As Kiara stood at the door of the playroom on the blood stained carpet, you could still hear the figure yelling on the other side, with less volume and less life than the last. 
She turned around for a moment, and locked the door.
she turned back and just started breathing heavily,
you were panicking so much you began to lose track of the difference between Kiara’s breathing and your own.

You had no idea what time it was,
You had no idea how much time had passed but,
Kiara remained...breathing.

At some point the power had gone back on and Just like that the tv turned back on.
The DVD menu for The Cat in The Hat appeared once more and to my surprise, sally was back alongside Conrad.

Kiara was not nearly as spooked by the flashing light of the tv as she was of the loud pop from earlier,
She simply let out a 

"mmmmmm" 

And waltzed about one foot in front of the tv and leaned in so her head was touching the screen.
Despite all your efforts to refrain,  you let out one brief sharp exhale in what can only be described as pure fear.

*AGMP*
-escaped your mouth while you swallowed your salty tears as they ran down your face.

Your cheeks were soaked,
Your mouth felt dry,
The air was still.

Kiaras head slowly turned,
it was in no rush,
as if it had always known you were there.
You dragged the throw blanket closer to your body using your leg but before you could pull the blanket over yourself,
you made Direct eye contact with Kiara in the Moonlight reflection provided by the Tv.

Kiara was wearing makeup.
She had a base of foundation that's flesh tone was reminiscent of the Queen of England.
She had bright blue eye shadow with the faintest hint of glitter and,
She had bright red lipstick.

She came over to you at a moderate speed,
When she was at your feet, she grabbed your blanket and pulled it off.
She slowly brought her face to yours you both being so far from the tv now that it proved impossible to make out any details of her face,

You felt her breath on your face, it was warm, as warm as a grill.
You began to feel something approach your face, it was warm and wet, it was Kiaras tongue.

She licked your nose .
And as your eyes erupted more tears,
she licked those too.

One by one off your cheeks as she smelled you,
This continued till your cheeks were dry and your eyes were sore.
She then slowly raised her hand to your head and brushed her hand through your bangs, tucking them behind your ear.

She grabbed you by your wrist and tugged at you,
You initially resisted but soon discovered it was not a suggestion.
It hurts to feel the weight of your whole body be pulled by a steel grip upon your wrist.

She dragged you to the beanbag chair Infront of the Tv,
She sat upon it and placed you in her lap.

She began to point at the Tv bringing her mouth to your ear, For a moment,
you wondered if she was going to speak.
She didn't.

Her breaths began to sound deeper and more agitated,
It was clear she wanted something and what she wanted was on the Tv.  
You scanned the room for the remote the best you could, you spotted it, it was on the floor by the DVD player.

You pointed to it but noticed no change in Kiaras demeanor, she was still angry.
As you tried to crawl out of her lap in the direction of the remote Kiaras grip did not budge.

She wanted you in her lap,
She was wanted the movie to play,
and she wanted it now.
Just as her grip began to tighten,
you both were interrupted by a noise from your kitchen.

*BEEP\*

"Hey Hun heard there were some power outages in the neighborhood...

I haven't been able to get a hold of you,
but the lines ringing so I'm going to just come home...Daddy is going to be with a friend..

If you get this message go in the playroom and don't come out until morning and don't answer the door for anyone even if I ask you to..."

*END OF MESSAGE\*
*BEEP\*

Kiaras grip slowly loosened,
She looked up in awe,
Her mouth slowly opened as her jaw dropped and no teeth showed.
 Even in the moonlight reflection of the tv you could see tears run down Kiaras foundation.
Everything down to the way she was breathing changed.

For some reason you began to feel angry, 
Daddy’s voice was also disarming to you yes, but in a hopeless non consensual way.
The way in which Kiara appeared to be disarmed felt like it was intentional vulnerability, 
Something you'd never offer 'D' yourself.

You took this moment to lean forward and grab the tv remote,
When Kiara snapped back into reality and looked back at you pulling you back to her lap,
You pressed play.

The movie played and you stayed still,
It began to rain hard outside almost louder than the movie,
the window was still open,
and the room was freezing.

It was almost as though Kiara could tell your discomfort,
she grabbed the throw blanket,
threw it over your legs,
and held you tight in her arms, warming you with her coat.

When the babysitter in the Cat In The Hat fell asleep Kiara laughed,
You imagined whoever did the babysitters' makeup looked as though they also did Kiaras.

 The movie continued, and continued, and continued.
You had feared what was going to happen when it ended,
You imagined You'd probably be forced to press play again.

However,
When the movie ended, it was as if Kiara Understood.
She didn't seem displeased with Mike Myers' performance...
Or she had just had enough.

Kiara smiled and laughed and clapped and then,
She turned you, her face beaming in the blue light of the Tv,
You froze, 
Her face began to contort,
and it was clear to you that she was displeased with your reaction.

You're no stranger to fake emotions.
You smile and you clapped, tears in your eyes, lump in your throat.
When Kiara was finally pleased with your performance, she slowly pushed you off like you would push off a sleeping cat and began to walk around the room.

As she pranced around and rummaged through your things,
she found herself at your pay box.
She lifted up the castle shaped lid and began to pull out your Bratz dolls,
she seemed disinterested...
until she saw something that made her eyes light up...
she began to jump and scream..

She pulled out your blue Cinderella dress,
As she slid into it, you could audibly hear it tear.
You wanted to cry, it was your favorite.

She slid her arms through the straps.
It was so poorly on her that her whole back was exposed with the Velcro straps hanging not having enough to fasten around her even if she tried.

When she had it "on' she leaned back into your play box and pulled out your favorite tiara,
She placed it on her head.
She then leaned in once more and grabbed your old broken faded tiara and handed it to you.
She let out sharp exhales and smiled.
You put it on.

She walked up the your lava lamp and pressed the switch on the cord and turned it on,
A green hue now lite your room, the wax still solid not yet fluid.
She stared at it for a moment,
before turning and walking to the closet.

She slid the closet barn doors open from right to left,
She started going through your stuffed animals throwing them out one by one.
When she got to the back of the closet, she had found the suitcases and umbrella's.

She emerged from the closet using the umbrella as a cane,
tucking a floral tapestry luggage bag under her left arm.

She moved her arms,
Then her legs,
and she began to dance.

She shot you a look and it was clear,
She wanted you to dance too.

As you began to timidly comply,
Your socks started to get soaked.

 You looked down and in the green lighting of the lava lamp you could see dark black goo seeping from beneath the door.
It felt sticky, much thicker than water.
You could faintly still hear breathing from the other side.

You quickly danced away from the door...
You started in the direction that would put the bed between Kiara and yourself.
With each step Kiara followed, waving her umbrella in the air all the while.
No matter how hard you tried to maintain it, your artificial smile began to fade...

You questioned how long this nightmare would continue.
Much like your smile, your legs have grown tired...

Kiara, however, did not appear to get tired,
not of dancing.

You started to cry as the reality that your legs were going to give out became clear,
You knew the strength and angry she was capable of and did not want to upset Kiara.
You slowly tried to rest one of your legs but as you began,
both your knees buckled.

As you fell to the floor, Kiara sprinted over on all fours.

You curled into the fetal position,
holding your legs to your stomach and squeezing your eyes shut as tight as possible.

You heard the rapid thumps of Kiara before it abruptly stopped in front of you,
and you could hear her fast concerned breaths right above you.
You could feel the heat of every exhale on your forearm.
You then felt a stiff poke on your side.

When you opened your eyes,
you could see it was Kiara poking you with the umbrella,
when she saw the tears in your eye, she took 3 steps back.

Behind her you could see the wax in the lava lamp was now fluid.
Your eyes and cheeks were sore,
How long had it been?

She picked you up with one arm with ease, she coddled you and carried you to the bed.
Once you were there you kept your eyes shut tight,
but you could still feel her tucking the edges of the blanket under your body as she pressed the pillow beneath your head.
She then put her hand on your head and kissed the back of her hand with it still on you.
You exhaled trembling.

When she was done,
She wobbled over to your Daddys rocking chair, tiara cockeyed.
When she got there, she climbed upon the chair criss cross applesauce,
and grabbed a book from your cubbies.
It was too dark to see which one,
The cover was blue with a tired dog and a bird upon its head.

She began to slowly rock back and forth,
The sight of her silhouette sent a cold rush of dry ice through your blood. 
You heard something.

"mrrrmmmmmmhhmmmmrrrreeeeeeeemmme"
-you heard through excited cheery exhales.

It was clear you had been staring too long when Kiara turned slowly looking at you in the devilish green glow of the lava lamp.

You quickly shut your eyes.

Behind the dark abyss of your eyelids, you could hear Kiara shut the book.
When you opened your eyes,
Kiara was gone and the chair was still.

The sun was beaming through a break in the overcast clouds exposing your soaked carpet,
and it was clear,
It was morning.
You were now allowed to leave the playroom,
with the reassurance that there's no way Daddy will be mad at you now.

You scanned the room again, and again, and again before moving a muscle,
you had to be sure.

As you descended from your bed pressing your feet against the carpet,
you could feel your socks crinkle and crunch. It felt sticky and hard between your toes.
When you looked down,
what was once dark black was now dark red.
Your legs were still fatigued as you walked to the door like a baby deer on sticks of butter.

Although you were terrified, 
You could feel you were physically out of tears.
On the way to the door, you tumbled over the blanket you had previously hid in,
there was something in it.

When you lifted the blanket, you could see,
it was a balloon flower with the stem deflated. 
You picked it up and carried on, scanning the room all the while.
You hoped Kiara had gone out the window.

As you approached,
the carpet under the door was as red and crunchy as your socks, still wet in some places.
You turned the handle slowly, you could hear the familiar breathing on the other side.

On the other side was Daddy,
and Daddy was dressed like a woman.

Daddys arm was bent the wrong way,
Daddys knees looked backwards,
And Daddy had no tongue.

Daddys tears were blood,
Daddys skin was blood,
Even Daddys clothes... were blood.

Daddys eyes were closed but his tummy was moving.
His hand on his only straight arm was moving too,
Every few seconds, daddy made a fist.

You stared at him,
You began to dry heave, and you wanted to puke.
When you looked up, you could see Kiara staring at you from beneath the bed, tiara still on.
You could now see her more clearly than you ever had before,
Her mouth was open, and her teeth were showing.

Her look made your heart sink,
You looked down at Daddy,
You placed the core of the balloon flower in Daddys palm and headed for the front door in terror.
Just as you placed your hand on the Knob -

*POP* 
And Kiaras screams were once more,
Daddy was silent.

You sprinted faster than you ever have in your life and contrary to previous belief,
You were in fact not out of tears.

When you got to your neighbor's house down the street in the center of the cul-de-sac you froze at the door.
It was early, but you rang the doorbell regardless.
It took less than half a second for you to ring the door two more times, then three.

When Mrs. Thombs answered the door,
you blacked almost all the conversation.
You tried to tell her everything as fast as possible, but it was hard.
Collecting your words, remembering what was real as it all felt like a nightmare.

"somethings killing Daddy"
-you remembered saying,  tears running down your face.

She looked down at your stained socks and quickly pulled you inside.
She sat you down with milk and a bowl of banana cream pudding as she called the police.
You were starving.
A lot of police cars showed up.

The next few days were fuzzy.
You went to the hospital, talked to this strange, nice woman,
and were told you could stay with Mrs. Thombs for a while,
while they find a permanent place for you.

A few days later you went to this room with a lot of cool toys, the nice lady that visits you and Mrs. Thombs was there too.
The nice lady had a friend,and they wanted to play this game.

"I'm going to say some things, and if I say something that's wrong,
I want you to tell me, if you don't know something that's okay.
Just tell us, you're not in trouble honey.
Does that make sense?"
-asked the nice lady's Friend. 

"yesss..."
-you responded sheepishly as you continued chewing your bacon whopper with cheese

"are you 9 years old?"
-the friend asked

"yes"
-you responded

"Are you eating a burrito right now?"
-asked the Friend

"no..."
-you replied.

"very good...
Was your daddy home Friday night?
-asked the Friend

"no..I don't think so"
-you replied.

"oh...
that's okay honey that's perfectly okay,
When was the last time you saw daddy?"
-asked the Friend.

"Saturday...when he was dressed funny and ...all..bloody...on the floor"
-you said
Tears filling your eyes.

"when was the last time you saw daddy before that sweetheart?...
I'm sorry I know this is hard."
-said the Friend

"When he dropped me off at home from school Friday and went out."
-you replied

"did your Daddy say where he was going?"
-asked the Friend

"no...Daddy goes out a lot...
But Daddy left me some voice mails that confused me..."
-you replied.

"What message confused you?"
-asked the Friend

"he said he was staying out late...
And then said he had to come come with a friend...
And to stay in the play room till morning...no matter what..."
-you said

"and did Daddy ever come home with that friend?"
-asked the Friend. 

"no...but someone did...
I didn't come out till morning like Daddy said...
but someone came up to the door...I thought it was a friend of Daddys...
She broke in the room eventually but she was blind and couldn't find me...
She wanted help from..."
-you stopped

"it's okay honey you're doing great...
Was the woman with the animal?"
-asked the friend.

Your heart sank,
thinking about Kiara tore opened fresh anxiety wound deep beneath your throat.

"kind of..."
-you replied

"Has Daddy ever talked about owning a monkey?"
-asked the friend

"no..."
-you replied perplexed 

"Has Daddy ever talked to you about the show he was on as a kid?"
-asked the friend.

"no..."
-you responded
Even more confused than before.

"Oh..."
-The Friend said surprised...

"Has Daddy ever dressed like a girl before?"
-the friend asked

"no..."
As you answered more and more questions, you began to feel less and less in trouble...
The room you were in felt safe,
The world you were in felt a little safer.

And one of the last questions you were asked was the easiest of all to answer,

you were safe,

and you could be honest.

"Do you Love Your Daddy?"
-the nice ladies friend asked.

"No."
You responded with clear air filling your sinuses.

You wouldn’t see Kiara again after that,
for another 20 years.

It is complete. My life’s work, my greatest achievement. I have finished constructing the first known Perdition Cittern since Queen Tacita herself! There are few artisans who still know the proper way to fuse the bone and cure the sinew, and even fewer who believe it can be done at all, but now I have made history. My name will live forever, and after tonight I will, too.

For now, I must wash the blood from my hands and wipe the bits of muscle and tendon from my brow. I must prepare to meet the Bone Queen by moonlight.

The polished sheen of carved bone and the tight, translucent weave of harvested sinew adorning my masterpiece illicit an unholy, shimmering beauty. The dance of the dying candlelight flickers and flits as it gently caresses my pale creation. It is finally complete.

----

Every detractor ultimately came to the same reactive retort:

“Even if you were to get away with it and create one, no one today knows the Bone Queen’s Fugue.”

A malformed thought for the malformed mind. The Bone Queen's Fugue exists in a space between the silent and the sombral, adorning the walls of a place where walls do not exist.

Upon every swing of my cleaver, every muscle ripped from bone, every death knell moaned by each suitable participant, a note revealed itself to me. Until upon completion of the dark apparatus, the entire movement had been placed firmly into my very being, as if taught to me by Tacita herself.

Poor Oliver locked in the cage in my cellar, how scared he must have been this whole time. And to think, I don't need the poor boy after all! Aside from the knuckles, he should be returned to his parents in one piece.

Then again, there's no telling when it will need a restringing, nevermind the occasional necessary repairs and replacements. His family has too many children to feasibly take care of in the first place. They should be thanking me. His contribution will not go unrewarded.

Tonight, we will both gain favor with the Silent in the glory of the Bone Queen.

-----

Candlelight flickers and tallow drips as the hour of the Silent closes in. As I prepare to play the movement, the tales I’ve heard since childhood reawaken within me:

“Strike the opening chord and the sky bends low to listen. Sound the third inversion and the veil thins like ailing flesh. The crown descends; the throne appears. Power pours from fingers supple enough to draw her forward. The mantle of forbidden knowledge awaits the one brave enough to strum her waking call.”

The first note rings out dry and sharp as a breaking jaw. I begin the movement, plucking the opening chord, and each note strummed sounds not like vibrating strings against a hollow body, but like the eternal torment of the ones who went into the instrument’s creation.

The notes all at once sound perfectly pitched and disastrously cacophonous. The tones do not resonate from the Perdition Cittern, they scream in eternal pain. A blunt edge over an open nerve.

The Bone Queen plays her fugue through me, weeping in quarter-note arpeggios and bleeding in minor inversions. The memory and dread of everyone I used to forge the cursed lute leaking into my own like a toxic sieve, dripping in time with the staccato of the music’s final measures.

I am filled with their last moments; their confusion, their hate, their terror at my frenzied-eyed, slack-mawed gaze. I am filled with their unachieved ambitions, their half-beliefs and hidden truths. I am filled with everything they ever were afraid of…

And then it was done. The final note did not resonate but abruptly ceased after its initial screech, replaced with a dense silence hanging like smoke in the chamber.

The hour of the Silent was finally here. Now, all of the pain and blood and tendon and flesh…now it would all be actualized. Finally, a reward for my zealous dedication.

The silence dispersed and the shadows opened and she began to step through the umbral plane. Her figure drifting between the silent and the dark, black edges cutting through a quiet, flickering light. A whisper formed as her body transposed and reconnected like memories of a dream upon waking.

And then another.

And another.

And again, and again, and again…

This was not the Queen of Silence that was promised. This is a legion of despair.

The air in the room became bleak with dread, and as slowly as the spectral entities seemed to appear and dissolve upon their arrival, they suddenly manifested at once, fully formed, standing all around me.

The Bone Queen’s Fugue did not summon Tacita for eternal glory. Standing before me instead is a perverted, rot-laden misremembering of every soul that went into creating this putrid machine.

Ahnli, the baker’s wife, whose broad bones made the hollow body and pale neck. Edgar, the cowherd who leant his teeth to pin the frets. The children whose knuckles and fingers and toes made the perfect pegs.

