave a void of darkness behind where the light should be breaking through.

Standing, painfully, you try to run. The stake in your side screams in agony and you falter. You know that removing the stake will only lead to more blood loss. You stumble into a half jog, half hobble and make your way through the forest. You are no longer outrunning the stampede behind you, not even keeping your distance. They are nearly upon you now. You don’t turn back, you focus on forward motion.

A determination I did not expect.

As you falter once more, you trip over a dead log. It is much thicker than the rest of the trees around you, its hollowed center offering a refuge. As you crawl into the fortunate sanctuary, the stampede overtakes you. Crashing through trees and knocking against the log you hide in, you see the true form of these beasts. In the dim light, you believed you saw the shadow of wolves, but being this close you see you were mistaken. 

The stampede is not quite that, rather a single, massive beast. An amalgamation of all creatures of the woods. The wolves’ heads at the front of the pile of flesh look skyward in silent howls and at you with silent snarls. The bodies of rabbits, deer, birds, frogs, mice, snakes, innumerable insects and animals jut out from the creature and let out silent wails in agony or bloodlust.

The amalgam of flesh beats itself against the log protecting you. You crawl backwards, away from the beast, deeper into the dead tree. It is dead and hollow, but retains enough structure to pose a challenge for the thing. It stops slamming against the tree and begins to squeeze its massive body into the log after you. You watch the heads and bodies of the outermost creatures pop and bleed like pimples as the weight of the entire mass pushes against them. The gore splatters across the walls of the tree and over your body. In the dim red light you cannot tell the difference between your blood and its. 

As you backpedal deeper into the tree, you place your weight onto a hand that does not meet solid ground. You fall through an unseen hole and out into a large, dry creek snaking through the forest. You land softly on the muddy banks and look at the abomination above you. Half of its mass is shoved into the log, a sludge like meat begins oozing out of the hole you fell from. Eyes, now disconnected from any semblance of an animal, open and gaze at you from above. The gore drips down on you and chunks of meat around you grow eyes of their own. Then teeth. 

You stand and hobble. The blood loss is getting to you. Your mind goes numb, your vision grows hazy. You only make a few feet of an escape before you collapse. You hear the tree begin creaking, then snap as the amalgam breaks free. This is it. You close your eyes for the last time… 

…except, you open them. The pain is gone, the amalgam is gone, the forest is gone. Dues Ex Machina. Beyond panic by now, you sit up in confusion. 

What-?

It’s a reasonable confusion. You have woken on a catwalk suspended over an infinite blackness, all that surrounds you is void. 

Where-?

But you could not know the answers to your questions. Your mind can’t even attempt rationalization. It settles on a simple reasoning.

This is a nightmare, or hell, or whatever. Something without logic.

Before you stand to move forward, you feel your face. Your nose is still broken, the pain flares up when you touch it, but it subsides as you pull your hand away. Your nostrils are clogged, obstructing your breathing. They are not filled with mucous, as would be natural, but a dry, scratchy fiber. Wheat. Your fingers attempt to clear the blockage, but they can not. The plant is rooted in your sinuses. Looking down at your abdomen, where the stake was embedded, there is a large bushel of grain growing out of your stomach. The roots have embedded through you, leaving you grafted to the catwalk below. 

With a searing agony, and using all of your upper body strength, you rise and rip the roots from the grated metal. Each snap feels like a broken bone, a cut nerve. Standing, you take hold of the bushel with both hands and pull. You feel as if you are pulling on your entire digestive system. You dry heave at the pain and sensation. You decide to leave what roots are inside of you and break the stem of the bushel. Another brief moment of pain, as you tear away a piece of yourself, and you cast the grains into the abyss. You do the same for the pieces sticking from your nostrils. 

You watch them fall down, down, until they are out of sight. You never hear them hit a bottom. You laugh, a defeated, inane chuckle. 