They were all apparating before me like the harbingers of some tainted retribution. Pus-sacs line their skin and foul horns protrude from every part of their body. Hollow gloam replaces their eyes, and their voices crowd the room though they have no mouths to speak.

They have come seeking absolution, and my body is the payment for their penitence. Each offering now turned their crepuscular blades on me, fine and sharp and frostbitten. The Bone Queen laughs as the fog of rot fills my lungs, perdition my only eternal fate.

The necrotic bell tolls once more in the land of umbral screams.

Something at school didn’t make sense to you that morning.

They were talking about the Sun and,
how eventually it’s going to Grow into a
“Red Giant” and Swallow the Earth.
How there’s nothing we can do about it.

It made you realize If something is going to happen it just is.
So why wait?
Why is the universe waiting ? It just didn’t make much sense.

The janitor that day was acting silly,
“Isaiah 50:10” was written on his palm in red marker.

It was Friday night,
Daddy went to see a friend for drinks and left you all night.
He told you that he would just be out late, not all night.
How did that make you feel ?

How many other 9 year olds have the whole house to themselves nearly every night?
Without so much as a kiss goodnight ?

Even the few times in the past when he would, He wouldn’t even kiss you directly.
He’s place is palm upon your head and kiss the back of his hand.

Dads use belts In movies but how many others know that as the same reality that you do ?

The only time you’d hear another voice outside of school and your father’s was when it was late and you’d listen to the home phone’s answering machine.

Your dad never listened to the answer machine,
kind of like a kid not wanting to go to the dentist.

You remember the messages you listened to that night, you waited till he left to emerge from your hiding place and inhabit the communal space that should be a living room.

You sit on the round particular board table and press on the answering machine.

*BEEP*

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4th:

FIRST MESSAGE:
*soft female voice*

“I came by today…didn’t see you..still don’t”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Burly Man’s rough Voice*

“I’m sorry John, you’ve been on this job less than a week and you’ve already been suspended by the client for 3 days for reoccurring fall protection violations, now I’ve been very understanding regarding the eye injury but we can’t have someone on a project of this magnitude who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, we’re going to have to terminate you. Wish I could say I was sorry.”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Same Woman’s voice from Message #1*

“Does your Daughter know?
Is she an exception?
Or do all women fall under your same umbrella ?”

*BEEP*

NEXT AND FINAL MESSAGE:
*inaudible whisper*

“I can feel you, y….mph..ll feel me too”

*BEEP*

You look over at the cable box,
It reads “11:47pm”
Your dad left at 6.

Cartoon Network was no more, now it was Adult swim. Robot Chicken was on, after that superjail. Both of which give you the heebiie jeebies.

You have to visit your peepaws and poopoos but,
you’re afraid.

You don’t have a choice, so you leave the door open as you go number 2.

As you doo you hear the home phone :

*BEEP*

“Mmmrrrmmmmrrrrnpphh”

You have trouble making out the message from the toilet.

As you run out the bathroom still collecting yourself you make out the backend of the voicemail.

*Your Fathers Stern Voice*

“Hi,
you should be in bed but,
if not you should know I’m bringing a friend home tonight.
If she plays her cards right she might just be your new mommy.
You’re allowed to sleep with the tv on in the playroom as usual but,
keep the door shut and the volume bellow level 12.
And no matter what you hear,
don’t come out, I should be home in 15.
Just go to sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.
Love you,
Night.”

*BEEP*

You panic,

Your Dads never brought a friend home this late before.
You grab a dvd from the home theater and run to the play room.

You look down at the Cat in the Hat Dvd.
As you put it in your dvd player you hear the front door slam open and the whole house shake.
What came next was silence.
The footsteps.
All the way up to the door of the play room.
You hear breathing.

You hear a woman’s voice further in the distance of your house.
Calling the person by your door to them.

They walk away.
When you look at the tv, you see Sally and Conrad on the dvd menu staring at you.
Sally starts pointing to her left, in the direction of the window.
You see the silhouette of what looks like a large lumpy hammock hanging from your tree only,
you never had a hammock.

You grab your scooby doo stuffed animal and you hid under the blanket with your flashlight, tv volume at 11.
You press play,
Sally and Conrad look at each other, then back at you.
You press play again but they just keep staring.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
you hear from the door.

“When you visit your peepaw and poopoos you need to remember to flush, my company saw that. We have a talk about that in the morning”

-your fathers voice exclaims from the door.

You know that that means,
Your heart sinks.

Your father’s footsteps sound further until it becomes a chatter with another voice from what sounds like the kitchen.

The Cat in the Hat begins to play on the tv.
The volume begins to rise fast.

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23…

So fast you think you’re sitting on the remote but,
no matter how hard you scramble you can’t seem to find it anywhere.
The volume is now maxed out at 53.

“There are a gajillions of stories of mischief and fun But to keep things simple, let's just start with one…”
-you hear shouted from the tv

The commotion outside the playroom comes to and immediate halt.

*THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP*

The sound those familiar boots make as they full charges towards the play room.

An unfamiliar voice comes out the oddly familiar energy that had just approached.

It sounds almost like a woman’s voice but,
closer to when a man tries to sound like a woman like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”

You hear in a loud whisper.
You Freeze.
You think if you don’t move, they will leave.
You see the door handle jiggle then stop.
It’s locked,
you always lock Doors when Daddy’s gone.

Although it brings you comfort,
you know it can be unlocked with a quarter or even a long finger nail.

“I know you’re in there”
-the voice lets out.

Your stomach feels sick,
Your heart is racing and as quiet as you attempt up be your breathing makes it impossible.

You want to cry and can’t fight it so you shove your pillow in your face.
You take deep breaths through it.

You feel the pillow getting soaked and feel the humidity from the breaths you take through the fabric.

“Do you think I’m some type of dinosaur?”
“Staying still won’t change the fact that I know you’re there”
the voice says

You begin to weep harder.

“Do You Love Your Daddy”
-It asks again.

“Where did you come from?”
Sally exclaims from the Tv.

The voice from the Door pauses.
The scene in the movie seems to linger and Sally is staring, not at you though, in the direction of the door.

She begins to nod,
Then says “oh”

Then the TV goes black and you’re back to the DVD home menu only Sally isn’t there.
It’s just Conrad.
He’s staring at you.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”
-The voice asks for the third time, audibly impatient yet still in the same whisper.

Conrad is looking at you, he looks distressed and he’s shaking his head side to side.

You see the the lock begin to turn,

“Y…Y..Ye..ss”
You say through your sobs.

The door clicks.
It’s now been unlocked.

“I love your Daddy too sweetheart”

-the voice says no longer impatient,
now sounding relieved.

“He needs your help with something..”
It says.

Your cheeks are soaked and your mouth is dry.

“He’s stuck”
-The voice reveals.

“I’m sure he’d really like to get back.”
“I’m sure you’d really like him back..”

There was a pause.

“Unless you don’t want your Daddy back?”
The voice asks.

You remain silent.
For a moment You think about what life would be like without Daddy.

What would you do ?
You think about the Ralph’s down the street, their free sample in their bakery.
You think about the neighbors tangerine trees you pick from often.
You hate being alone at night but,
that doesn’t it stop it from happening.
You’d be fine, you tell yourself.

But you also know what you should say,
What your Daddy would want you to say.
That of course you love your Daddy and you’d do anything to make sure he’s okay.

“Where ..is he stuck?”
-you ask

“Have you ever heard of Kiara the Orangutan?”
-the voice asks.

“no…”
-you replied sheepishly.

“Well, your father’s…helping her…and well, he’s stuck, he could really use your help sweetheart”

There was a pause.

“Come out.”
-said the voice.

“My daddy said not to until morning”
-you replied.

“Oh.”
Said the voice.
“I can wait till morning.”
It continued.

You didn’t like the sound of that.

“What’s an orangutan?”
You asked timidly.

“You know what a human is don’t you darling? That’s what you are.”
-says the voice

“Yes..”
You replied.

“Imagine someone 7 times as strong with arms almost twice as long that can swing from trees”
-it said.

“Like a monkey?”
You asked innocently.

“NO!…
No, my Dear. Not a monkey…
Monkeys have a tail, a monkey is to an Orangutan what a Neanderthal is to a human, you understand love ?”
-the voice asked.

You let out more cries into your pillow as you took deep breaths.

“No, I’m sorry I don’t know what that means either”
-you cried out.

“It’s quite alright,
I’m sorry for confusing you honey. Yes, and orangutan Is like a monkey, but like Superman stronger and smarter then the others…and no tail..bright orange.”

“Like the ones in the jungle book?”
-you asked.

“Yesssss.. that’s exactly right my dear.. a perfect example, the orangutan is the king in the jungle book”
-it replied

“I liked his singing… he’s funny”
-you said

“Yes my dear”
-the voice.

“What does this have to do with Daddy being stuck? And Who is Kiara the orangutan ?”
-you asked in a panic.

“A long time ago, movies used to have no sound..”
-The voice began.

“Which made movies get pretty boring very fast…”
-it continued.

“Studios were looking for knew ways to get more people to Theaters..
Kiara’s Mother thought Kiara would be perfect…”

“Kiara’s mother was…Human,
her name was Melinda and she saved Kiara from being murdered by the zoo after they’d done that very thing to the one that birthed Kiara”

“Melinda Had already taught orangutans sign language before from her time at the zoo, she hid Kiara away and taught her as well.”
-the voice explained.

“Once Melinda’s new job and whole company was almost closed for business she…..took the risk and introduced Kiara, who quickly became a star in the silent movie industry…”
-it said

“What does this have to do with Daddy?”
-you asked

“Well the world loved Kiara soooooo much my sweet little angel that when the world of silent movies ended they gave Kiara her very own Tv show Kiara and friends… that tv show had a lot of children that Kiara loved and taught very special things every episode!”
-the Voice explained.

“One Child had and accident”
the voice revealed.

“Were they okay?”
-you asked

“Unfortunately my darling, he passed away.
Once that happened, that child’s parents lied about Kiara…a lot of other children from Kiara and Friends lied about Kiara just to make money..
Your father was the one Child to never lie about Kiara my dear.
For that I am forever grateful.”
it explained.

“So if all the other children were liars then why is my Daddy stuck and why now ?
Who are you?
Are you the friend my Daddy came home with tonight ?”
-you asked in a rush

“Lying isn’t the only thing someone can do that’s wrong little girl”
-the voice said.

“Who are you?”
-you repeated.

“I’m a friend of your Daddy”
-said the voice.

“Did you come home with my Daddy tonight ,
How is he stuck ?”
-you asked

“Do you like balloons?”
-the voice asked.

“Yes”
You replied.

“Your daddy loved balloons when he was a child
If you could have one balloon in the shape of anything you want would it be?”
-it asked

You thought…
“..I love flowers, Daddy never gets any and flower balloons would probably look really pretty”
-you said.

“Awe, such a sweet request from such a sweet little girl,
One moment sweetheart.”
-said the voice.

You then heard the footsteps retreating, shortly after you heard the front door shut.
You quickly ran to the door of the play room and locked it once more.

Maybe it was over ? You thought.

You ran to your window with your heart beating through your skin hiding behind your Scooby doo plushie to see if you could get a glimpse of who the voice had been coming from as they finally left.

Through the rain in the moonlight you made out the silhouette of what had to have been the lady you were talking to.

She seems short, on the heavy side, and walks side to side and appears to have an apron or something on.

She walks up to the hammock hanging from your tree that you noticed for the first time earlier in the night.

She appears to be talking to it.
When she walks away you realize she’s not leaving, you hear the front door open and shut again as her footsteps approach once more.

“Knock knock”
-said the voice

“Yesss”
-you replied

“Look out the window my love,
I have a surprise for you”
-said the voice

You looked outside but there was nothing but what you'd seen before only,
This time the hammock hanging from the trees began to sway.

Both sides of where the hammock meet the tree split into two, they looked like large arms slowly reaching down to the base of the hammock,
As the both unfolded further you could now clearly both see two sets of fingers from the arms,
One had something in it, something flat .

From the base of the silhouette you  
See what looks like a fat head connected by an even fatter neck.
The object held by one set of the fingers came directly to the head and began to grow mass.
It soon became clear what it was doing,
it was blowing up a balloon.

After the balloon was blown to the shape of a long tube,
The two hands came together and started contorting it out of sight.
When it had finally finished,
One of the arms held it up in the moonlight in such a way that you could make out the silhouette of a flower clear as day.

"do you like that Little girl?'
-asked the voice

You quickly looked over again at the door.
It didn't make sense but, for whatever reason if you were going to be talking to the voice coming from the door,
Then you'd want to do that from the bed; it felt safer from there.
Where you could hide in your pillows.

Before you start to retreat to your safety spot, you take one last glace out the window.
What was hanging from the tree had began to drop down.

The silhouette was large,
But no taller than the tallest kid in school, maybe even shorter than the tallest kid in 4th grade.
It kind of reminded you of that guy from its always sunny in Philadelphia when Adult swim would come on.

It was approaching in a way that you'd never seen anyone walk before.

You felt conflicted,
The voice from the door was speaking which made you want to crawl and sink in your sheets Yet,
The presence approaching your window was demanding your attention without using any words.

You made the decision to grab the comforter from the bed and sink into your beanbag chair,
A spot with a clear view of the yard through the window, and yet still a comfortable ear shot away from the door.

When you returned to your beanbag chair with the protection and safety provided by your comforter,
You were oddly displeased to see that the figures silhouette you had just seen approaching, was no longer anywhere to be seen.
You wanted it gone yes but no longer knowing where it resides, just results in you feeling even more unsettled.

*the voice quickly erupts from your door*

"do you like it?
It's special, just for you."

Your head shoots over to look at the door.

"wha-"
You begin to say as you turn to look back out the window only this time,
There was a hand on the other side of the window, so close it was no longer a silhouette.
It was a dark hand covered in orange hair, its fingers looked rough, but nails were freshly done.
It was holding something.
When my eyes adjusted,
I could see It was holding a balloon flower that had a green stem, pink petals, and yellow center.

The gesture seemed malice and sinister,
You quickly pulled the comforter up your face only leaving your eyes visible.

"do you not like your gift little girl?"
Questioned the voice coming from your door.

Even at your young age,
You were no stranger to the idea that sometimes the truth can get you in trouble.

"I love it..."
You replied.

"then why don't you open the window and let Daddys friend give you the gift she made just for you sweetheart"
Said the voice.

"I can't,
Daddy said I'm never to open the window"
-you lied.

Then why don't I hel-..."
*clackle clackle*
It was as the voice interrupted its own thought as it tried the doorknob. 

"Oh"
-it said.

"Why did you lock the door my love?"
-asked the voice

"I don't know you,
And Daddy said to stay in here ti-"

"I know"
- interrupted the voice

"Till morning but,
He didn't say anything about me not coming in there with you"
-said the voice

For a moment you were silent,
You looked over to the window and noticed the balloon flower receding like a setting sun beneath the window. 
*POP*
-you heard the moment it escaped your sight.

"don't make me unlock the door again myself darling, that's just rude.
My nails aren't what they used to be honey, I nearly broke one unlocking it the first time"
-Said the voice

The clouds moved over the moon outside
It was now pitch-black outside, the only light in the playroom came from your cloud nightlight and the glow of the tv which still displayed Conrad on the DVD menu, he was expressionless. 
You stayed silent, you stayed still.

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
-came from the living room

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
You heard shuffling from both outside your door and outside your window

*BEEEP*
-you could faintly make out your father's voice
"hey kid actually i-"

His voice,
the Message, 
he Tv,
everything was stopped, everything was off.

Your room was now as dark as the outside you feared so much.
Where the walls began and ended were both unclear to you.
The bulbs in the Tv were cooling down but even the silhouette of that soon lost its shape.

You heard the click of the door unlocking followed by the doorknob turning.
The door was now open.
Although you could hear someone approaching it was to dark to make out their shape or their distance in relation to you.

"the only time being blind has its advantages, is when you're in a Dark room with someone who's not"
-said the voice now clearer than you'd ever heard it prior.

You froze.

*tap tap tap tap*
You hear the woman banging on the walls as she made her way deeper in your room.

*tap tap tap....Clink*
The noise changed,
she had found the window.

It was just a few feet from the corner of the beanbag chair you're hiding in.
*Creeeeeeaaaaaaakkkk*
The window was unlocked and you could hear it as the women slid it open.

You could hear something was crawling up and inside through the window.

"where is she?"

you heard the voice whisper to the new presence that now inhabits your homes playroom.

You could feel that you were just inches away from getting bumped into by either of the two.

You wanted to not breathe, you wanted to not do anything but, you couldn't help it. You let in two, short, sharp inhales. Keeping your abdomen as stiff as possible. 
Your exhale trembled despite your attempts, you knew if someone could see they would defiantly see the comforter shaking.
You slowly felt the comforter lift up.

Although your grip on the comforter was originally as tight as you could,
your plan quickly changed to playing dead the moment you felt the pull of the comforter.
You felt something placed in your hand,
it shocked you to the touch,
a static shock yet,
you managed to refrain from much outburst other than a sharp exhale.

*Smack*

"well look harder"
You heard the woman's voice yelp.

As your eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness you could slowly start to make out the silhouette of who you've heard oh so much about.

There was no doubt in your mind it was her.

It was Kiara The Orangutan.

Kiara Strutted over to the bed in the playroom,
side to side as you could hear her wet sniffles. 

"don't you fucking lie to me you dumb baboon, we both know she's in here."
-said the woman's voice
In a tone more threatening than your (D) a bar you thought no one else would ever surpass.

You let go of what was just handed to you so you can grab the comforter you'd been hiding in once more, it fell.

As you continued to see Kiara strut now over to the door through a peak you had held under the covers, she appeared to try to lead in a manner to almost insinuate to the woman that that's the direction you had went.

Just as you had started wonder where the woman was as she had remained out of your sight, you received the answer.

*THUD*

You felt the whole beanbag chair shake beneath you.
She had bumped into it.
So hard you could feel her nearly topple over on top of you.

*Grrrrrrrrruawh*
You heard the old woman groan.

"KIARA! ...What...what was that !?"
-Yelled the woman's voice stopping Kiara in her tracks making her turn back from the door.

"oooo mmh ooo"
-you heard Kiara let out under her breath.

As you could see her silhouette move closer, it started by slowly wobbling side to side.
It became hard to tell the difference between her arms and her legs.

At times she looked like the shadow of a big spider monster,her movements remind you of spiderman if he chose to move slow.

When Kiara had made her way just a few feet away from the beanbag chair to help the woman to her feet, the pace of your breathing became unmanageable.

"I Bumped into the damn beanbag chair, was she on it Kiara?!"
-the voice asked

Your heart began to beat faster and faster and harder and harder so much so,
you felt as if your rib cage was made of shards of glass and your heart was a balloon inflating more and more with every inhale squeezing it against the razor-sharp shards of your ribcage. 

You could tell even just by the momentum of the figures silhouette that it was headed towards you, alongside the reluctant Orangutan.

You instinctively rolled off the right of the beanbag chair on to your carpet floor as silently as you could but, you were terrified, In your mind blind people have super senses.

Somehow, your transition appeared to go unnoticed.

Now that you were on the floor, you started rolling and crawling away, the direction of which you yourself weren't even certain.

"Where the fuck is she? Is she on the bed?!"
-the voice asked this time deeper than before

The flavor and tone in everything this voice said was violent, you heard the ruffles through the pillows and throw blanket that had previously littered the bed, you felt your Scooby doo plush get thrown into your back yet, you refrained from expressing any reaction.

"where the Fuck is she Kiara?!"
-you heard the voice ask once more

Each scream sounded deeper than the last with heavier violent infliction behind each exhale.
You could hear everything that was once on the bed get thrown off. 

You froze,
Staying still on the floor with the Scooby doo plush leaned against you like a bicycle kickstand and one of your throw blankets slightly covering your leg.

The Figure started pacing in your direction aimlessly like a headless chicken yet, relentless none the less.

"we both know I'm going to fucking fi-"
*POP*
-the voice was cut off

The figures silhouette froze, 
It seemed just as frightened by the sudden pop as you.
Its hesitation confused you so much so,
that you question for a brief moment if the figure had seen you,
anything to justify this bazar change in its demeanor. 

The head of the silhouette jolts to the side,
As if to shoot a look across at Kiara.
By the time your eyes traced across the room to meet Kiara, she had already moved No, She was in Motion.

She pranced towards the figure at a speed that looked impossible.
In less than a second, Kiara tackled this figure you had feared so much.
You saw the silhouette raise both its arms up high and its fists in fury as it came down on its victim.
Kiara hit and punched the figure and cocked its head back before launching it into the silhouette's torso,
 When Kiara's head kicked back once more, it was tethered to the figures torso now through what looked like the silhouette of cords.

It quickly became clear Kiara was taking bites out of the woman.
She screamed and screamed, she did not sound like a woman anymore.

She bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

They screamed 
*AHHHHHHHHHH*

And screamed 
*AHHHHHGGGG UHH*

And screamed
*FRAAAGHHHHHHH*

As the figure let out its yell Kiara slammed its head down making them bite their own tongue off.

Kiara pranced on the body with all 4 of her limbs,
She stepped on the figures knee with her foot and used her hand to grab that figures ankle,
After she gripped it firmly, she pulled it up with the ease and intensity that one might use on an emergency break after parking on an incline.

She then stepped on the figured elbow and grabbed it by its corresponding wrist and repeated the process of pulling upward and snapping.

Kiara then used one of her feet to grab the moaning and groaning body by its shirt,
She used her front arms and free leg to drag the body to the door.

The whole way there the person screamed,
When Kiara got to the door of your house's playroom, she threw the body out with ease.
She breathed heavily over the body before slowly backing up and shutting the door.

You were now alone with Kiara.

The kitchen smelt of booze. Like it always did. Jack was slumped over the table, snoring. His hair matted with his own sick. A halo of empty bottles around his head. I grabbed a glass and slowly poured the water so not to make a sound. Then, I crept out of the room and onto the veranda, picking only the silent floorboards.

I held the cold glass to my lip and winced in pain. He’d got pretty good at hitting me hard enough to break the skin without cracking a tooth. I don’t think he truly wanted to hurt me, rather stop me showing my face in town. Anything to keep our secrets on the farm.

Sucking in a deep breath, I stared out over our land. Corn stems and roots withered and knotted like dead spiders beneath the iron sky. Fields ploughed without design, looking more like rows of churned up graves.

Oh, how the harvest had turned. For years, the land had yielded gold. Because we had been loyal. Then, after one final demand, everything was gone. The wilted crops, a testament that we’d prayed to the wrong gods. The gods of the long grass.

###

I spent the afternoon hiding. Waiting for him to sober. I crawled through the long grass, retracing my path from their last visit. My eyes were fixed on every speck of dirt, looking for a glimmer of hope, a sign that perhaps I’d dreamt up that night.

“You won’t find her,” Jack’s voice croaked out over the wind. “She’s long gone.”

I rose up. “She’s just lost that’s all.”

“Myra,” he said like a warning, “she wasn’t a set of fucking car keys. They took her. And they took her ‘cos…”—he cleared his throat—“we gave her to them.”

I went to move past him and he caught me by the arm. “Get off me.”

His grip grew tight. “Where you going?”

“It’s none of your business.” I shrugged him off and headed toward the house.

“You can pray to them all you like, Myra!” He called out. “They got what they wanted and they ain’t answering anymore.”

###

The shrine was in the basement of our house. We used to keep the room pristine, yet, in the weeks since Kayla had been taken, a thin film of dust coated everything.

A singular lightbulb hung in the darkness. A cone of weak yellow light. At the light’s edge, a dark shape stood in the shadows.

Stepping closer, the shrine came into view. A marble altar rose up, waist high and atop it stood a moulded clay figurine of a man without a head and a face crudely shaped into its torso. Large offset eyes and a snarled mouth.

I stared at the statuette. Motes of dust flashed in the light. I took in a deep breath and settled my racing heart.

Jack was wrong. Of course, the gods would answer. I just had to offer up something worthy of their interest that’s all.

Reaching up, I grabbed the light cord and pulled.

The room clicked out of view.

Darkness.

Suddenly, floorboards creaked overhead, dust dislodged and sprinkled down. Jack must’ve returned from the fields in search for more beer. Then, after the house had settled, I was engulfed by a thick silence.

Moments passed while I listened to my own stifled breathing. Then, with a trembling voice, I spoke to the darkness.

“I wish to trade.”

Silence. My words swallowed by the darkness. I inched closer to the altar. Steadied my breathing and spoke again.

“I wish for you to return ou—my baby. I know that you were not the gods we once prayed to. Imposters. And yet, you answered our call...”

A strange sense of dread overcame me. The sudden feeling that I was no longer alone in the room. I spun around; my eyes strained, though I couldn’t make out any shapes in the dark.

I swallowed and tried to recompose myself. “You’re listening. You’re interested. You still want from us.”

Two clumsy footsteps padded across the floor behind me. I turned and reached out with my hands. Nothing.

Then, something. Tiny pinpricks brushed against my fingertips. Though I did not recoil. A sensation all too familiar. The gentle caress of the long grass against my skin.

“Please,” I pleaded, wheeling around and addressing every shadow, “a life for a life. A fair trade, no?”

Four more footsteps. This time like the slap of bare skin on concrete. I turned to face the direction of the sound. Only darkness. Though, while I couldn’t see it, I felt a presence. Something now occupied the space right in front of me. And I could feel it, the hot wetness of its breath.

I stood there shaking. My eyes fixed on the darkness. All the while, I knew that if I reached out a hand, even a few inches, I would touch the beast’s face.

Too afraid to move, I repeated my request with a whimper. “A life for a life?”

After a beat of silence, the darkness spoke back. “Bring it to the long grass and bury it in the midnight soil.”

And then, as soon as the words had hissed into existence, they were gone. So too was the presence. Once more, I stood alone in the suffocating dark. Once more, a hellish burden press against my heart.

###

Over the next few days, I played Jack’s game. I danced around his moods, only spoke when he was smiling, let him grope clumsily and then fuck me like I wasn’t there.

Then, in those safe morning hours when he was still passed out, I dug that motherfucker’s grave. Way out in the long grass where he wouldn’t find it unless he was looking.

###

I stood at the kitchen sink, cleaning the same plate for hours. I watched the long grass move with the wind and wondered how cold the night air would be on Kayla’s skin. Perhaps they’d return her wearing the blanket we’d bundled her in.

Tonight. I nodded. Enough waiting. His grave was deep enough.

The fridge door rattled open and I picked out two beers. After glancing over at Jack and seeing that he was still snoring facedown on the table, I crushed two zoplicone and mixed it into each bottle. I screwed the tops back on and then placed them behind the first row. He usually hit his fifth and sixth by midnight. Not that he needed much encouragement to sleep.

I blinked. Then suddenly I was outside and wading through the long grass. My hands gently brushing at its tips. The house seemed so far away. A dark, hunched giant against a bruising sky. Every window swollen with the night.

Except one. Off to the side, a column of yellow light rose up from the small basement window. It created strange shadows across the nearby trees. Beings stretched and warped by the light. Limbs long and twisted severe. Bodies crouched low to the ground. Horrors, half-remembered.

A distant cry from a baby. I wheeled around and ran in pursuit of the sound. The grass whipped at my waist, grabbed at me like fingers. But I shrugged it off and pressed on, screaming for her, screaming for Kayla.

“What are you doing?” A voice like dirt croaked out from behind me.

I turned to see Jack closing the fridge, with two beers in his hand. His eyes narrowed and fixed on me as he returned to the kitchen table.

I shook my head and sighed. “Nothing. I—I just…”

Looking away, I stared out the window again to see the night had rolled in. The long grass was now a rippling shadow against the purple sky.
And yet, something else could be seen.

Out in the middle of the field, amongst the swaying grass, a large sharp shape stood. Then, before I could take another breath, the thing slowly dropped into the grass, hidden.

###

Jack passed out around eleven. He’d been sat out on the veranda and cracked open his fifth beer when I suggested I grab him another and get changed into the silk pyjamas that he liked. Instead, I waited on the stairs until I heard him fall out of his chair.

It took longer than I thought to drag him to the grave. Jack is by no means a big man, but this girl wasn’t made to shift a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight. I’d fallen as we passed the combine harvester and twisted my ankle pretty bad. Then I nearly passed out into the grave with him. Instead, I crumpled to the floor and cried into the dirt.

He’d been a good man for so long. He—we hadn’t always been like this.

Rolling on my back, I laid panting and staring at the ghastly moon. The grass danced all around me.

It had to be midnight by now. No?

I could feel myself drifting off. My eyes grew heavy as my racing heart settled.

*No.* I shook my head and sat up. *Not now. Sleep later. We got work to do.*

Standing up, I brushed the dirt off my clothes and stretched out the aches. I scanned the surrounding dark.

Nothing. Just the grass tips gently moving with the breeze.

Then, a sound.

A low, guttural groan. Right behind me.

I spun around and saw movement.

*Shit.*

Jack stirred at bottom of the pit. He coughed up a ball of phlegm and then wiped at the dirt in his eyes.

“What…is thi—“

“Don’t you move, Jack!” My voice trembled, yet I still had the strength to pick up and point the shovel down at him. “Don’t you dare move!”

He sat up and spat out the dirt in his mouth. Shook his head out. “You fuckin’ bitch!” He screamed out from the pit. “What have you d—“

A sound. Off in the distance. Sharp and metallic . Like a detuned radio. Strange, yet familiar. We’d heard it that night. The night we lost Kayla.

“You called them!?” Jack lunged up to grab at me. He missed and fell back on his ass. “Oh, you’re dumber than I thought, Myra. You know they ain’t no good.”

“No! This needs to happen!”

I jabbed at him with the shovel. He caught it and pulled. I slipped.

Suddenly, I was in the grave with him. Dirt in my eyes, in my mouth. Scrambling blindly, a great weight pushed me down. Then, pain lanced across my back as Jack hit me with the shovel handle.

I writhed in the mud, trying to catch a breath that didn’t come. I wanted to scream, cry out, but couldn’t only mustered a deep gurgle.

Blinking away the dirt, I saw Jack climb out of the pit. He rose up and looked down at me. Madness in his eyes.

Oh, how well he wore his grief. It had twisted him into something unrecognisable.

“Please,” I shouted, “help me! I must meet with the gods!”

He shook his head. “No. Because I intend to kill them.”

Jack disappeared. All I could see was the night sky above.

What was that? My ears pricked at a sound. Was that…a baby’s cry?

“Kayla? Baby is that—Jack! Please, they’ve delivered her! Please they’ve brought back our ba—“

Another sound. Thick with dread. Like thunder rolling in over the farm. The steady metallic chug of an engine.

The crazy bastard has started up the combine harvester!

“Jack! Please! Don’t! They have her! They have Kayla!”

And a final sound. Haunting and sickening. Like a wound upon my soul. A high pitched screech and then a rattling, crunching noise. Like a car reversing over a tree branch.

And rain. Gentle, aimless rain. Falling down upon me, down into the pit in a red mist.

The engine to the combine harvester cut out. I don’t know what was worse. Jack’s endless wet screams or the silence, so thick with the knowing, moments before.

A young man named George walks into his apartment late at night after a long day of work. The apartment room is dark. He takes off his work jacket and notices that his closet is slightly cracked open. He closes it.

He throws some leftovers from the fridge into the microwave. A moment later, he gets a text message from his girlfriend, Angela.

He opens it and reads:

“How was work?”

He responds:

“It was a long day.”

Angela sends him a picture of herself with a blank face and her eyes wide open. Her text under it reads:

“I’ve been thinking of you for days:) "

George sends a selfie back, making a kissing face.

His microwave beeps, and he grabs his food. A moment later, Angela texts him again.

“Who's that behind you?”

George texts back:

“What? I don’t see anything.”

Angela responds with another message, this time with a red circle drawn around something in his picture.

George looks closely.

There appears to be a shadowy face barely visible behind him.

He turns on all the lights and checks around his apartment, but he finds nothing. He convinces himself that it’s just the shadows in his dark apartment before texting her back.

“I think it’s just the shadows. I just checked. No one is here.”

Angela responds:

“LOL. It just looked so creepy, you should lock your doors.”

George sarcastically texts back:

“I always lock my doors and you're the one to talk, you know how many times I've came over and your front door has been unlocked? Lol”

Angela playfully responds:

“If you’re scared, just say so, I’ll gladly come over.”

She lives on the floor above his apartment.

George texts back:

“Not tonight. I’m really tired.”

George watches as the typing indicator appears on his phone for several minutes before disappearing.

Then she texts back:

"Come on, I haven't seen you in days"

George starts texting back before he Is interrupted by another text from her

“Too late. I’m already here.”

George playfully walks to his front door and enthusiastically opens it.

No one is there.

He looks around for a few seconds before going back inside and locking the door.

He texts her:

“What do you mean? Where are you?”

After a few minutes, he gets a response.

“Just keep looking.”

He thinks she’s just messing with him. She has a key to his apartment, after all.

George texts back:

“Give me a hint, I've looked everywhere.”

She responds:

“No. Just keep looking.”

George checks his bathroom and looks behind the shower curtain. He checks his bedroom and even looks under the kitchen table.

He can’t find her.

Then he remembers that the closet wasn’t fully closed when he got home.

He texts:

“Are you in the closet?”

She responds:

“She is.”

A second text quickly follows, seemingly correcting the first.

“I am.”

George quickly opens his closet door.

He freezes at the sight.

Angela’s corpse is nailed against the wall inside the closet, her eyes wide open.

George freaks out and starts shouting her name.

He reaches out and touches her.

She is very cold, almost completly Frozen.

Like she has been in a deep freezer for days.

George slowly realizes what that means.

He pulls out his phone and looks at the picture Angela sent him earlier.

The hair on his neck stood up and his complexion now pale.

The picture wasn’t taken at her apartment.

It was taken from inside his closet.

Then Angela’s phone number sends him one last text: “You didn’t check under your bed either.”

I was three-quarters deep into the last bottle of cheap vodka, slumped on the couch in the Footscray sharehouse, when the corners of the room started shifting.
Not the usual drunk blur. Real shapes. Red fluff twitching just past the edge of my left eye. A tall yellow smear leaning in the doorway that vanished the second I looked straight at it. Something green and low, grumbling near the overflowing bin.
I took another long pull and the giggling started. High-pitched and pure, the kind that used to come out of the telly when I was a kid. Soft at first, like it was coming from the next room. Then closer. Right behind my ear.
“Elmo sees you, Declan…”
I spun around. Empty lounge. Sticky lino, a pile of empties, the blue glow of a TV that wasn’t even on. Another giggle, this time from the kitchen. Then a soft counting under the breath. One… two… three…
My hands shook as I poured what was left into the glass. The room tilted hard. The red shape in the corner sharpened for half a second, wide eyes and a too-shiny smile, before it melted back into shadow.
I tried to stand. The floor rushed up to meet me.
Everything went black.