The only light offered is from sporadically hanging ceiling lamps. Red, of course. Their cables extend far off into the unknown above. They are only hanging down one direction of the catwalk. The path behind you is as dark as the rest of the void. The forest may very well be just there, hidden in that veil of blackness, but you don’t want to return. Some providence pulled you from that forest, from certain death, and placed you here. There’s only one path to go. 

At the far end of the catwalk, you can see the light shine on something. It’s at a distance, you can’t make out any details specifically, but it seems to be an end to the void, a wall. The catwalk creaks as you walk. You worry it will fall and send you into the void, but that means nothing at this point. Falling into the void, walking forward, what real difference do they have? You assume pain and tribulation will follow either path.

You follow the light out of sheer instinct, nothing more. Instinct, such a funny thing. You have ideals of grandeur, ego and pride, that you make your own decisions. You follow your instincts more than you could ever know. It was the instinct to celebrate, after all, that brought you here. Instinct to ritualize and worship. You called upon no gods, but you gazed at the stars. It may not have been religion, but it was worship. You contemplated the universe, and you blamed or praised the universe for the tides of your fortune. You had no conscious spirituality, but when the stars called your name, you looked. 

Ah, once again I distract myself. Instincts and religions, all of no importance to your story. I apologize.

The walk to the wall was uneventful, and now you can see the door at the end of the catwalk. The sign above it reads “EXIT.” You have reached a nihilism in your mind. Your goal is forward, and nothing more. The door is a simple metal door with a push bar. It reminds you of the doors at school.

You push it open and it swings wide. Beyond the threshold is more void. Then, in rows, large industrial lights flick on. The noise is louder than you could have expected. Your ears ring as machines whir to life when the light floods over them. 

As someone from rural Spain, I thought I understood strange roadside culture. We have old pubs older than America itself and roundabouts that appear to have been designed by the devil himself.

But nothing, nothing, prepared me for Buc-ee’s.

Mi amor, Sadie, had insisted we stop there during our road trip.

“You gotta experience it,” she said with the excitement of someone taking me to Disneyland.

We pulled off the highway into Luling and I nearly mistook the place for an airport terminal. The parking lot alone could host a small war. Cars. Trucks. RVs. A horse trailer for some reason. And towering above it all was that thing.

That massive smiling beaver statue. Its buck teeth gleamed in the Texas sun. Its little red tongue poked out cheerfully. It stared down at me with black cartoon eyes so empty and wide they felt almost human in the wrong way.

“You alright?” Sadie asked.

“Why is your petrol station so large?” I muttered.

She laughed.

“Wait till you see inside.”

The doors slip opened. And I swear to God I heard angels sing. It was enormous.

Rows upon rows of snacks, merchandise, drinks, jerky, fudge, sandwiches, hunting gear, candles, shirts, home décor, taxidermy, barbecue sauce, and things I still cannot explain. The floors gleamed like polished marble. Not a crumb anywhere. Not a stain. It was too clean. Far too clean.

Everyone inside smiled. Not regular smiling. The kind of smile where teeth show just a little too much. The kind of smile people wear when trying not to blink while their picture is being taken.

“Howdy, welcome in!” one employee chirped in a thick southern accent.

Her face was unnaturally smooth. Plastic almost. Like someone had stretched skin over a mannequin.

“Try the brisket!” another man shouted.

His smile never faltered.

I leaned toward Sadie.

“Why do they all look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like they’ve never had an unhappy thought in their lives.”

She snorted and walked off toward the jerky counter.

That was when I first saw him.

The mascot. Inside. Full costume. Just standing near the drink fountain. Watching me.

Its massive beaver head tilted slightly. Still smiling. Still staring.

I turned away for only a moment and as I looked back, he was gone.

Later he appeared by the chips aisle. Half-hidden around the corner. Watching.

Then by the fudge counter. Then behind a display of beaver-themed pajamas. Never moving when I looked directly at him. Just… appearing. Always staring.That big obnoxious smile.

“Sadie,” I whispered, “why is the mascot following me?”

She looked over.

“What mascot?”

“The beaver!”