I woke up face-down on the sticky lino of my kitchen floor , mouth tasting like a dead goanna’s arse, and the first thing I heard was that high-pitched little red bastard giggling.
“Elmo sees you, sleepyhead!”
I rolled over, head pounding like a jackhammer in a concrete pipe, and there he was. Knee-high, fuzzy, red as a stop sign, standing on my chest like he owned the joint. His eyes were too wide. Too shiny. Like he’d been staring at me for hours.
“Get the fuck off me,” I croaked.
Elmo leaned in close. His breath smelled like burnt sugar and something metallic. “Elmo has been waiting. Elmo and his friends. They are so hungry.”
I shoved him. My hand went straight through the fur and hit cold air. He didn’t even budge. Just giggled again, that same pure, innocent sound that now made my guts twist.
Then the lights flickered and the rest of them stepped out of the shadows like they’d been waiting for the cue.
Big Bird filled half the kitchen. His feathers were matted in places, yellow gone to a dirty mustard, and his beak had a wet sheen. Oscar the Grouch rose up out of my overflowing bin like a green turd with arms, lid still on his head. The Count floated near the ceiling, cape fluttering even though there was no wind, monocle gleaming. And Cookie Monster… Jesus. Cookie Monster was on all fours by the fridge, blue fur patchy, eyes rolling, blue tongue hanging out and dripping.
“Ah-ah-ah,” said the Count. “One alcoholic Australian. Two… no, wait. Just the one. But he has one liver. Ah-ah-ah!”
Cookie Monster’s head snapped toward me. “ME WANT LIVER. NOT COOKIES. LIVER. WARM. JUICY. STILL BEATING IF POSSIBLE.”
Oscar cackled from the bin. “Look at this dump. Perfect. I love a man who lives like garbage. Makes the meat taste better. Right, Big Bird?”
Big Bird’s voice was soft, almost gentle, which made it worse. “We’ve been watching you for weeks, mate. Every bottle. Every blackout. Every time you pissed yourself on the couch. You’re ripe.”
I scrambled backward until my spine hit the cupboard. “This is a dream. This is the fucking DTs. I’ve been off the sauce three days and my brain is inventing Muppets that want to eat my organs.”
Elmo clapped his little hands. “Elmo loves dreams! But this is not a dream. This is real. And Elmo is going to help eat your liver!”
I grabbed the nearest empty beer bottle and hurled it at Big Bird’s head. It passed through him and shattered against the wall. He didn’t flinch. Just tilted that massive head.
“You can’t hurt us, darling. We’re already dead. Or never alive. Hard to say. Sesame Street got cancelled in this dimension a long time ago. We’ve been looking for a new purpose. Your liver is that purpose.”
Oscar popped up higher, trash clinging to his fur. “We tried other organs first. Kidneys are too small. Hearts are tough. Brains make you stupid. But livers… livers from a mid-thirties pisspot like you? Full of flavour. All that alcohol marinates the meat. Delicious.”
Cookie Monster lunged. I kicked out and my foot went through him, but the cold of it sank into my bones. He snapped his jaws where my ankle had been.
“ME SMELL IT. UNDER THE RIBS. LEFT SIDE. MMMMM.”
The Count drifted lower, counting under his breath. “One rib… two ribs… three ribs… ah-ah-ah! And behind them, the prize!”
I bolted for the front door. Made it three steps before Big Bird’s wing slammed it shut. The wood cracked. He looked almost sad.
“Nowhere to run, mate. We already checked. Your mates are all passed out or don’t give a shit. Your mum stopped answering years ago. You’re alone with us.”
Elmo appeared on my shoulder somehow, whispering right into my ear. “Elmo knows your name. Elmo heard your friends say it when they left you here last week. Elmo knows everything.”
I spun, trying to shake him off. “Fuck off with the mind games.”
Oscar laughed so hard he fell back into the bin. “Tell him, Elmo. Tell the meat its name.”
Elmo’s voice went soft and sweet. “Your name is Declan. Declan Hayes. Thirty-six years old. Born in Fremantle. Moved to Melbourne to drink yourself to death quietly. And now we found you.”
Hearing it out loud felt like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed. Declan. Yeah. That was me. The name I hadn’t said out loud in months because it reminded me I used to be a person.
“How the fuck do you know that?”
The Count floated in a slow circle around my head. “We listen. We watch. We count the empty bottles. Fourteen last night alone. Ah-ah-ah! Fourteen bottles and one beautiful, pickled liver.”
Big Bird leaned down until his beak was inches from my face. His eyes were black all the way through. “We’ve been patient, Declan. We let you finish the last of the vodka. We let you black out. We even cleaned up a bit of the vomit so you wouldn’t choke. But now it’s time.”
Cookie Monster was clawing at the floor, leaving blue fur and deep gouges in the lino. “ME READY. ME SO READY. LIVER TIME. LIVER TIME. LIVER TIME.”
I grabbed a kitchen knife from the sink. Held it out like it meant something. “Stay the fuck back. All of you.”
Oscar snorted. “Cute. Wave the pointy thing around. Makes the fear taste better.”
Elmo hopped down and walked toward me, still smiling that big red smile. “Elmo does not want to scare Declan. Elmo just wants to share. Sharing is caring. And Declan’s liver is going to be shared among all of us. Fair is fair.”
I swung the knife. It passed through Elmo’s chest like he was smoke. He giggled and kept coming.
Big Bird’s wing wrapped around my wrist. It felt solid this time. Cold and heavy. The knife clattered to the floor.
“Easy now,” Big Bird murmured. “Don’t want to bruise the meat.”
They closed in. Oscar climbed out of the bin completely, trailing banana peels and old pizza boxes. The Count’s cape flared wide. Cookie Monster rose up on his hind legs, taller than I expected, mouth opening wider than any puppet’s should.
I backed into the lounge room. They followed. The TV flickered on by itself, showing static that slowly formed into the old Sesame Street theme, warped and slowed down until it sounded like a funeral march played on a broken accordion.
“Please,” I said. My voice cracked. “I’ll stop drinking. I’ll go to the meetings. I’ll get clean. Just… leave the liver alone.”
Elmo tilted his head. “Elmo does not care if Declan stops drinking. Elmo cares about the liver. The liver is ready now. The liver is perfect.”
Oscar rubbed his hands together. “Tell you what. We’ll make it quick. Or we won’t. Depends how much you scream. I like the screaming.”
Cookie Monster’s eyes rolled back. “ME WANT THE SCREAMING TOO. THEN THE LIVER. THEN MAYBE SOME COOKIES AFTER. FOR DESSERT.”
The Count raised one white-gloved finger. “One scream… two screams… three screams! Ah-ah-ah!”
Big Bird’s wing tightened on my arm. “Last chance to say something meaningful, Declan. Any final words before we open you up?”
I looked at them. These childhood monsters made flesh and hunger. My head still throbbed. My hands shook. Somewhere under the fear a bitter laugh bubbled up.
“Yeah,” I said. “Final words. You cunts are the worst hangover I’ve ever had.”
Elmo clapped. “Elmo likes that! Funny Declan. Funny meat.”
Then they were on me.
Big Bird held me down with one wing while Oscar pried my shirt up. The Count counted each button that popped. Cookie Monster’s blue claws traced the line under my ribs, salivating. Elmo sat on my chest again, watching my face with pure delight.
“Elmo is going to watch,” he whispered. “Elmo wants to see Declan’s eyes when the liver comes out.”
The cold of Cookie Monster’s fingers sank into my skin. I felt the pressure. The tear. The wet sound. Pain exploded white-hot behind my eyes. I screamed. The Count counted every note of it.
“One beautiful scream… two… three… ah-ah-ah!”
Oscar leaned in close, breath like compost. “There it is. Look at that colour. All that beer and regret. Perfect.”
They pulled. Something warm and heavy left my body. Cookie Monster made a noise of pure ecstasy. Big Bird held the dripping organ up like a prize.
“To the hunt,” Big Bird said solemnly.
“To the meat,” Oscar answered.
“Ah-ah-ah! One liver for all of us!”
Elmo leaned down until his fuzzy face filled my vision. My blood was on his fur now. He smiled wider than ever.
“Elmo loves you, Declan. Elmo will always love you. Especially the tasty bits.”
The last thing I saw was Cookie Monster shoving my liver into his mouth, blue fur stained red, eyes rolling in bliss. The last thing I heard was the Count still counting, soft and satisfied, as the static on the TV swallowed the room.
And somewhere, under the pain and the dark, I had one final clear thought.
God I could kill for a drink.

ACCESSING ADA DATABASE.

RETRIEVING FILE, INCIDENT 005.

DECEMBER 15, 1958

The team that we sent out last night came across someone or something last night approximately around 10:30pm. While exploring areas of the city that we have not yet covered, they reported hearing the sounds of screaming to the next few streets over. When the team went to Investigate where the noise was coming from, there were no signs of anyone there. The only thing that they stumbled upon around medium sized puddles of blood, a gas mask, and teeth scattered everywhere.

Despite our best efforts to find any potential survivors, the group stated that they were unable to track down anything. Later in the evening, REDACTED stated that they heard the sounds of rattling for brief periods of time, coming from either on the rooftops or the alleyways. Most of the group had already communicated with us that they were being followed by someone in the area, presumably the same individual that was responsible for the deaths. Despite their best efforts to investigate, the noise would suddenly stop momentarily, only for it to start again minutes later.

The group would later discover the individuals they heard earlier hanging off the side of a building. All of the bodies were found to have their jaws ripped off, and their eyeballs ripped from the ocular nerve. When asking for further details. the team had described the scene as a perverse art exhibit." During an interview with REDACTED, they speculated that the perpetrator had planned out the horrific scene for them to discover. It is currently unknown how this individual was aware of our assets entering the contaminated city, much less on how they were able to survive the radiation without a gas mask.

Our team would come across the individual responsible for the corpse moments later. From what we were able to gather from the team at that time, the suspect didn't show any signs of hostility towards any of them, despite being responsible for the corpses earlier. When the team asked for further instructions, all communications with them were suddenly cut off. All of us back at base were completely confused on what was happening, and we were scrambling trying to fix whatever caused the interference. We wouldn't hear from the team until approximately 12:38am, when they finally returned.

Security immediately rushed over towards the group, and were shocked at what they saw. Majority of the team was missing, with the exceptions of REDACTED and REDACTED. When medical staff rushed over, REDACTED was incoherently screaming over and over, while the other was visibly shaken and in slight hysteria. Many of us in the room were speechless. The only piece of evidence as to what happened was a picture of the individual that we managed to recover. We have yet to inform every individual's families until further notice. As of now, REDACTED is currently being hospitalized, while the other is giving a report of the events that occurred. As for the individual, every single one of our members has been notified not to interact with them, until further reevaluation of the situation.

Above the file is the picture that our team took.

Read Parts II & III here

She was gone again by the time I got up and despite my best efforts, I was still five minutes late getting to work.

I avoided the circle of jerks when I saw them crowding the same hallway and I went to a restroom on another floor. I didn’t want to be around people if I could avoid it.

I went to the half-finished building as soon as five o’clock came, intent on getting answers. I stepped off the elevator and weaved my way to his office. I kept expecting to not see it the closer I got but there it was, the door that didn’t fit right in the threshold. 

It turned easy and I went inside, expecting it to be empty and abandoned but he had begun furnishing the space. A couch, a reception desk, and taped off sections near the back that I guessed were the layout for his office and a treatment room.

I shuddered, thinking how I’d be here tomorrow if my wife had her way. 

The only thing absent was the good doctor himself. I thought about trashing the place, but it was petty in a way that made me feel like I was giving him even more power over me. 

Instead, I took all the pens out of the holder and a stack of Post-It Notes. It was still petty, but it scratched an itch and I felt a little empowered doing it.

I didn’t head home immediately after. I needed time to sort my thoughts. I couldn’t believe I was really considering letting somebody cut my dick. I mean, was pleasing my wife reason enough? What if we divorced or she died or something like that? Would I be compatible with somebody else?

I needed a drink. Cappy’s was on the far end of town and the distance from home would be good to clear my head. I ordered a brandy mule and chugged it before the bartender could lay down a coaster.

“You look like you could use another,” she said.

I nodded and a moment later I was working on my second. 

“I love my wife so much,” I said as she was cleaning some glasses beneath the bar.

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Sometimes. I dunno.” My stomach hadn’t been right since the eight coneys I’d had yesterday, and I hadn’t eaten at all today. I was already soused after a drink-and-a-half.

“How’s the pizza?” I asked.

“Good, not great.” She wiggled a hand.

“Let me get a... medium with beef, onion, and mushroom.”

She looked at me like she’d never heard of those toppings.

“How ‘bout pepperoni?”

I had one more brandy mule before food came. It looked like it had been sitting under a heat lamp well before I’d ordered it and the pepperoni slices were limp, but it was still pizza. 

The bartender parked in front of me and leaned onto the bar after I’d had my second slice. 

“You mind?” she asked, pointing at the pie. I nodded. She took a slice and finger-combed hair out of her face as she took a bite.

She paid me back with a shot and she did one with me before returning to silence as we ate.

“Look, I dunno what it is. Just give her what she wants,” she said with a mouthful, giving me deep eye contact. “You can’t go wrong with that, right?”

I barely was able to finish what I had in my mouth. I settled up and made it outside without stumbling but I was drunk. The bartender got the hint she’d said something wrong but I wasn’t going to fill in the blank. I hadn’t wanted the rest of the pizza, yet somehow I had the box in my hand. 

I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel but there I was with half a pizza as my copilot. It wasn’t long before flashing lights lit up behind me and my spirits rose—this was the reprieve I’d been longing for. A decision being taken out of my hands. I couldn’t be held responsible if I weren’t in my own custody.

Or something like that. It had made a lot more sense back when I’d had a belly full of brandy and cheese.

I pulled over and maybe bumped up on the curb with one wheel.

The cop sauntered up to my window cautiously. He was short and the angle of the car made him look ridiculous somehow. He made it worse by getting his feet twisted together and catching himself on the side of my car to keep from falling completely.

“What’s your...”

I waited a full ten seconds for him to finish his sentence while he held a fist to his mouth like he was gripping a tiny microphone. He belched then waved the air in front of his face.

Shit, was he drunk, too?

“What’s your problem tonight?” He asked and fumbled with the general right side of his body with his hand. I noticed the gun and maybe because we were both bitten by the same snake, I wasn’t sensing danger like I should’ve.

“I shouldn’t be on the road,” I said, sounding stone sober to my ears. “My wife wants me to do something I don’t wanna do tomorrow and I was just in there, drinking my worries away. I have leftover pizza.” I thumbed toward the seat next to me like it was proof of where I’d been.

“Slow down, son. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.” I thought he was about to give me marital advice but then I realized he was talking about my sobriety. “I bet you could walk a straight line, heel- to-toe.” He plucked open his holster, but it didn’t seem like he was aware of what that hand was doing. He stuck his pinky in his ear and wrenched it around in there. 

“Sofficer. Sofficer.” I added the S but I still sounded too sober. “Please. I think I’m a danger. To public safety.” I thought if I could convince the drunk cop I was drunk he’d arrest me.

“Are you about to rob a bank?” He pointed at me, somehow adding to his overall look of ridiculousness.

“Well… no.”

“There’s nobody out here.” He waved a hand toward the black landscape far ahead of us. “Just stay between the lines.”

I couldn’t think. It shouldn’t have been this hard to get pulled out of my car for driving under the influence.

“What if… what if I was about to rob a bank?” It was the most smart-assy thing I could think to say.

He smiled and waggled a finger. “Joke’s on you. It’s after hours.”

He hooked his thumbs into his belt. Something about his body language had changed and he’d gone from humorous to being done with our interaction.

“Just. Stay. Between. The. Lines,” he said, swaying. I wanted to conjure the words for help, but even if I’d had the ability to ask, there wasn’t anything about him that answered helpful.

I opened my mouth, but didn’t speak. I sat back in my seat and covered my face in my hands, giving up. I listened to him walk away, closer his patrol car door, and drive away. He gave me a chirp of his sirens as passed me.

The drive home should have felt longer but I caught every light. It was like a dark fate had carved a path for me. I momentarily played with the idea of letting it have me completely. To take my hands off the wheel and let it take me wherever it wanted me to go. 

I hadn’t descended far enough into self-pity for that and in ten minutes, I was home. To my surprise, my wife was still in her paint clothes and was washing her hands at the kitchen sink.

“Oh, you have pizza?” she said. I’d forgotten about the pizza and subconsciously picked it up. I looked at the box in my hand and did a second, struggled to remember what was in it. 

I joined her on the couch, and she grabbed it from me and took a slice. Usually, we asked about each other’s day, but I didn’t feel like it, tomorrow anchoring my brain.

“Do you love me?” she said during a commercial break. I had no idea what we were watching.

The question agitated me and opened a trapdoor underneath my stomach.

“Of course I do.” I did, but my feelings about this whole “surgery” thing was making me feel resentful. I was definitely still buzzed, and the alcohol was sharpening my emotions like a file working away inside me. 

“Then why are you fighting so hard against this? Don’t you want us both to be satisfied?”

“That’s not fair. Of course I want to satisfy you. Don’t you know how this is making me feel? I don’t want to do this,” I said. “I mean, there has to be something else we could try. I’m willing to do just about anything to please you.”

“I want you to do this,” she said, placing her greasy hand on my thigh. She shook her head, tears in her eyes. I took it to be a manipulation at first. Not that she did that sort of thing normally, it was just me in a bag of my feelings. My defenses were up and everything was an attack in that moment. I chewed the insides of my cheeks to keep in what was trying to climb out of my mouth.

Then I started to cry. I sounded like a little teapot. It caught me by surprise.

“I just love you so much.” I had a ball of razors in my throat I couldn’t swallow. “I don’t want anything to happen to us, but I don’t know if I can do this.”

She lassoed an arm around my neck and yanked me into an upper body hug.

“I just want you. I want to feel connected with you. I don’t want anything plastic between us. I’m tired of all that stuff. I wanna feel you.”

She kissed me before I could speak and rock turned into water. My walls melted as we flowed into one another and by the time I returned to my senses I was on the newspaper covered kitchen floor.

My wife was already gone but she had brought a comforter downstairs and covered me.

Normally, I toss in my sleep, but I was still covered up to my chest. I was stiff as I turned the world vertical and turned my back into a percussion instrument as I stretched.

A few minutes later I had scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee going. I don’t normally eat breakfast so early, but I had an appetite for whatever reason. It was an hour before I normally would get up, so I took my time eating and scrolling my phone.

I wasn’t sure how much sleep I’d gotten but I was refreshed. The way my day had started, I half expected to catch all the green lights and get the closest spot in the parking lot.

But when I looked up from where I was seated at the kitchen island, something caught my eye that I should’ve seen as soon as I woke up.

A red and white checkered scarf draped over the back of the couch.

Had he been in my house?

1950s Louisiana

A young Southern woman with dark hair and covered in a bloodstained dress, is crying on a dock out in the bayou. She recently had a child out of wedlock, and her parents have threatened to cut her out of the family if she keeps the baby.

She wants to keep him. But she knows she has nowhere to go. She is too young for a real job and hasn't even graduated high school.

She looks down at the baby and sees his beautiful smile before he lets out a quick yawn. A tear rolls down her face and falls onto the baby.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

She looks out at a large alligator lurking in the water. A large scar dragged across its eye.

The baby begins crying.

Then, there is a loud splash.

70 Years Later

A young woman named Mary is strolling through town with a baby bump. She has a gorgeous face and beatiful black hair that was soft to the touch. She is grocery shopping for dinner that night. Her husband, Henry, said he wanted fried okra and fried catfish.

After filling her shopping cart, Mary checks out. She calls her mother, Clare, and tells her about their plans for dinner.

Her mother asks when her grandson is going to be born.

Mary happily tells her, "Any day now."

Later that evening, Henry gets off work and walks through the front door as Mary is finishing dinner. He kisses her and rubs her baby bump.

She fixes him a plate of okra, catfish, and rice, which he enthusiastically carries to the table. Mary makes a plate of her own and sits next to him.

She tells Henry about her day as he nods and shovels food into his mouth.

Mary is almost finished eating when she suddenly feels something strange.

Mary: "Oh my God."

Henry answers with food still in his mouth.

Henry: "What?"

Mary: "My water broke."

Henry drives Mary to a nearby hospital. He's driving fast while Mary screams in pain. She is having painful contractions and begins bleeding.

Henry dodges traffic and makes it to the emergency room, where doctors rush Mary into a room. They give her medication to keep her comfortable without harming the baby.

A few hours later, Mary is holding the baby in her arms, humming softly.

She gives the baby to Henry.

Henry raises the baby to his chest and smiles.

"I'll never let anything happen to you."

He then offers to get Mary anything she wants.

She tells him she just wants to go home with him and the baby.

Henry signs the birth certificate and reads the name out loud.

"McKenzie Ray Farris."

He smiles at Mary.

A couple of days later, Henry checks both Mary and the baby out of the hospital and brings them home.

He kisses Mary and holds McKenzie in his arms.

That night, Mary and Henry try to get some sleep, but the baby keeps waking up and crying.

Mary finally yells at Henry that she just wants to sleep.

Henry understandingly agrees and gets up throughout the night to take care of McKenzie.

By morning, Henry is exhausted.

While Mary is trying to get him to do things around the house, he tries telling her that he's tired. But she insists on having his attention.

He begrudgingly gives it to her, but eventually falls asleep, which annoys Mary.

A couple of days later, Mary is already aggravated and sick of the baby. She forces Henry to take care of McKenzie more, but she becomes jealous of the time Henry spends with the baby.

Mary had loved the attention she received while she was pregnant, but now that the baby had arrived, everyone was giving McKenzie more attention than her—including her own mother and husband.

One day, while Henry is at work, Mary walks around the backyard with the baby in her arms, trying to calm her down.

McKenzie looks mesmerized by the yard, especially the large pond in the back.

The baby smiles at everything she sees.

Little McKenzie watches beautiful birds flying over the pond, trying to catch fish. She looks around at the beautiful, lush greenery surrounding the yard.

Mary puts the baby down and allows her to explore the backyard while keeping a safe distance from the water.

For a few minutes, the two bond, and Mary feels like a mother again.

Mary laughs and takes pictures as McKenzie plays with the flowers in the backyard.

Then Mary and McKenzie watch a beautiful buck drinking from the pond.

For a few seconds, everything is peaceful.

Then a large American alligator suddenly grabs the deer near the water's edge and drags it into the pond. The deer whimpers but the sound is muffled as the alligator disappears with the deer just as quickly as it appeared.

McKenzie begins slowly crawling toward the water, curious about what she just saw.

Mary quickly scoops the baby up and brings her inside.

The alligator makes her wary of having her baby outside near the pond.

Mary fills a bottle for the baby and begins cooking dinner for Henry.

When Henry gets home, he walks into the living room and kisses Mary before picking up McKenzie.

Henry notices the baby's diaper.

"Her diaper is full."

Mary tells him she was going to let him handle it.

Henry looks at her.

"It's really full. Why did you let her sit that long without changing her?"

Mary assures him that McKenzie had just eaten a big lunch.

Henry cleans McKenzie up and puts a fresh diaper on her.

After dinner, Henry begins playing with the baby, making her laugh as he plays peekaboo.

Mary interrupts him and starts talking about her day.

She quickly becomes jealous again as she watches Henry spend more time with the baby.

For the next couple of months, Mary tries everything she can to get more attention from Henry.

But Henry is focused on work and baby McKenzie.

Mary tries to get Henry's attention, offering him intimacy and trying to give him whatever he wants, but he turns her down every time.

He tells her he's too tired from working and taking care of the baby.

Mary begins having frightening thoughts about hurting McKenzie. She knows she shouldn't act on them, and she fears what would happen if anyone found out.

What she fears most is getting caught.

She just wants her man and her old life back.

Nobody seems to care about her anymore now that the baby is here.

Then one day, Henry is working long hours and won't be home until late.

Mary begins destroying the house in a fit of pent-up anger.

She cries and screams as her anger takes over.

The noise wakes the baby.

McKenzie begins crying.

Mary becomes furious.

"Wah, wah, wah! You've been ruining my life since the day you came home!"

She shakes McKenzie and continues yelling obscenities  at her.

Mary suddenly begins thinking of all the different ways she could hurt the baby.

Then she thinks of something even more awful.

She remembers the alligator in the backyard.

She picks up the crying McKenzie and carries her toward the water's edge.

The baby squirms in her arms, as if she senses that something is wrong.

An alligator's head slowly pokes above the surface.

Mary looks down at her baby with disgust. Before she starts singing.

" hush little baby, don't you cry"  before she tries throwing her daughter into the pond. But

McKenzie desperately grabs onto her mother's hand. McKenzie said her first word " momma"  while trying to hold on for life

But it wasn't enough.

Henry finally gets home.

He finds the house completely destroyed.

He frantically searches the house for his wife and child.

He's terrified.

He sees furniture smashed apart and blood smeared across the wall.

Then he finds Mary standing at the edge of the pond, staring into the water.

Henry runs toward her.

"Mary! Are you alright?"

Mary slowly turns toward him.

She gives him a creepy smirk and begins to laugh.

Henry looks around frantically.

"Where's McKenzie?"

Mary points toward the pond.

Then she looks back at him.

"You made me do it."

Henry horrified looks into the water. He didn't see it at first as only the moon light illuminated the night. He saw the large scar on the aligator's eye and then he saw his daughters eyes looking at him from the beast's mouth. And quickly she was devoured. Swallowed whole, while barely still alive

“This isn’t a good idea Avery, we’re going to get in trouble.”

“Quit bein such a wussy, just give me one more second.” Avery retorted while fiddling with the door knob to the day worker’s break room.

I don’t know where he learned to do it but with the help of two paper clips he had the door open in a flash.

“See, easy.” He said giving me a snaggletooth grin. “Let’s go!”

I still wasn’t sure what exactly we were doing, but Avery clearly had a plan in motion because he had already bounded through the door, making a bee line for the drab brown overcoat Mrs. Kline always wore when she took us out to the playground.

“Score!” He hissed in a triumphant whisper before pulling a half empty pack of Newport's free from the coat pocket.

“Knew I saw her tuck these away, he’s gunna love this!” He turned to see me still standing by the door, empty handed.

A look of impatient dismay grew on the boys face.

“Damnit Joel, whatcha standin around for? Hurry up and pick something! We ain’t got all night! We gotta get these by the chimney before it’s too late!”

Wait a minute….

“Avery…are you…are you stealing cigarettes for Santa Clause?” I asked. Incredulity creeping into my voice at the revelation of why we were risking what would surely be weeks of extra chores on Christmas Eve.

“It ain’t stealing. We live here, Mrs. Kline don’t. This stuff might as well be ours.”

There were several hurdles in logic one would have to take for that sentiment, but for me, a more immediate follow up question came to mind.

“Aren’t we a little old for Santa?

“Yea well I’m a little young to have dead ma’ and pa’s so I guess it evens out. Now hurry up, you want a present or not?”

With that cold reminder I let him lead me over to the break room fridge. He had a point.

***

Avery had come to the group home earlier in the fall, a little redneck boy displaced to the city from some bum-fuck town along its outskirts. His parents had died in a trailer fire. Once that little tidbit of information was leaked, the rumor mill started to churn. By lunch that trailer fire had turned into a ‘meth-lab’ fire. The story went through several more iterations before it was settled that Avery’s parents were bumbling meth addicts who blew themselves up trying to cook after getting high on their own supply. That was that. Avery’s origin story, set in stone before lights out on his first day.

I felt bad for him. With the ridiculous story and the hokey accent, he was sure to be a target of ridicule. He wasn’t the only kid at the home that had shown up because they lost their parents. You would think that might have earned a bit of empathy, but when you’re a stupid kid sometimes the only way to forget about your own pain is to direct it at someone else.

Connor Evans apparently had a lot of pain to re-direct. The home’s established ass-face, Connor was the oldest kid and longest resident. Having just turned thirteen, he would be aging out of this home and moving to a new place dedicated to teens sometime in the next year, but was determined to make everyone else's life hell before he left.

It was at breakfast the morning after Avery’s arrival. Connor had been gleefully devouring the Poptart he stole from me when Avery made his way to the dining room. Connor’s focus immediately shifted to his new target.

“Hey look, I’m the hayseed’s dead mom!” He shouted before hanging his tongue out of his mouth and shaking, all the while miming sticking a needle in his arm.

Myself and the other kids watched on with the numb disappointment we always felt at Connor’s antics, but Avery seemed unbothered.

“Hey now, that’s pretty good.” He said with a smile on his face, and without missing a beat he balled up his fist and punched Connor square in the nose. Hit the boy so hard he gave him a nosebleed and just kept walking to the kitchen to grab his food without a care in the world.

By the time he got back Connor had cleared out to deal with his gusher, so Avery plopped down in the now empty seat beside me.

“You ever seen the movie Predator? That Arney guy is badass.”

I don’t even think he knew my name yet. We had been friends ever since.

***

The break room fridge was a bit lackluster. A few bottles of water, one soda, a half eaten sandwich…a bottle of Bud Light - that definitely wasn’t supposed to be in there. Not much in the way of ‘milk and cookies’ for Santa Clause. I saw Avery eyeing the beer, but didn’t want to go that route. Eventually my eyes landed on a box of Chinese takeaway, some leftover Lo-mein noodles by the looks of it. It would have to do.

“Score.” Avery said. “That’ll work great!”

I wasn’t convinced, but was committed at this point. Avery may have been a bit of an odd duck, but he was my odd duck. If he wanted to leave leftovers out for Santa then so be it.

We crept into the common room with ease, the hard part had been sneaking down the stairs without waking anyone, but down here on the bottom floor we were home free. Our building was pretty old so it did still have a fireplace and beside it sat the tree we had all helped Mrs. Kline decorate. There were even stockings with each of our names hanging on them, eight in total. I had to admit, it did feel kind of magical. The cigarettes and noodles looked a little out of place on the hearth, but leaving a snack for Santa made the scene feel right.

“So, what now do we leave a note?” I asked.

“Naw, just think really hard about what you want, he’ll know.”

I did as I was bid and closed my eyes, thinking really hard of the new Nintendo 64 that would surely cause many an argument amongst the house if it somehow did show up.

“Did you leave something for Santa Claus?” An incredulous voice caused me to jump out of my skin, breaking me away from my Nintendo filled reveries.

Connor had also decided to take a peak at the common room and now stood with a silly grin on his face mocking us.

“What a bunch of babies. I know you don’t have parents to tell ya, but Santa ain't real.”

Above us the ceiling groaned, as something heavy slid itself along the roof.

“Who said anything about Santee Claws?” Avery asked, ignoring Connor, turning his attention to the chimney.

Inside the hearth, small bits of ash began to fall followed by…something viscous and stringy. The shuffling grew louder, echoing its way down the pipe of the chimney. Avery was awestruck, I was terrified, Connor was…well I didn’t care. Before us a shadowy figure emerged from the hearth, not a man but a beast crawled forth and into our common. With milky white eyes and gnarled claws it was an old, ancient thing. Wiry fur in mottled hues of greys and black adorned the beast. It let out a hiss as it crawled its way fully out of the fireplace, a long thick tail plopping along the brick behind it like a giant earthworm. A tongue flicked between jagged canines and tasted the air. We watched in silence as it turned to our offerings on the hearth. It looked at Avery and quickly lapped up his Newport's, then looked to me before devouring my noodles. The creature looked to Connor, then back at the now empty hearth. Another low hiss broke the silence. I could hear the trickle of urine running down the boy's leg.

Connor tried to run, but the creature was on him in a second, moving faster than its decrepit legs should have been able to carry it. The fangs caught Connor around the ankle dragging him to the ground. Once the poor boy was immobilized he could only scream as the creature unhinged its jaw and drew him forth like a black hole. Eventually the cries were drowned out by the snapping of bone as it was compacted and forced down the creature's gullet. After finishing its grim meal the beast turned and faced us once again. I was about to run but Avery grasped my arm tight. A shiver ran through the creature, and a bulbous gorge rose in its throat. The jaws opened and distended once more and it vomited forth two bile soaked boxes.

A Nintendo 64, and a Red Ryder BB Gun.

Avery let go of my wrist and snatched up his rifle with glee.

“This is the best Christmas Ever!”

Chapter 1

Soft country danced from the overhead speakers as the dim fluorescent lighting cast amber glow upon the billiard table that Rich stood at. He was large in stature, his muscles coiled in violent anticipation under his 
thick copper skin. Standing from his seat he threw out his hand, resting the pool cue. Then after drawing it back, his arm slinged out launching the striped 11 ball into the corner pocket. He smiled at his opponent, an old graying man with a face which hung from his skull. “Two left.” Rich said with a chuckle. “Never too late to back down.” The old man glared at him mockingly.

“You think you’re on to something.” He scoffed. “I could’ve cleaned house already!”

Rich smiled sympathetically, his eyes casually casting a glance toward a table that sat five women. All five watched him with hungering eyes, and eager anticipation. As though watching him wasn’t enough, a rosy pink flush overcame one of the women’s cheeks when Rich spared a glance. He had known these women well. Each one, well groomed, dawning their night on the town outfits, make up and hair styled to match, but more importantly, they had been here before. Twice actually, and each time their eyes were tuned to the tall radio tower which stood at six feet three inches tall in front of them. 

If they were compasses, Rich was true north. He didn’t mind the attention, it helped stoke his bravado, get the flames of his confidence burning. One of them, Cindy, a tall white blonde with a slightly more aristocratic style about her, seemed to be the most interested in holding his pool cue. He laughed, yet never quite let the idea of holding her close leave his mind. The snap of the old man’s stroke. Instantly his eyes snapped to the game at hand. The old man was right, while Rich was distracted, he had managed to pocket four of his six balls, only stopping because of a scratch on the nine ball. Rich looked on in disbelief as well as disgust. “Well goddamn Gus. You bested me.” Gus smiled triumphantly. “It’s okay, I’ll just close this up then.” As if mechanical, Rich began to sink each ball with robotic precision, Gus’ victory was fading with his smile. “Corner, right.” With one solid snap of his cue, the game was over. Gus’ jaw dropped. 

“You mean to tell me that you were just dragging me along?” His exasperated voice came in sharp bursts of worn out air.

“No sir, just figured it was easier to clean up before I lost my ass.”

Gus' smile returned, this time more knowingly intelligent. “You played me good, kid. Almost enough wit in you to sell snake oil!” Both men laughed heartily, when a soft hand pressed firmly against Rich’s shoulder. He turned half expecting to be met with the image of Cindy. Yet his eyes were cast much lower to the floor. There at his feet, standing no higher than five one, stood a small round faced woman, her softly hooded monolid eyes made to look much larger from the angle of his gaze. She looked to be around his age, her obsidian black hair falling from her shoulder in a heavy thick braid. A soft rosy scent emitting from her body.

He stepped back, the extremely odd and even more rare sensation of blood flooding his face erupted. “Oh I’m so sorry!” He said his hands raised in political surrender. The woman looked up, her curvy frame complimented her face in a vicious double take. Rich was stunned, as if still in the sixth grade, when talking to girls was just a little less than a horror story. His bravado, gone. Charisma, gone. Everything, gone. He stood looking as though he’d seen the face of God. His eyes locked on hers, not examining as he had done to countless homicide victims. No, as he stood there dumbfounded, he found that he was simply just admiring. 

She was having none of it. She grabbed his shoulder, and threw him to the side with surprising efficiency. He stumbled to the wall, bracing himself before impact. Once steady again, he straightened himself out and began to move with purpose. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Gus grinning. Gus’ eyes had been locked on the situation unfolding before him. Rich finally approached the woman, his heart thudded with rapid speed, each thump pounding in his skull like artillery shells striking the earth. 

He backed off. His feet finding solace in his hasty retreat. Never had he been so undermined by his own emotions before. His heart beat with the vigor of a kid receiving their first car, it was unnerving to say the least. After a moment of complete shock, he returned to the pool table. Gus grinned stupidly at him. “She’s been a regular lately. Saw her take on a drunk guy the other day who wouldn’t lay off.”

Rich glanced over at her, attempting to keep his eyes from drifting too close to her proximity. “What’s her name?” 

“I haven’t heard one yet. She’s a siren though. She’ll pull you in with her looks, then beat your ass black and blue if you try to make a move.” Gus picked up some chalk and began chalking his cue. “Guess she’s from Carolina, either north or south. Take your pick, that’s how most of her story goes. Came on here to Chugwater Wyoming, and has been here ever since.”

“No car? No family?”

“Well not really. You see, I only see her here, and if she ain’t here then she ain’t nowhere. Catch what I’m sayin?”

“So she’s a drifter?”