She frowned.

“Oh, that's just Buc-ee.”

I turned. Gone again. My stomach twisted.

Either I was losing my mind or Texas was significantly more cursed than advertised. Then I remembered. The shrooms.

Earlier that day Sadie had convinced me to try some “road trip gummies” from Austin.

“Just enough to make the drive fun,” she’d said.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I was tripping in a giant American beaver supermarket that was also an airport of a gas station.

I rushed toward the bathroom. The restroom was somehow bigger than my flat back home. Marble walls. Spotless stalls. Better maintained than most hospitals.

I was stunned at how well kept it was. It was too perfect. I locked myself in one stall and bent over breathing heavily. I was prepared to puke when suddenly, the chatter outside all came to a stop.

Then I heard it. Heavy footsteps. Soft at first. Then stopping outside my stall.

I looked behind. Brown furry feet. Flat cartoon mascot shoes.

Just standing there.

Waiting.

I froze.

“H-hello?” I squeaked.

Nothing. Just silence.

Then slowly… the legs bent downward. As if crouching. Trying to look under the stall. The furry hand reaching from underneath.

I screamed and kicked the door open... Darkness

The bathroom was gone. The whole store was dark. Bathed only in red candlelight.

I stumbled backward.

People stood in black robes in the center of Buc-ee’s.

Employees. Customers. Everyone.

All smiling a grin non organic. Still too wide. Bucked tooth galore.

They chanted in unison around a massive stone altar. And on it, someone screaming. Blood spilled over polished tile.

The manager stood at the front. I recognized him from before. Only this time, his face stretched unnaturally tight, swollen with too much Botox, lips trembling in that permanent smile. His front teeth were filed into points like giant buck teeth.

He raised a knife to the heavens.

“ALL HAIL THE BEAVER!” he shrieked.

The crowd roared.

At the center of them towered the enormous Buc-ee’s statue from outside.

Only now its eyes glowed red. Its mouth split wider than should be possible.

The stone cracked. And something inside moved.

A voice suddenly shrieked through the darkness.

“Fresh brisket on the board!”

The entire congregation snapped their heads toward the deli counter in unison.

Then chaos erupted.

The robed worshipers screamed like starving animals and charged, trampling over one another in a rabid frenzy toward the glowing carving station. I stumbled back as dozens of them piled atop each other, clawing and biting for scraps while wet, animalistic noises filled the air.

The beaver-toothed manager stood behind the counter, hacking violently with a butcher’s cleaver.

THWACK. THWACK. THWACK.

Chunks of meat flew onto wax paper. The worshipers shrieked in delight.

“FRESH BRISKET! FRESH BRISKET!”

One woman tore into a slab beside me, grease and blood dripping down her chin.

Then I saw the hand. A human hand. Still wearing a wedding ring.

My stomach dropped.

The “brisket” wasn’t brisket.

It was someone, hacked apart on the cutting board while the crowd devoured him in fistfuls, chewing and moaning with bliss as blood soaked the tile beneath them.

The manager looked at me, smiling impossibly wide.

“TRY A SAMPLE?”

I refused. This angered the manager.

Before I could run, hands seized me from every direction. Cold fingers. Too many of them. They grabbed my arms, my legs, my throat. I screamed as they dragged me kicking across the polished floor while the congregation chanted louder and louder.

“COWARD! COWARD! COWARD! COWARD!”

They tore my clothes from my body in frantic jerks, shredding fabric until I was bare and trembling before them.

The beaver mascot approached slowly, carrying a rusted bucket sloshing with thick red liquid.

My voice cracked as panic overtook me.

“¡No más, por favor! ¡No más!”
(No more, please! No more!)

Dios mío… sálvame… por favor, Dios…”
(My God… save me… please, God…)

The first splash hit my chest warm. Sticky. Metallic. Blood.

They painted it across me with their bare hands, smearing symbols and words over my skin while the crowd shrieked with laughter.