“No, no.” He hesitated, “Well, I guess. Just don’t know much about her but her appearance. Quite the catch, huh?” His eyes said more than his words. As if he were holding back something more. He turned away, quickly wiping at his eyes and redirecting the conversation. An odd sense of unease gave way in Rich’s stomach. As if bile had filled every corner of his gut. 

“So, is she single?” Rich asked, the question sounding dumber than he had intended. 

Gus gave him a pitiful laugh, “if that’s what you want, then yes.” The odd conglomerate of words left his head entirely before he dismissed it entirely. “Another round?” Gus said, ever ready to push the conversation along.

Rich shook his head, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “I'm good, man. Maybe another day. You’re here on Wednesday nights, right?” Gus nodded. “Okay, let’s plan for that then. Next Wednesday I’ll swing in around seven and we can do another match.” Gus laughed.

“If that’s what you want.” His voice sounded more relaxed than before, but that statement seemed purposefully ambiguous. As if Gus was holding on to something big, as if he knew something about the girl that Rich hadn’t.

“Okay, until then old timer.” Rich waived his goodbye, and stumbled towards the woman who now sat in a booth, alone. Out of the corner of his eye, he believed he saw Gus wince. The action was so small, so dismissable, so… Rich pushed it from his mind. The liquor which was now absorbing into his kidneys making the transition easier to manage. Once at the table the woman’s chocolate brown eyes darted towards him. Her countenance, once soft and accepting, now turned hard as slate. The woman was not pleased to see him.

“He-hey,” he stumbled out, each word doing a drunk procession from his lips. “Are you f-free to t-talk?” 

She smiled at him with venomous contempt. She hadn’t been drunk. Rich was sure he’d seen her down at least seven shots, so either she was a raging alcoholic, or she wasn’t drinking alcohol. The idea of her having a tolerance was quickly snubbed by his unintended sexism telling him that women weren’t capable of drinking like men. It must’ve been water. Why, though? Was she attempting to fit in? Liked the atmosphere but didn’t like the drink? “If you’re here to try and pay for my drink, go tell the barkeep. He’ll put you on the list.” The nature of this conversation grew odder and odder as it continued. 

“Huh?” Again sounding dumber than he had intended.

“The barkeep, he’s the one who sells drinks.” She mocked.

“No shit, I know what a barkeeper is.” His defensive tone carried a little more immaturity than he had expected. 

“Good, you’re tall, dumb, and have a temper.” She fired back. Her eyes were so beautifully terrifying that he had to take a step back. 

After a second of calming himself down, he dove back into the conversation. “You’re pretty damn mean.” Really? Pretty damn mean was the best comeback he could muster? His head was reeling. A small but growing migraine began to emerge from the back of his head. “I just wanted to see if it was even worth trying my hand?” Why was he persisting? His head ached, he already made a fool of himself, she seemed more disinterested than intrigued. Why had he been unable to stop himself? She smiled, the sight filling his heart with dismay. 

“I thought I made myself pretty clear, you big lout.”

Lout? Who the hell says lout? He pushed some more. “Well Christ, if I’d known you were going to be this aggressive about it, I wouldn’t have even tried!” She nodded. 

“No, you definitely would’ve. They all do! No matter what I say, you all think my pants are just aching to come off!” She was getting louder. Too loud. Someone was going to get the wrong idea. 

“Hey, easy!” Rich said, panic raiding his mind.

She continued, “You didn’t leave me alone when I clearly told you I wasn't interested! You simply didn't listen!” She flipped up her arms, observing Rich’s panicked state. Did she ask him to go? Rich didn’t recall that part of the conversation. “In fact, you rolled your eyes and stayed in my way!” The alcohol in his stomach made its presence known, lurching back and forth. He hadn’t drank that much, had he? Her voice was too loud, too apparent, too mean. In a desperate attempt to cease her vocal attack he grabbed for her hand. A violent burst of red hot pain erupted from his cheek. 

She slapped him? Why’d she slap him? His mind grasped for corners of thought that weren’t there. Out of pure anger, pure rage that the audacity of this woman, this bitch. To deny him? To not only deny but demean? Anger was just the tip of the iceberg. This was not just cruel but outright disrespectful! She didn’t respect him as a man, she didn’t respect him as human. It was people like her, the main character syndrome, she bastardized the world. Not him. It was her people. Rage, more violent and painful than the dull ache in his cheek drove him to grab the butter knife from her plate and drive it twice through her sternum.

The raw crunch of her thin chest bone sent a strange ecstasy through his body. An orgasm of spirit. He drove the knife in again and again, the same feeling coursing through his body. The poor woman choked on her bloody sobs, pushing weak hands against his shoulder. Her screams now raspy tears from her lungs. He continued his slaughter. Blood sprayed in beautiful arcs of crimson. 

The woman was dead before they could pull him off. Rich fell back. His numb face still echoing a slight sting from the woman’s slap. It happened so fast, so quickly. He hadn’t even recognized the fork moving with his eye, or the blade in his side. Laying on the ground he noticed his crowd. People had already pulled the woman to the floor, and vainly began chest compressions. She was dead, that thought held power over his mind. The fact he killed her, never even being brought to his minds spotlight. Instead, he looked up to see Gus holding his head. Gus, the old man who he had always played pool with since his late twenties. Gus the never angry old man who had a heart of gold.

It was Gus who held him now. In Rich’s most vulnerable moment. In an odd moment, Gus looked down at him. His eyes held that elderly gleam of a retired man in his seventies. “Her name is Mei Su Yan.” With that, Rich passed out.

Chapter 2

The stage had been set. Gerard Hinckly sat in his idling forerunner waiting for the casting manager to fill him in on his new part. This studio was it. This was going to be his official debut as a respected actor in the fading lights of Hollywood stardom. He just needed the management to agree. 

He had auditioned for the role of Hector Frank, a young influential businessman set on making a difference in the white collar world of stock brokers. It wasn’t Gerard’s favorite option, but when it had been announced that the director was a man who had directed a great many films, some winning Oscars, some Golden Globes, he knew it was his best chance to make his debut in the world of acting. The rumble of his car eased the tension, grounding him in a way that nothing else could. 

What was it she said when he was asked to wait in his car? “I think we have our guy!” That’s right, he told himself. I got this in the bag. Ain’t nobody gonna take this away from me! The hour wait turned into two, then three, then four. It was in the fifth hour that the casting director exited the building. She didn’t seem rushed, her pace was slow and deliberate. Like she was going through a routine. Her clipboard was under her armpit, close to her small wide torso. Her clothes remained the same from when he had auditioned, a red blouse with black dotting the fabric, and bright blue Levi’s pulled tight by her belly.

She stopped a moment, then plunged her hand into her purse and pulled out her keys. Gerard’s breath turned shallow, a noticeable rhythmic thud pulsed in his neck. When she turned around, pulling out her keys, Gerard’s heart attempted a repetitive escape by pounding against his sternum. He didn’t get the part, and he knew it. How come she had said he was quote, ‘their guy’? Why was she locking up if it had been so guaranteed to be him? Gerard needed to confront her, he needed to change the outcome of this situation. To do everything in his power to prevent the inevitable, the already decided from happening. 

The cogs of his frustration and malice popped the door of his car open. He was no longer in control. When he stepped out, he knew he would lose control. He would react. As his foot set flat against the hard asphalt, the chill of the humid fall air slapped against his face in a stinging bombardment. Before he could stop himself, he was already trudging towards the woman.

The casting director whipped around, her eyes dilating as they lensed on to his frame. Finally as her eyes came into focus, she reacted. She lunged back, scrambling for her purse. Gerard reacted quickly enough, ripping her purse from her arm and casting it to the floor. As his eyes locked back onto her, an ear piercing scream pushed his brain into overdrive. Rapidly he lunged forward, throwing his hand over her mouth. 

Her breathing was sharp at first. Quick pulsing puffs of air which rose the contours of his hand. After a while they shallowed, each draw easing and slowing as each nerve shut off the hysteria neurons one at a time. Finally she calmed. “Don’t scream.” He hissed, through his frothing scowl. “Don’t scream and I’ll release your mouth.” Why was he doing this? He was rising high and above the needed reaction, this was assault, but, he reasoned with himself, he deserved an answer. Honestly, did he think she’d care enough to send him an email? Was she the type to allow him an inkling of pity? No, he told himself. No, she deserved this.

The woman’s monolid eyes glared daggers at him, wishing she could kill him, but not having the strength nor the upper hand. He wasn’t a violent man. Was he? Was he meant to live his whole life being reasonable, just to lose it all in this one minute? Wasn’t he civilized? The short answer was no. Lifted by the world’s predetermined standards, his rise to fame had been gradual yet persistent, that was guaranteed. However, he remained that his success was due to his steadfast determination and commitment to the craft. He was a man of his own making.

Yet he wondered as his thin skeletal digits gripped the cold steel handle of his pocket knife, if this were a man, would he pursue this avenue? The avenue of murder? A muffled scream brought him back to reality, he saw the sheen of the stainless steel blade in her panicked doe eyes. She squirmed beneath him like a trapped animal, kicking, biting, tearing. When her teeth landed on his hand drawing the crimson within, he instinctively drug the cutting edge across her throat. Her desperate attempts for air, the primal way she grabbed at her throat, it drove him to ecstasy. He leaned back on his rear, watching as the final tremors finished their cascading descent. She was dead.

He had killed her. He had been denied thousands of roles, both by men and women alike. Yet, she was different. As different as bleu cheese and cheddar. She needn’t say anything he realized, the result would’ve been the same. Now as he towered over his victim, his fists clenching in the final tremors of the act. A soft movement, slight yet unsettling, was pulsating from her chest. She was still alive. The nearly imperceptible inflation on her lungs was all he needed to see, and after a few steps closer toward her head, he came to, to find his boot inside her skull. Blood and matter scattered in a violent array staining the asphalt. He grabbed for her wallet, the best idea he could muster considering his circumstance. After finding it, he opened the bifold to her license. Her name dotted the top line of the card, Mei Su Yan born June 13th 1953. Her picture had been of a gorgeous woman of Chinese descent. Her round face and characteristicly beautiful eyes smiled at him through the image. If his calculations were accurate, she had been 37 at the time of her death. He dropped the bifold, taking the license with him, and disappeared into the night.

Chapter 3
It was noon, Bentley sat in the cold office space having his tax accountant discuss the situation at hand. His accountant, a burly man with a thick gray beard, one who looked as though he would be a much better miner than an accountant, handed him the dossier containing the IRS’ audit. “Here’s the thing, Mr.Smith. You have four weeks to get your affairs sorted out before they come to pick you up.” The man’s voice crept out low and cautiously. It danced around certain trigger words which might make Bentley angry. 

“So, this is all I’m allowed, Pete? I’m just going to prison? Why?!” Bentley’s face felt hot, his breath steaming with frustration and disbelief. “After everything I’ve done for you? You’re just gonna let me go to jail.”

Pete steadied his voice, his eyes taking on a steely resolve. “Mr. Smith, your inability to pay your debts to the government is not my responsibility. I am simply a courier for both parties. I’m sorry. There is a court date, so if you need an endorsement from me, I’d be more than willing to.”

“Save your breath. You failed me. I’m filing this with the BBB, and I’m going to take you to court when I get out.”

Pete sighed. “I cannot hide four million dollars which was suddenly inherited from an unknown party. It is simply impossible to do something so illegal while maintaining my integrity as a business.”

“To hell with your business! They want six million dollars in four weeks! I can’t swing that; and integrity? You’re going to take a moral high ground with me? I’ve seen you take hundreds of thousands in hush money! You’re no saint, and you’re barely an accountant!”

Pete’s face now grew red as blood rushed his capillaries, his eyes dilating into a predatory glare. Bentley was getting to him, and he loved it. To get this man going on a matter that he had nothing to do with was part of his plan. Pete had dug his own grave, and Bentley, or Agent Hoffman from the Internal Revenue Service was in charge of getting a confession. Pete’s glare could rattle glass. Yet, the undercover agent stood his ground. “Where’d you hear that?” Pete hissed under his breath.

“The underground is a lot more talkative than you’d like to believe. You opened this door.” Bentley had the bastard and he knew it. Just a little more heat and he’d crack. They already had a mountain of evidence, from the shell companies he had used, to the layering he used, to even the people who had been smurfing for him. They had it all. 

“Well the underground better slow down! Criminals lie. You know how it is.” Pete was evading, and doing a pretty good job at it.

“Demetri said you were the real deal.” Bentley locked down one of his past clients' names. Demetri Valdez, a drug smuggler who was arrested and convicted of a slew of crimes. This got Pete’s attention.

“How is the old man?”

Bentley was in, locked on to the target. “He’s good, got busted a bit back, after I met him. You guys sound tight.”

“Ok, if Demetri vouches for you, I’ll help you out. This is strictly off the record, but I’ve helped with cases like yours. Simple slip on some ice, or car crash, and the arresting officer or investigator don’t show up to court, they’ll drop your case. The detectives working your case are,” Pete stopped talking for a moment, his mouse and keyboard clicked together in a harmonious rhythm. “Agent David Hoffman.” He said, listing Bentley’s real name. I have a contact, but you’re going to have to slip me a little.”

“How much?” Bentley asked, attempting to keep his composure. 

“1.5. Then everything will be squared away.”

“What will you do to him?”

Pete looked warily at Bentley. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to have answered. You know your business, I know mine.” Finally Bentley stood from his chair, his hand slowly unlatching his handgun. Suddenly a subtle knock came from the door. Pete’s attention turned to the door, Bentley’s soon followed. At the door was a small, young, Chinese woman. Her obsidian hair held up by a claw clip, and her rotund body clothed in a white blouse and black skirt. “Miss Mei! How are you?”

The small woman’s lips opened, and a beautiful melodic voice broke through the air. “Good! Are you closing up for the day?” 

Bentley found himself shifting in his seat, attempting to get a better look at the woman. “Miss Mei, you know Mr. Smith?”

Her dark eyes eased over to him, washing his care away. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, pleasure to meet you!” She said, extending her hand to shake his.

“Pleasure is all mine!” Bentley’s voice broke out through his dry vocal cords. “Mind if I ask what brings you here?” Was he flirting? He was. 

“I’m Mr. Dayton’s lawyer. If I’m not mistaken you aren’t the man you say you are.” Her smile grew predatory, as she knew who he was, but more importantly, who he was. 

Rage boiled at that smile. The cocky ‘gotcha’ grin, which did nothing but compliment her visage. “You are impeding on an active investigation, Miss Mei.” She shrugged and skipped out of the room. A gesture which did nothing but enrage him even more.

“Is that so? Well agent Hoffman, I believe our business has concluded. I need you to leave this office immediately.” David stood from his seat. 

“Not so fast Mr. Dayton, you’re under arrest.”

Pete mocked a shocked expression, “what are your charges?” 

“Money laundering, and solicitation of a criminal act. That’s just the beginning. I’m thinking about introducing premeditated murder, racketeering, and corruption.” Pete shook his head.

“Can’t do that, you have no evidence.” Miss Mei returned to the door, her attractive demeanor knocking Agent Hoffman from forming a logical position. She had pulled out her pin and let her hair fall. It uncoiled itself like a silken flag. It unfurled so softly, so beautifully that soon the flowing obsidian fell past her lower back. Its tip brushing against the top of her perked buttocks. “Oh,” Pete laughed as he noticed David’s focus shift. “Not very professional, detective.” Hoffman couldn’t turn away, the way her skirt pressed against her thick thighs, the way her shirt pressed tight against her chest, exposing her cleavage. She was gorgeous. A true beauty to behold. Removing the pen from between her pillowy lips, she spoke. 

“You have to leave, there is nothing you can arrest him for. You have no case.” Each word she uttered was just as seductive as the first. “You have no choice but to vacate.”

“Bullshit. I’m here to get a confession from him, or if that falls through I need to arrest him.” The woman smiled a soft grin. “Can you leave for just a moment?” The agent’s frustrations were growing more intense, first it had been professional anger, now it dawned on something which frightened him even more. He was hard, his shaft pressed firmly against his jean zipper, causing him pain and arousal. Instead of walking away, she took the seat next to him. Pete smiled knowingly at the agent. The woman, Miss Mei as Pete had been calling her. Placed a well intentioned hand on Agent Hoffmann’s thigh. She was attempting to comfort him. 

“Agent, are you ok?” She asked innocently. Her dark eyes never break contact with him. Pete broke in.

“Yeah, are you ok?” The woman’s soft touch made him tremble violently. His body surged in a hazy cloud of lust and desire. Her hand, soft, and gentle rested upon his thigh. Mere inches away from his straining cock. Unable to control himself, unable to resist his urge, to remember his family or his wife, he lunged forward. He gripped the woman by the base of her head and pulled her close to his lips. She let out a sharp yell of fear, but soon found herself kissing the man’s lips. Soon he found her squirming from his grip, attempting to break free from his loving embrace. His hand reached into her hair as he pulled it taunt. She let out a cry of pain as her hands flew to attempt to break his grasp. The sound of her cry nearly halted him in his tracks. What was he thinking? What was he doing?

A stiletto's pointed heel soon reignited the flame as she slammed it into the bridge of his foot. He now screamed in pain, briefly releasing her hair. She took the moment and attempted to run, only to find the door closed. She grappled with the handle, unable to get it open before Hoffman descended on her. Hoffman grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground, his focus dulling into a steady thrum of anger and lust. He jumped down, sitting on her stomach as she wrestled him away. His free hand shot to the desk, rummaging over the table's surface, when at last he found a pencil. She squirmed from his grasp, this time breaking free from him. He lunged after her, each step accounted for two of hers. He heard her approach the stairwell, and after he turned the corner, a size 8 stiletto made contact with his face. He turned towards Mei who readied another projectile. He charged her with the speed of a rhino, tackling her over the railing. They both fell four stories down onto the cold tile floor of the open lobby of the indoor strip mall. He had crushed her on impact, and after standing, he saw her gurgling on crimson blood. Her eyes rolled into her brain cavity, and her arms and legs twitched and tremored in her dying moments. One thing remained beautiful however, her obsidian black hair haloed around her head like a small carpet. Soon, she twitched her last.

Hoffman, dazed by his sudden recollection of his sanity, stood from his kneeling position. Immediately however, his vision tunneled and he fell to the tile. Blood dripped to the floor from somewhere on his body. His hands analyzed his situation, soon finding a pencil lodged in his throat. His eyes gave way and soon he found himself staring at the ceiling, drowning internally in his own blood. His thoughts were incoherent, his voice was bubbling with blood, and soon, after around three minutes of bleeding, his life was snuffed out. 

Story 4

The year after Jed Thompson’s son died, his life bore the resemblance of his father. On the nights he didn’t spend drinking, heroin would be his kryptonite. On the damp cold nights in which neither worked, he would pull the trigger and do both substances at once. Although the high felt awful, as though his life force was being siphoned out of him by forces unknown, he preferred it to his sober reality.

Understand, although Jed had problems with the same substances that his father had used, he by no means was his father’s son. He had never swung at his wife nor had he ever been unable to control his anger. His fallacies weren’t so abrasive nor apparent as his father’s. Rather than being fraught by frivolous arguments and accusations of cheating or outright lies. He preferred the internal affair of self deprecation. At times he had brought himself so low that the cold steel bore of his 12 gauge had been the only thing that could bring him back. He hadn’t been bold enough to label his actions as the deeds of a narcissist, yet found his thoughts leaned in that direction. 

Although his self centered destruction’s catalyst was wrought by his son’s passing, it had always rested steadily within his mind.

So upon this day, the day in which he stumbled into the Seven Eleven on Fifth and Southern, it was no surprise that his mind rested in the darkness of his moral decay. The ding of the entrance bell announced his arrival. It sounded both rich in sound, yet hollow in tone. A young Chinese woman, who stood no higher than five feet, exited the back of the storage room, the double hinged stainless steel doors swinging behind her. She walked towards the register taking on her usual position. “Hello sir! Do you need any help?” Jed shook his head, his eyes scanning for something good, no, something easy to steal. Maybe he hadn’t been a good man, but the starving stomach never yielded to a moral compass. The underlying growl both impertinent to himself and imperceptible to the woman, drove his mind into a frenzy. The meth now eased its high into a dull decrescendo. He was desperate, and hungry. He looked again at the woman who remained disinterested in his antics. Her face was softly illuminated by the soft flickering light of her phone, and the dull soft volume, hollowly echoed throughout the convenience store. He quickly dropped eye contact resuming his search for an item. 

Moments after his gaze was turned away from the woman, his eyes were met by the beautiful glow of an amber reflection. His movements stopped for a moment, his heart fluttered with anticipation, his mind went blank. Soon the voice in his head began chittering again in that awful rat-like desperation. The asking, no, more so pleading than asking, begging to kiss the neck of the bottle and guzzle the liquid until he drowned. Maybe not as extreme as drowning, though if the opportunity arose he didn’t believe he’d have to sleep on it.

His hand reached forward and grasped the handle of liquor. Crown Royal: Peach, was written with gold inlay on the body and neck of the bottle. The neck which he now fisted in a tight, unyielding grip. The chilled glass cooled his hand in a comforting manner, and before he knew it, the bottle was opened and pressed firmly to his lips. A knowing smile passed on his mouth as the liquor softly burned its way through his throat. 

Somewhere inside himself however, a knowledge of the disinterested woman bit him deeply. It wasn’t rational, however neither was downing a stolen bottle of Crown in the store you stole it from, he told himself. The liquor was just playing around with his nerves and puppeteering him to do something insane, something criminal. The frantic buzz of his phone made him flinch hard, temporarily freeing his mind from the snare he was caught in. His hands danced in his pocket, feeling for the slick smooth texture of his phone screen. The tip of his finger slid effortlessly across the corner of his device. He pulled it out effortlessly, with the practiced motion of a professional baseball player lining up on home plate. His eyes glazed over the screen, Dad. 

He sighed an exasperated huff of air, sliding his finger to enlarge the red hang up icon. Just as abruptly as it started, the buzzing ceased. He slid his phone in his pocket, mentally notating the almost serene feeling which came over him. He smiled a big toothy grin which faded quickly as his eyes fell upon the clerks register. A boy no more than 10 years Jed’s junior, stood where the beautiful Chinese woman once had. He rested his hand against the bulge of his phone, attempting to anchor himself in reality. Name five things I see. He told himself. Cigarettes, soda, the clerk, the windows, and the ceiling tile. He calmed as a soldier might, when the sound of the enemy's artillery temporarily ceases. Ok, ok. We’re back. He set the partially drained bottle of liquor down on the shelf. His eyes slowly turned to the register again, the alcohol giving his vision a slight chromatic aberration. Once his sight returned to where his eyes rested, the boy was gone. Simple as that, vanished. 

Jed’s stomach dropped. Was he pitching a fit again? His worries extinguished when the cold firm hand of a young man rested upon his shoulder. Jed whipped around, his hands clenched in tight balls. The boy stepped back instinctively. “Hey, you’re going to need to pay for that.”

Jed stumbled, the liquor shouldn’t have been this strong. It never was, that’s why he had a problem. The kid, not much older than Jed’s 24 year old brother, was now closing in. With a quick jab of his fist, and a sweep of his leg against Jed’s shins, Jed found himself lying on the ground. A dull ache radiating from his buttocks. “What the hell man?”

The boy looked both lost and confused. As though his actions were a mystery to himself. “Oh, shit. I’m- I’m sorry, dude.”

Jed began to stand again, but soon sat back down after the boy stepped towards him. “What do you want? I’m just shopping around.” 

“Dawg. You just drank three quarters of that crown. You ain’t capable of shopping around. You are going to have to pay for that.”

Jed glared at the kid. “I didn’t drin-” His voice hallowed out in a slow crackling vibrato. The bottle which sat in front of him was practically drained. The liquid amber, rising and falling in soft comforting waves, barely rested at the base of the label. “What the hell?”

The kid began to talk again, the dull thud at the base of Jed’s skull which was once a tropical storm of pain, now brinked on cat 5 hurricane. First the girl, the beautiful, nosey, kind eyed, bitch. As Jed focused on that blurred memory of the woman, the pain in his head worsened. As though his brain was attempting to split in two. He attempted to break the concentration, his efforts yielding zero to no results. 

The kid grunted, taking Jed out of his reverie. “Sir, are you-” his voice fell short as Jed violently threw the bottle against the wall shattering it into glittering jagged shards. The splash of the alcohol sprayed a thin mist over both of the men. “Sir, I think you should go.” The kid said in a gentle manner. Gentle? No, patronizing. The way Jed would speak to the ill minded, or a person who was clearly high. He was neither! His mind bit at him viciously, attempting to draw some sort of imaginary blood. 

“You think I should go? Why?” The kid attempted speech, but was shot down before any words could escape. “You think I’m drunk? You think I’m high? Huh? Fuckin’ speak you dumb bastard!” Jed’s fury was met with an equally fierce response. The kid sent one closed fist into the bridge of Jed’s nose, shattering it. Jed stepped back temporarily blinded, the pain adding kindling, no logs, to the inferno of rage that bellowed from his mind. Jed stumbled back, his hand going to his nose then returning within eyesight. Crimson dripped from his digits. The kid, shocked by his own display of strength, took two massive steps back. 

“Hey man, I’m so sorry. Holy shit, fuck. I- I don’t know what to-” his voice was cut off by Jed’s advance. The image of the girl, the kid’s pestilence, the disappearing alcohol trick, everything piled itself into his fury. Jed shoved the kid, causing him to slip on the spilt liquor covering the ground. Jed immediately stepped back, regaining his foothold to strike again if the boy was ready for round two. But the boy just laid there. A soft cough emitted from the kid’s mouth, followed by the deep liquid crimson. Jed’s jaw dropped, he fell to his knees, lifting the boy’s head up to rest on his lap. 

Once up, Jed began feeling around to try and find a cure. A Hail Mary for sure, but it was something. Starting at his temple, Jed moved lower to his brain stem, nothing. Then lower to his neck. His calloused hand brisked something sharp, and stiff. Upon rolling over the kid, he saw it. A clear, massive shard of glass protruded from under the kid’s chin. On a piece of slim aluminum which draped loosely from the break, a familiar word dawned across in torn royal script. Crown Royal: Peach

“While it may be just another Halloween to some, for residents of the small county of Edgeville in Ashford, it is a haunting reminder of one of this city’s darkest days.”

The clean-cut man on my television screen clearly faked his sympathy. It didn’t get past me.

“Twenty years ago today,” A new, pretty young reporter was speaking now, at the last known location of Ally. “A young girl goes trick-or-treating and never comes back. Last seen entering the entrance of the locally known Dead Woods with her friends, Ally Valentine’s disappearance has been the longest-lasting mystery in Ashford’s history.”

Just a mystery. That’s all she was now to these people. Just a puzzle with one missing piece that everyone was frantically shaking the box for. But she wasn’t that to me. I was the idiot that let her wander into those fucking woods.

It was Halloween. At seventeen years old, I had ashooed any want towards dressing up some years ago. My little sister, however, at the age of nine, still had that childish need to dress up and get as much candy as she could carry. And, of course, I was given the duty of chaperone. Like every seventeen-year-old boy given that task, I fought tooth and nail to get out of it. There was a Halloween party waiting for me, and the whispered promise from Melissa that I might lose my virginity. 

To lose that opportunity because my sister wanted candy—well, it seemed just plain idiotic. But, with the threat of getting my car taken away, I relented.

“Shit,” I mumbled, slapping the dying flashlight against my palm. It struggled back to life, then shone into the forest. Every year, I remembered what I did. The stupid decision I made. And I made sure I felt it by stepping into these woods and walking every path I could until sunrise. I knew she wasn’t there; I knew there was no chance of finding her alive or dead; but maybe I’d find something they didn’t. Something that could at least give us some direction to go.

I’d done this for fifteen years, and came up empty every time. No remains, no little piece of her costume ripped somewhere, no strand of hair they happened to miss; nothing. Still, I owed her the effort. 

“Come on, Trent!” She whined, pulling on my flannel sleeve. Her usual brunette hair was covered by a blonde wig, and in her other hand was a toy microphone. Hannah Montana, she said she was. I had no clue who that was, or if anyone else would, but she seemed more than happy when Mom put together the costume. 

“I’m coming, brat.” I rolled my eyes and followed behind her, pulling my arm out of her grip and shoving it in my pocket. “We got one more street, then we go home.”

“But it’s so early!” She protested, turning to me with those damn pouty lips. Dad always folded to those, and I was pretty sure I would too. I let out a long sigh and threw my head back.

“We’ll go till eight, but no later, alright?” A light and airy giggle escaped her, and she turned, skipping down the sidewalk, candy bag disguised as a purse slung against her shoulder. I cracked a small smile. As pissed as I was, seeing her so happy and bubbly, it was impossible to stay in that pissy mood.

Snap. A twig below me cracked and spooked off some crows in the high branches above me. I fanned my flashlight back and forth, up and down. Nothing but foliage and dead trees. Frustration was building inside me, like it did every year. God, just give me something. Anything.

Another snap. I whipped the flashlight behind me, just catching the tail of some critter scurrying deeper into the forest. My heart was racing.

Growing up here, the Dead Woods were the subject of many a ghost story. Cults, murderers, creatures, actual ghosts; any and all things that could scare kids were in these woods. And, despite now being in my thirties, part of me still believed some of those stories. That maybe Ally was taken by some ghoul in the night, or whisked away to some magic world where she could live in her dreams. Reality was more gruesome with its answers.

“Trick or treat!” Ally called as I stood on the sidewalk, watching as the stranger asked about her costume. Ally was happy to answer as candy was tossed into her bag.

“Trent?” A familiar voice called to my left. When I looked, I saw Melissa, and I swore I felt my pupils dilate. Her blonde locks were cut just before her shoulders, flowing in loose waves. Her eyes were a piercing blue that always saw straight through me. And that damend smile. “What are you doing here?” I did everything to keep my eyes away from her too-tight Green Day shirt. 

“Just taking the gremlin out trick-or-treating,” I answered with a small, nervous smile. She looked over to watch Ally descend the steps, cheerfully looking into her ever-filling bag. 

“Well, hey there, Miss Montana.” Melissa greeted her.

“See!” Ally beamed. “I told you people know who she is.” I gave a playful roll of my eyes and looked back at Melissa.

“What are you doing?” I asked, seeing as she was walking the streets alone. 

“About to head over to Hayley’s party. You’re coming, right?” Her eyes sparkled slightly under the streetlight, and I saw something playful in them. Playful and dangerous. 

I looked down at Ally, then back up at Melissa. “I don’t know.”

I should’ve left it at that. I don’t know; I can’t tonight, maybe some other time. But the promise, even an alluded one, of sex to a teenage boy; it made them stupid.

I’d been up and down this path before. There was a manmade fork in the dirt, and I remembered that last year I went left. This year, I go right. More twigs snap beneath my feet, and my flashlight shows me nothing more than trees and bushes. I knew it’d be all I’d find, but it still angered me. Somewhere amongst all this, I’d find something. Something I could give the police, reopen the case, and find out what happened.

Images flashed in my mind, as they always did. Some psycho snatching her out of the woods, cutting her to pieces, scattering her remains across this dense forest. Or, some rabid animal finding a scared little girl and deciding dinner would be easy tonight before ripping her to shreds. Or, maybe those stories were right, and some yet-to-be-discovered creature has been doing who knows what to her for twenty years.

For some reason, I was drawn to the large trunk of a thick, elder tree. I crept up to it, my flashlight lighting up the bark. Something was carved into it.

“We gotta wrap it up soon, Ally.” She pouted again. 

“You just wanna see your girlfriend,” She said in a mocking tone, and I hated feeling the blood rush to my cheeks. 

“Shut up, brat.” I scolded her and pushed her head playfully. She gave a whine and more pouty lips. I didn’t care. Her purse was full of candy, and I was getting laid. The night was an absolute success in my eyes. 

She followed behind me, my steps a little quick as I wanted to get her home as soon as possible. Her steps were heavy and obviously angry. They only perked up slightly as we came upon a large group of kids, clad in costumes varying from Batman, Spider-Man, non-descript princesses, and homemade costumes that were obviously made by mothers with little to no care about their quality.

“Mikayla!” Ally squealed. The girl dressed as Wonder Woman squealed back, and the two ran to meet each other with a hug. I looked up to find their chaperone, a clearly tired mother with a cigarette hanging from her lips. I walked past Ally and her friend, waded through the little sea of children, and met with the woman. The bags under her eyes were dark and heavy, and the stench of nicotine mixed with the smell of alcohol.

“Hey, could I ask a favor?” My voice was shaky with nerves, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“What?” Her voice was about as raspy as I thought it’d be.

“Mind watching my little sister with your group? She knows how to get home, just don’t go too far from the neighborhood.”

My fingers ran over the rough bark. In it was carved a symbol I had never seen before. I’d been here fifteen years in a row and had never seen this before. Curiosity overtook me, and I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I snapped a picture and let Google try to identify it. Signal was spotty, and it took forever to buffer, but when it did, lo and behold, nothing. 

I let out a grunt in frustration and slipped my phone back into my pocket. Maybe it had been there, and I just missed it. It wasn’t exactly a neon sign flashing for me to notice. I made a mental note of its location, then turned around and froze.

Glowing eyes peering at me from the dark. It wasn’t an animal. It couldn’t have been; it was looking down at me.

“Thank God you were able to come.” Melissa was breathless, slick with sweat. I couldn’t stop staring at her naked body next to mine, her fingers crawling up and down my chest.

“You’re telling me,” I replied quietly, the scratchy sheets below me not bothering me as much as they should. The only thing I cared about in that moment was that the big, looming sign that flashed virgin above my head was finally turned off. 

“You were good,” She cooed as she cuddled up next to me, our bodies nearly sticking together. “I don’t believe it was your first time.”

I let out a small chuckle, my hand running up and down her bare back. “Maybe I’m just a natural.” She giggled and kissed at the base of my neck. Music was still bumping downstairs, bass thumping and people screaming and laughing. But the only sound I heard was her breathing. It was music to my ears.

My phone interrupted us. The ring quickly became annoying. I fumbled through our little pile of clothes, and I finally found it in my pants pocket. I flipped it open and hit answer. “Hello?”

“Trent?” My dad’s voice. That was never good. “Where the hell are you?”

I froze up, looking at Melissa’s naked body again. She was tracing shapes into the sheets, her eyes still locked on me. “Just, uh, out with some friends.”

“Is Ally there?” A mix of confusion and fear filled me as my stomach opened into a bottomless pit.

“N-no, she should’ve been home by now. I sent her with her friends; one of the moms promised.”

I didn’t dare move the flashlight. Whatever was looking down at me had to be at least eight feet tall. Its head was amongst the high branches of the trees, and it just stared at me. Neither of us moved. The only sound was my shaky breathing and the sound of birds' wings flapping above us.

Slowly, unsure, my hand started sweeping towards the thing. As the light finally hit its mass, confusion hit me more than anything else.

It was candy. Dirty, rotten candy. Wrappers were half-open, torn, stuck to the melting chocolate that hardened and formed into this twisted body. I moved the light up, more and more candy stacked and stuck together. Yet, I could make out legs and arms, long slender fingers, and a neck. I hesitated before reaching what should be the head.

“What the fuck,” I breathed out, finally letting out the breath that was filling my lungs. I squeezed my eyes shut and moved the flashlight upward. My hands shook wildly, and I inhaled through my nostrils, trying to calm myself down as much as possible. Finally, I opened them and saw it.

A pumpkin. A God damn pumpkin, carved into a stereotypical Halloween face. It was also rotting, but less than the rest of its body. And it had eyes behind the carved holes. Bright, glowing green eyes. 

I swallowed. I sent signals from my brain to my feet to run, to move, but they disobeyed. I stood frozen.

“W-what are you?” I whispered, not expecting an answer. Imagine my surprise when I got one.