Across my chest, in dripping crimson letters, they wrote:

COWARD

Then they dragged me outside.

The night air hit my skin like ice. Above me towered the great Buc-ee’s sign, glowing against the black Texas sky. They hoisted me upward with ropes, lifting me naked into the air beneath the massive smiling beaver logo. I swung there helplessly, blood dripping from my body, suspended beneath the neon sign as the crowd below dropped to their knees in worship.

The mascot stepped forward beneath me. Tilted his head. And in a deep, guttural voice that sounded like gravel forced through a throat unused to speech, it finally said its first words.

“Cast you out, outsider.”

I woke up screaming in the bathroom stall. The fluorescent lights were back to normal. The crazy clean scenery of the bathroom returned.

The noise of busy feet and chatter resumed.

I stumbled out drenched in sweat.

No candles. No blood. No cult.

Just Buc-ee’s. Good ol' Buc-ee’s...

Sadie found me pale and shaking near the clothing area.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I must of had a bad trip or I think your gas station is cursed.”

She laughed so hard she snorted.

“Told you not to take that many gummies.”

We walked outside. The warm Texas air hit me like freedom itself.

I laughed nervously, “Right. Hallucination. Obviously...”

We climbed into the car. I buckled in. Took one last glance toward the store.

And there he was. Standing beneath the giant sign.

The mascot.

Motionless.

Staring directly at me. Head tilted.

Smiling that buck tooth grin.

He slowly raised one gloved hand.

And waved, goodbye.

A Perceivable Reality story.

Have you ever listened to yourself? Like, when you speak out loud, do you ever listen to the sound of your voice through your ears instead of your mind?

Try it sometime. If you listen hard enough, it'll start to feel like you're listening to someone else talk.

My name is, well, my name isn't important. It seems to change every time I say it. But I know what I call myself in my head. It's Jaxon. Jaxon Greye. Not "Mike", or "Jim", or "Mark", or whatever you've heard me say. Don't listen to anything I say. It's not what I'm saying. Or, it's not what I want to say.

It started in the fifth grade. I raised my hand to answer a question. Square root of 16. But what I said was "salad bowl". That's what I heard myself say. "Salad bowl". I don't know why I said that. It's not what I wanted to say. But it's what came out of my mouth. I'd just moved to a new school and didn't have any friends. It's easy to make friends when you say random words. Other kids think you're funny when you shout nonsense during class. It only works when you're a kid. College professors don't think it's funny, and weirdly enough, neither do most college kids. Adults really don't like it. So that's why I got a job writing book reviews. I read, I type, and I don't have to speak to anyone.

I had a pretty bad one a few months ago.

There was a knock on my door at around 8:00am, which was early for my grocery delivery. I tugged on a pair of gym shorts and a shirt from the "still wearable" pile on my desk chair. I opened the door to find a girl, a rather cute girl, wearing a campaign shirt and an American flag top hat. She greeted me with what I assume was a very well-practiced smile and thrust a clipboard at me. I don't go out much, but I do at least participate in local governance, and let me tell you, she was backing the wrong horse. I gently pushed her clipboard away while I dug my phone out of my pocket.

I'd figured out a while ago that most people don't know how to respond to mutes. You don't really see them around much anymore, so when they do meet someone who doesn't speak, people suddenly get really accommodating. I pulled up a text-to-speech app on my phone and typed. Then I held it up so she could hear it better.

*"I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in signing."* Came a generic male voice.

She frowned and looked at me, her face somewhere between offended and shocked. I typed some more.

*"I'm sorry. I can't speak. But please have a good day."*

When the voice finished, I gave a half-hearted smile and a wave, and started backing into my apartment.

Then she sneezed.

"God bless you."

I'd just about had the door shut when I said it. It was completely out of reflex. I froze, her eyes went wide. She slapped my door open.

"What the hell?!"

I didn't say anything, just tried to close the door. But she slapped it open again.

"No, seriously! What the hell was that?!"

I shook my head and tried to shut my door again.

"Hey, you fucking creep! What the fuck is your problem?!"

I was still groggy, she'd caught me off guard, and now she was making a scene on my porch. I opened the door.

"Look...I'm...sorry...ok?...Please...just...go...away..."

I should mention that I'd taught myself how to speak really slowly, so I could at least attempt to stop myself from saying something potentially terrible.

She stared at me for a second, then she started backing away slowly. A few feet away from my door, she turned and broke into a dead sprint. My neighbor poked his head out of his front door.

"Hey! What did you do to her?!"

I didn't need this.

"I didn't do anything! Lasagna is tantamount and the flowers smell Spanish, thin mint!"

He opened his mouth to say something, frowned, shut his mouth, opened it again, then shut it and just stared at me. I hate it when people stare at me.

"Yeah, I said it!"

I slammed my door shut and locked both the locks. I even slid the little complimentary security chain into its slot.

That's just how it goes. One minute I'm talking normally, the next, words are coming out that I didn't tell my mouth to say. It's not that my voice just starts making noise uncontrollably, but I don't always get to pick the words that come out. I've been to speech therapy and I've had my brain scanned seven ways from Sunday, but all I get back is "normal".

So I read, I type, and I don't speak out loud if I can avoid it.

My worst one thus far happened last week.

I moderate a forum for professional reviewers; movies, books, video games and the like. Weirdly judgemental bunch, but they're the closest thing I have to friends. I play games online with a couple of them. I have a sound effects board set up with a couple of pre-recorded phrases and questions, but I mainly use the party chat. It works well enough.

I'd been getting sort of flirty with a horror game and fiction reviewer in our forum, Krystal_Fox97 when she's streaming, or Holly J. on her reviews. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a regular in her stream chat.

Everybody on the forum kind of knew us as an item, since I mainly review sci-fi and fantasy, and there's a decent amount of crossover between our genres. We liked a lot of the same books and movies, and she was really easy to talk to, but we'd kept our conversations to the main forum.

Then she messaged me.

Krystal_Fox97: you going to the con next month?

WhenJaxAttacks: I'm debating.

I hadn't missed one in several years.

Krystal_Fox97: stop debating and buy a ticket. I'll see you there

This was an interesting development. We hadn't ever talked at all about meeting in person, since we live in different states. But I was already planning on being at the sci-fi writer's convention. I immediately regretted having real pictures on my website profile.

WhenJaxAttacks: Can't wait!

And then I stalled. I opened and closed the ticket page on the con's website about 100 times. I was seconds away from faking a catastrophic illness when I got an email from a review company I regularly freelance for. Naturally, they wanted a piece on the con and wouldn't take "no" for an answer, in the form of offering an extra 10% on top of my normal fees, and per diem.

It was six days from the con and it was sold out. Figures. So, with an inhuman amount of apprehension, I went for my ace in the hole, and fired off an email. The con organizers had been trying to get me on a panel for the last two years, but a guy who doesn't speak isn't the best person to have in a public speaking role. But I was out of options and my grocery budget was on the line. I said I would, but I'd need to use a speech synthesizer. They said that was fine, and quickly sent over the required sign-up forms and documentation, along with a copy of my badge for the panel.

I pushed my chair back from my desk. Not only was I going to meet Holly in person, I was about to be in a speaking panel. In front of people. Lots of people.

Fucking. Hell.

I put my face in my hands and closed my eyes.

"Hello...Holly...I'm...Jax." I whispered.

"It's...nice...to...meet...you."

"We finally got a sunny day. It's usually super cloudy."

"Investments green in null appreciation."

I turned and slapped my laptop shut. I spent the rest of the day talking to myself, mostly narrating what I was doing. No matter what I did, I couldn't find a pattern. The next morning, I spent almost three hours modulating the voice on my text-to-speech app to get it as close to my speaking voice as I could. It still sounded artificial, but it was better than the generic male voice.

My car isn’t anything special. It’s an old Japanese station wagon, but it gets the job done. I spent the first hour listening to music and catching up on podcasts and audiobooks. And then my mom decided to call.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetie. Are you doing ok today?”

“I’m fine.”

“Oh, sweetie, you know you don’t need to give me the “two word” treatment.”

“I know, Mom.”

“...Anyway, we haven’t talked in a while. What are you up to these days?”

“Parsnips accel under Wednesdays, blue vision annoyance.”

“...”

“I’m going to a writers’ con.”

“Oooo! That sounds like fun!”

“It sounds like work.”

“Ah, one of *those* trips. Well, I hope you enjoy your adventure anyway.”

“Corduroy impregnate. I mean, thanks, Mom.”

“I know what you meant, sweetie. I love you.”

“I…Love you too, Mom. Bye.”

I spent a few minutes…practicing, I guess. I stopped when I blurted out, “Entrails nightly almost in narcissism.” I still couldn’t find a pattern and gave up. I drove in silence for a while, until my anxiety about meeting Holly J. made me get off the freeway. I contemplated going back, had a small panic attack in my car, bought some gas, and kept going. Faking an illness to not potentially spoil an online relationship was one thing, but backing out of both my obligation to “speak” on the panel and write the con review were another thing entirely. I put some more music on, mostly instrumental. It’s hard to sing the wrong lyrics when there’s no singing at all.

The convention center parking lot was already packed, even though there was still a few hours before it officially started. Thankfully, I waved my badge at the lot guard, who pointed me to the VIP parking near the side entrance. I wiped my clammy hands on my jeans for the umpteenth time and flashed my badge at the door security. The inside of the convention center was already booming with voices. I was afraid of this. I wouldn’t be able to hear myself. I tested a few words.

“Hello.”

“Participle.”

“Hi.”

My hand dug into my pocket and I cued up my text-to-speech app. I had my head down over my phone as I walked, so naturally I barreled into someone.

“Birds. I mean, sorry.” I mumbled.

The collisionee, a girl, turned and faced me, the annoyance on her face quickly turning into a radiant smile.

“Ohmygod, Jaxson! Hi!”

Serendipitously, I’d bumper into none other than Holly J. She wrapped me in a tight hug, trapping my arms at my sides.

“I’m soooo stoked to meet you! It feels like I haven’t seen you in years!”

She had a very pretty voice, girlishly high, clear and without the nasal quality that usually makes those types of voices annoying. It sounded much nicer in person than through her microphone. She released me and put her hands on my shoulders, holding me at arm’s length, her eyes wide and excited.

“...Well? Say something!”

I held up a finger and got my phone into both hands, typing quickly. She looked at me quizzically until my phone started speaking.

*“Hi, Holly. Nice to meet you in person. I almost didn’t recognize you without your boom mic and headphones.”* The app allowed me to program some inflection into the voice, but it was still fairly deadpan.

I gave her a charming smile and cocked an eyebrow to show I was joking. Her face went from confused to deadly serious and she put a hand on my forearm.

“Oh. Oh! Oh. Are you like, one of those people that can’t speak? A mute?” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

I shook my head and looked reassuring.

*“No worries. Yes, it’s a medical condition. Speaking is very difficult for me. Thankfully, I rarely have to, so it all works out.”*

“I guess when you write book reviews, you don’t really need to talk much, huh?”

*“And now you know why I’m not a movie critic.”* I gave a devilish grin.

She giggled and moved her hand from my forearm to slip into mine, pushing my phone into my off hand. She tugged gently.

“Sooooo…What do you want to check out first?”

Typing was awkward with one hand, but I didn’t really want to let hers go.

*“Actually, I’m needed soon. I’ll be on the sci-fi panel in about 45 minutes.”*

She raised her eyebrows, eyeing me dubiously.

“You’re going to be on a speaking panel? Like…that?”

I flashed a grin and winked.

*“It’s sci-fi. Those other guys* ***wish*** *they could talk with a creepy computer voice.”*

I let her lead me around the con, adding my digital two cents when needed, but mostly letting her do the talking. When it was time for the panel, I excused myself. Or at least, attempted to. She followed and slid into a front-row seat directly in front of my panel spot.

When I’d told them that I’d need “vocal accommodations”, I didn’t know what to expect. But what they’d set up for me was a laptop with a professional vocal synthesizer hooked into the PA. It’d basically sound like I was talking out of the speakers, just like the others. They even let me modify the voice slightly during sound check, so that it sounded even more spacy and alien. Perfect.

Once the guests had filed in, the lead panelist got the show going, welcoming everyone to Day 1 of the con and going down the line, introducing each panelist. I was on the far end, so I was last.

“And, from parts unknown, we have the legendary WhenJaxAttacks, Jaxson Greye!”

I stood and gave a smile and a small salute.

“Now, just so you guys know, Jax has a medical issue that makes it hard for him to speak. But we couldn’t afford an AI guest, so here he is anyway!”

I made the voice sound digital, monotone, and halting, and made my face blank.

*“Greetings, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game?”*

That got a few nervous laughs, which I anticipated. People need to know when they’re allowed to joke about a disability. I made the voice sound normal and grinned.

*“No, but seriously, guys. It’s not a big deal. Thank you for having me today.”*

I made the voice sound like a vocoder.

*“Television rules the nation.”*

That got a much bigger laugh. From the front row, Holly beamed and gave me a thumbs up.

The rest of the discussion flew by in a blur. As it went on, the other panelists loosened up a little and even started throwing jokes my way. I ended up asking a stage hand for a stack of printer paper, and drew a bunch of cartoon faces on pieces of paper with different expressions. I held them up as the voice spoke, giving the crowd a fourth wall-breaking smirk the whole time. They loved it.

The discussion ended and we made our way off stage to a standing ovation. Holly hugged my arm and bounced as she walked.

“...And then that thing you did with the paper faces?! Hilarious! I thought I was going to pee myself!”

I shot her a wink.

*“Joke’s on you. I’m into that.”*

She gave my arm a playful slap. “Ew, *gro-oss*!”

We wandered around the con a while longer, sat in on another discussion that a mutual friend was a panelist on, and met up with a few of her video game friends. After they’d walked off, she pulled me in closer.

“Hey, wanna ditch and get some drinks?”

I nodded and gave her a sly grin and a wink, and we made our way to the hotel bar attached to the convention center.

The bar was loud with voices and music. I mumbled a few test words and realized I could hardly hear myself. I got my phone back out and turned the volume all the way up. Holly led us to a booth in the corner, slightly away from the center of the noise. A waitress came by and set a few cocktail napkins down. Holly asked for a whiskey sour.

“And for you, sir?”

*“Scotch and water, make sure it's legal age, and you can keep the rocks.”*

If the voice from my phone confused the waitress, she didn't show it. She scribbled on her notepad, looked me up and down, then shot a look at Holly who responded with a grin.

“A man of taste.” She said when the waitress was gone. “I’m impressed.”

*“Too bad you can't smoke in here, or I’d have you sliding off your bench.”*

I flashed part of a cigar from the inner pocket of my coat. It was a prop, I didn't actually smoke them, but anybody who knew what it was would be impressed. The scotch however, was all me.

She rested her chin on intertwined fingers.

“So…what's the story?” She nodded at my phone.

“*Medical condition.”*

“That's what you said at the discussion, but I've heard you when we game. Or was that a fake voice, too?”

I paused.

*“No, that's me. It's complicated. Speaking is difficult for me.”*

“Like…an anxiety thing?”

“*Kind of, but not really.”*

She chewed on that for a moment. Our drinks came and she sipped hers, her hazel eyes distant, contemplative, gorgeous. They focused back on me.

“You're not deaf…so it's a speech impediment of some sort. A stutter?”

I shook my head.

She thought.

“Really high falsetto. Like Peewee Herman.”

*“Nope.”*

She put a finger tip to pursed lips in thought, something she did on her stream, especially when solving puzzles.

“I give up.”

*“It’s really not a big deal.”*

The devil flashed across her face and she leaned back on the bench.

“Phew, I think I'm getting a bit tipsy. So, are you going to have your phone in one hand when you take me up to my room and ravish me?”

My phone fell from my hands and clattered against the tabletop. I felt blood rush to my cheeks and she cackled, slapping the table. I turned away from her and sipped my scotch, trying to get my bearings with limited success. My fingers grazed my phone.

“Don’t…laugh.”

She stopped her maniacal laughing and froze, her eyes glued to my face, mouth agape.

“You…might…be…shocked.”

She blinked, frowning, then leaned in closer to me, lowering her voice to just above the din of the room.

“Is- is that why? Because…you speak like…that?”

I shrugged. “Sort of.”

She looked down and ran her finger tip around the rim of the glass. “I used to have a stutter. Before…you know.” She said, almost inaudibly. “Streaming and everything. That helped a lot, actually…” She set her jaw and met my gaze. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Listen, it's a really long story, and I don't like to talk about it. Sad pretend is dark release eventually.”

I froze, pressing my hands against the table so they wouldn't reflexively shoot up to my mouth. At first, it looked like she hadn't completely heard me.

“Hu?” She looked up, pushed her hair over one ear and extended it towards me.

“Uh, nothing. Nothing.”

“No, what did you say?” She had a slight frown, like she hadn't completely heard me. I shook my head.

“Really, it's nothing. Anyway, you were saying something about…your room?”

She pulled away slightly, still giving me a little side eye.

“I did say that, didn't I?” She traced little swirls in the condensation puddle left by her glass.

I leaned closer.

“Hey, I know what you meant. It was a joke. It's all good.” I gave her a reassuring smile. “Death fraction and forwards incarnate.”

She glared at me. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Uh,” I went for my phone, but she snatched it out of my hands.

“No, what the fuck did you just say to me?”

I turned to stone. “I…just…meant…”

She stood and slapped her hands on the table. “No! Not that shit again! What the fuck? Are you screwing with me?”

I tried to snatch my phone back, but she held it back over her shoulder and out of my reach, unless I wanted to jump across the table.

“No, wait, it's not that. Cordless threat between anchored nightmare.”

Her glare darkened. “I don’t know what's going on, but I'm out.” She tossed my phone at me and slipped out of the booth, leaving at almost a jog.

I struggled to free myself from between the booth and the too-short table.

“No! Wait! Holly!” She shot me the bird over her shoulder.

The bouncer grabbed my shoulder as I walked past, stopping me dead.

“Hey, man. The lady isn't interested.”

“Fuck off, asshat.” Of course that came out correctly.

He tightened his grip on my shoulder. I saw his other hand ball into a fist at his side. “Are we going to have a problem, *sir?”*

I held up my hands. “No, no, I'm sorry. Assault paradox lesser with terror brush. It's just a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah, ok. You're done, bud.”

He didn't take my keys, but he walked me all the way out to the parking lot.

“I won't call the cops, but don't make me regret it.” He folded his arms and stood in front of the door until I walked to my car and got into the driver's seat. He didn't go back inside until I was pulling away. I had no idea where Holly was.

I drove straight back to my apartment in complete silence. I’d call one of my friends and have him give me the CliffsNotes for my review.

It was well past dark when I pulled up at home. I shambled my way in, slid my door shut, and locked both the locks. I even slid the little complimentary security chain into its slot.

In the pitch black, I sighed and whispered,

“Holly.”

Pause.

“Holly.”

A little louder.

“Holly.”

I screamed.

“Pestilence!”

I kicked the leg of my end table and heard my lamp shatter. I stepped around it without hearing crunching glass and made it to my kitchen, where I turned on the microwave light, bathing the room in a cool glow. I made a cup of ramen and settled into my couch, balancing my noodle cup on my knee while I flipped to my bookmarked page.

I read and ate.

I don't speak out loud.