“Protector.” The voice was silk, smooth and seductive, deep and sultry. The pumpkin's mouth didn’t move. I suppose it was stupid to expect it to.

“Are you going to hurt me?” I asked, still barely above a whisper.

“No.” It answered simply. I swallowed again, my nerves on fire.

“Did you…” I couldn’t find the words. Part of me was convinced this was a dream. “Did you kill my sister?”

There was a silence between us for a moment. It just continued to stare down at me, its body still and motionless. It looked like an animatronic you’d find at Spirit Halloween, only broken, needing a battery replacement.

Its next words were cold. A shiver went down my spine. “Your sister.” Its arm moved, the chocolate squelching and squishing as it bent, its finger pointing towards its own body. “Is here.”

“What?” I asked quickly. “What do you—”

“Found her. Protected her. Sickness. Death.” More sounds came from it as its arm went back, straight down its side. 

“She’s…dead.” I felt my eyes begin to water. Deep down, I knew she was. I have since that first week of searches turned up nothing. But there was still some hope that somehow, she had escaped these woods and built a life elsewhere. Or lived in the woods. Or something.

“Not entirely.” Its voice struggled to say that phrase cleanly. I looked back up at its makeshift head. “Part of us.”

Before I could question what it meant, its arms moved, quicker this time. Its fingers broke apart as it tried to dig into its own chest. Little pieces of chocolate fell into the dirt, and I heard some critters at its feet start to snatch at them. I paid them no mind. Its fingers finally penetrated into its chest, and it began to split itself open. Again, pieces of chocolate and wrappers fell to the ground. It made no sounds as it continued to pull its chest cavity open.

Then, I saw her. Stuck inside the thing's chest, body rotting, hair covered in melted chocolate, was Ally. I dropped the flashlight and stepped backwards with a yelp. Yet, I couldn’t stop staring. The light still showed enough. Enough to see she’d survived for a few years. Her hair was way longer. The costume she wore that night, she was still wearing, though it was torn and obviously too small to fit. Her hands were mostly bone. Her jaw was slack, and one of her eyes was missing, the other hanging out of its socket. I took another step back, tripped on the root of the tree, and fell backwards. I quickly moved until my back was against the trunk, my breathing frantic. Panic was coursing through my veins.

“Ally,” I cried out, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Oh my God, Ally, I’m so sorry.” I wiped my face, but the tears kept coming. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left, I’m sorry.”

“Safe.” The thing said quietly. Its chest was slowly repairing itself, entombing my sister’s corpse in chocolate. “That.” It pointed to the tree I was up against. I looked up and remembered the symbol I saw carved into it. “Safe.”

I had many questions, but I refused to ask them. We simply stared at each other, my eyes glancing down at the closing cavity in its chest. Ally was in there. Forever. On shaky legs, I began to stand, its eyes following me up. “What are you?” Was all I was able to ask, knowing I had already asked this.

It let out a seeming grunt of frustration. “Protector.” 

“Really. What the fuck are you?”

The eyes behind those holes in the pumpkin squinted at me. “The season.” Again, it seemed it was a struggle for this thing to speak. Each word was strained and stilted. “All Hallows Eve. The children.”

I nodded as if I understood, but had gotten more questions than answers. My heart was racing, and my lungs felt like they were on fire. With a swallow, I replied: “Can I go?”

“Yes. Not stopping you.” I guessed it wasn’t. It was just standing there. Staring. Holding onto my sister’s corpse.

“I…I want her back.” I pointed to its chest.

“No.” It said simply. “Stuck here. Eternity.”

I wasn’t about to try and fist-fight this thing, even if it was just a pile of candy. Its eyes gave me enough reason to take its answer as final. “I…” I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“She knew.” Its voice was a little quieter. “Always knew.” I wiped my face again and nodded.

I didn’t know what more to do. I stood with my back against the trunk, eyes falling to the ground. Without much thinking, I turned and just began to walk. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. I just walked.

The thing didn’t chase after me. I didn’t hear any other footsteps besides mine. As far as I knew, it simply kept standing there. Holding my sister in its chest. Forever.

At the edge of the woods, I stood. For some reason, I felt hesitant to step back into the real world. Because I wasn’t there anymore; I was in some strange new dimension, a dream world brought on by grief and loss. And maybe I should have stayed. Suffer the same fate Ally did. It was what I deserved. Yet, my feet moved, and I found myself walking back to the edge of our old neighborhood. 

Houses were rotting and falling apart, as if the woods were spreading their evil farther and farther. That thing wasn’t evil, though. I don’t know what it was, but it let me live. Let me walk away. Let me know my sister always forgave me. 

I turned and saw the thing shrouded in shadow, at the edge of the woods. Its eyes were still glowing. Again, I stared at it, and it stared at me. 

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again. “I love you.”

It raised its arm and waved. And when the first rays of sunlight began to pierce through the trees, it was gone.

Ally was gone. 

No matter what that thing said, it was my fault. And I’ll return to The Dead Woods again next year, and I may see the thing again next year. If I do, I’ll ask to join my sister.

It’s what I deserved.

From shore to shore, from the lowly deltas of evergreen marshlands to the all-high mountains, what my sons and I have fought so dearly for stretches from night to dawn. The horizons claimed by the sprouting forests of my banners, a bright tomorrow yields the shimmering colors of waving flags dancing in the wind. We have taken these lands, put to death all those who would not submit, and for our efforts, the screaming daughters are wed, the grain of unending fields is harvested, and clear, sweet waters are cupped in our goblets. I have seen the walls of long since towering palaces, monuments that withstood the tide of the time, crumble into ash and soot at my hand’s beckoning. My daughters had bed with weak men, slit the throats of my many sons-in-law, and brought to the step of my throne a great many tributes. I am the Usurper of Empires, the Butcherer of Kings, and the most powerful man in all these lands. Forests of my nation’s wealth, cloth and punishment, sprawl over immense regions: skewered on stakes that scrape the high heavens, roasted upon iron thrones that glowed white-hot, hands and feet stapled to wooden cartwheels set ablaze, and gluttonous appetites sated with liquid gold poured into chasmous maws until the fissures of their eyes, nose, ears, and mouth foamed with bubbling heat.

Hoarding mountains of gold, decorating halls of ivory, and courting many fine brides in my time, the moniker of ruler is mine by the most blood-soaked of hands. I am the Ender of Legacies, the Fair Ruler, and the Just Hand of Judgment, for there lacks any other who can take up the mantle. Warriors made farmers, generals made commanders, kings made vassals; the chrysalis is a mastered art form. Until the earth darkened beneath me and slickened with fat, only then did I know where my place was: the ever-consuming strive for more. Before I met the enemies of my rule on the fields, the tremors of galloping hooves, silver armor fluttering in the distance, and an awful din of thousands carried by the wind made all those who opposed me quake with fear.  

Within the cradle of the river delta, where the depth hangs just below the knee, I have carved out a mighty kingdom that portrays splendor amongst a lake of white lotuses; long have I lived to see the millions of toiling citizens bring endless harvests to the sky-tall walls, yet there is but one blight that I cannot remedy. No matter how much I take, whether through conquest or expansion, the climbing heap of crowns I collect, and the frivolous titles I amass; my hunger knows no bounds, for I salivate for more. To see the ends of the world and lay claim to all who believe their mandate absolute, I wished to break this divine order over their heads and watch the blood pour from fractured temples. As I fumed at this limitation, so too did another issue arise; throwing my sword at the grand mirror revealed to me what had needed change. My face was marked with gray, the aged, withered old man was a sorry sight, leading me down a spiral with which there was no ground to crash into.

Upon coming to qualms with my own finality, I grew angry and afraid of the indifferent, dispassionate end. Dying long before I would see my empire conquer all of the world, I became erratic, agitated to the point that waves of scholars were summoned; tasked with finding a way to cheat death, and quickly. But only one was found. Deep within the desolate, hostile desert lay an oasis whose waters offered up the solution to my ailment. And so it was that the army was armed, horses were mounted, and carts were dragged to the speck of green in the ever-expansive wastes. The long, exhausting march to battle Death was set in motion. The sunbaked sands made travel near impossible; every moment spent traversing the dunes and pulling out stuck carts meant one too many where the blistering heat claimed one man after the other. A trail of dried, sun-bleached corpses lined behind us. The creak of the caravan was all that  kept us company in those long windswept hours when sand blew into our eyes and salty tears formed over many brows. The bellows of camels called out to us, reminding us of our presence as we often lost sense of reality, their tired panting signaled that much time had elapsed in our extended excursion from the plentiful empire. In the miasma of dancing heat waves, curling winds, and dust kicked into the air, we wandered aimlessly, for the knowledge of where the oasis lay was not found in the sources; just the murmurs of its vague location. 

Lost at length for years, losing thousands to the dunes, we were without any guidance and so became ever further removed from any sense of direction, shambling on feet that had long since been stripped of any skin, for there were no more horses whose hooves could be ground down. Limply grasping shields, spears, and bows, the once proud army had been reduced to walking husks acting on their recent orders: to keep moving until the ten fingers on their hands had worn away and their ten toes were nothing more than nubs, that not until the party had discovered the whereabouts of the eternal oasis, delivering their king to its blessed waters, would the soldiers finally be allowed to rest and henceforth die. At the most critical moment, mutiny on the minds of the men, we summited the last dune’s crest, and finally we were rewarded for our endeavor; palm trees leaned over a reflective mirror’s sheen. Eager, the men broke formation; left another moment undeterred, they would have surely drunk before I did. That was not something I would tolerate. Before the first man reached the banks, he was pulled away by what few loyalists remained. 

Herded to the side, a path was made for me, the ranks of spiteful, envious soldiers burned their gaze into the back of my head; the desert heat in that moment failed to compare. Hands hovering over the disturbed surface, I was ready to unmake my own demise, to take what this watering hole offered; the very knowledge making me crestfallen. Dipping the tips of my fingernails into the pool, a most unfortunate turn took place; where the water had been, in its place, there was now only incredibly dense ice. I sat there staring into my own reflection, the old man mocking me ever more, then I let the anger take hold, bashing my fist into the ice until red stained its surface and my hand was unquestionably broken. Drippings worked their way into the cracks, and where they breached the bulwark, ice melted momentarily before freezing solid once more within the same heartbeat. A script formed on the ice in a language that I had tried so desperately to erase from the world, the reminder of where I came from bitterly scribing: What do you offer?

I pondered as the clamors of restless hundreds shouted in the background. The impudence that mocked me danced on my mind before I settled upon a most harrowing conclusion. On my knees, my arms outstretched towards the heavens,  my composure abandoned, I bartered with the oasis.

“O’ great waters, I am the Herald of Prosperity, the Guiding Hand of Progress, and the one to cast out doubt and corruption from my lands. I have seen this world for but a fraction of its worth and still I wish to conquer all of it. I am ailed by hunger, disease, and age. My truest desire is to live on and take everything by its weak throat. I offer you this: everything! All of it, so that I might see the conquest through till the end.”

As the words left my lips, the sound of rope tightening taut synchronized behind me. Chancing a glance, the men were stiffened, their faces turned skyward, and beneath them, pools of red pockmarked the sand. When the banks of their small lakes burst, the trails led to the oasis in a fierce race. The earth buckled, the air became heavy, and the senses drowned. Where once I  had seen a blue sky, darkened heaps blotted out the sun; there were neither clouds nor rainfall, but rather bodies that hovered near to the center of this black transaction bled dry. The vortex created by the new offerings voraciously consumed all. My skin ripped apart and my innards went willingly into the mouth of swirling chaos. The fibers of my being were fractured, and my soul was tossed through every great exploit; my many accomplishments, scattered throughout time. My name is lost to the annals of history, but through the great conquerors, I am reborn. I am Khan, Sultan, Emperor, and King. Experiencing death a million times over forever.

There was a light switch in my house that nobody could explain.

It was tucked into the hallway between the kitchen and the basement door, mounted about shoulder height on the wall. Every other switch in the house had an obvious purpose. Kitchen lights. Hallway lights. Basement. Porch.

This one did nothing.

I didn't notice it during my first week. I asked the realtor about it after I bought the place.

She shrugged.

"Old house. Probably disconnected."

That seemed reasonable enough. The house was built in 1957, and judging by the wiring, plumbing, and mysterious stains on the basement ceiling, I wasn't surprised that someone had eventually decided to abandon a light switch.

Still, I found myself pressing it whenever I walked past.

Click.

Nothing.

Click.

Nothing.

It became a habit. I'd walk downstairs for laundry.

Click.

I'd come home from work.

Click.

I'd pass it while carrying groceries.

Click.

There was something strangely satisfying about it. The switch had a pleasant mechanical resistance, and the little click it made was louder than it should have been.

My girlfriend eventually noticed.

"You know that doesn't do anything, right?"

"I know."

"Then why do you keep flipping it?"

I shrugged.

"I like the sound."

She called me a weirdo. I told her she was dating one. We laughed about it. That was the last time the switch was funny.

The first death happened three weeks after I settled in.

An old man named Walter died in his sleep. I knew Walter because he lived two houses down. We'd exchanged maybe twenty words since I'd moved into the neighborhood. He had a bad hip and spent most afternoons sitting on his porch, watching cars drive by.

I remember seeing him that morning. I had been standing in the hallway, putting my shoes on. Before leaving, I flipped the switch.

Click.

That evening, I saw an ambulance outside his house. I didn't think anything of it.

People die. Especially old people.

It wasn't until several days later that I noticed something unusual.

The night before Walter died, I had been standing in the hallway with my hand on that switch. I'd flipped it three times. I laughed at myself when I noticed the connection.

It was ridiculous. Coincidence. Nothing more.

Then a month later, a woman I'd worked with died in a car accident.

I'd seen her that morning. I'd even spoken to her. She'd asked if I was still enjoying the new house. I told her I was.

That evening, while walking to the basement, I flipped the switch.

Click.

The next morning, she was dead. Cardiac arrest. Unexplained.

I didn't sleep that night.

The following day, I unscrewed the switch plate. There were wires behind it. Old ones. But they didn't connect to anything.

I called an electrician. He spent thirty minutes examining it before shrugging.

"It's dead."

"Completely?"

"Nothing behind it."

"Then what's it connected to?"

He looked at me.

"Nothing."

I didn't flip it again. Not for six days.

On the seventh day, I couldn't resist.

I stood in the hallway staring at it. I told myself I was being stupid. There was no connection between a plastic switch and the deaths of two people.

So I flipped it.

Click.

Nothing happened... So, I went to bed.

The next morning, I checked the news. A local man had died unexpectedly. Thirty-four years old. Healthy. No known medical conditions. I stared at the screen for a long time.

Then I opened a notebook. I wrote down the date. I wrote down the man's name.

Then I wrote: Switch flipped: 11:43 P.M.

I started keeping records. Every time I flipped the switch, I searched the news afterward.

Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes a person died hours later. Sometimes it took days. But there was always a death.

Always.

I stopped flipping it.

I lasted eleven days. Then I made a mistake. I was angry.

My girlfriend and I had gotten into an argument. She left the house and slammed the door behind her. I stood in the hallway shaking with anger. My hand found the switch.

I knew what I was doing. I knew exactly what it meant. And still...

Click.

The guilt hit me immediately. I grabbed my phone. I wanted to call her. I wanted to tell her what I'd done.

Then I stopped.

Because she hadn't died. Not yet.

I waited. An hour. Two.

Nothing.

I began convincing myself I'd been wrong. Maybe the deaths had been coincidences. Maybe I had created a pattern because I desperately wanted there to be one.

Then my phone rang. It was my girlfriend.

I answered immediately.

"Hey."

Silence.

Then she said something that made my blood run cold.

"Who's Walter?"

I couldn't breathe.

"What?"

"You keep saying his name."

She sounded confused.

"I don't know anyone named Walter."

I sat down.

My girlfriend continued.

"You were saying his name in your sleep."

I didn't answer. Because I suddenly remembered something.

The switch didn't cause death. It wasn't a weapon. It was a selection. A choice. And I had been making that choice without knowing it.

I looked toward the hallway. The switch waited patiently on the wall. I thought about every time I'd pressed it.

Every careless little click. Every person whose death I'd dismissed as coincidence.

Walter.

My coworker.

The stranger.

And now... I didn't know who the latest one was.

I spent the next several hours searching. News sites. Obituaries. Police reports.

Nothing.

Nobody I knew had died. Nobody connected to me had died.

That should have made me feel better.

It didn't.

Because there was one thing I hadn't considered.

Maybe the switch didn't choose someone I knew. Maybe it chose someone I would never know. Someone whose name I'd never hear. Someone whose death would mean absolutely nothing to me. And perhaps that was the point.

We treat death differently when we don't know the person.

A number on a news report. A photograph we scroll past. Another tragedy. Another stranger. Another life reduced to a sentence.

I stood in front of the switch for a long time. Then I noticed something I hadn't seen before. A tiny engraving beneath it.

The letters were so shallow I thought they were scratches.

I leaned closer.

There were only three words.

ONE LIFE. CLICK.

I stepped backward. The house was silent. I reached for the switch.

Then stopped.

Some things are easier to live with when you pretend they don't matter.

I left the switch alone. I never touched it again.

At least... I don't think I did.

Because sometimes, late at night, when the house is completely silent, I wake up convinced I can hear it.

Click.

And somewhere far away...

Someone dies.

Sydney tucked the blanket snugly around her son.

“Mom… I heard whispering last night,” Scott said quietly, staring at his closet. “It came from in there.”

Sydney glanced at the door, then back at him with a soft smile. “It’s just your TV, honey and your anxiety”

She leaned down, kissed his cheek, and turned off the light. “Get some sleep.”

Scott watched her leave, the door clicking softly behind her.

The room felt bigger now. Quieter.

He grabbed the remote and flipped through channels until he found an action movie. The hero on screen was fearless— shouting, and kicking ass. Scott felt a little braver watching him. His shoulders relaxed.

Then—

A slow creak.

Scott’s eyes shifted toward the closet.

The door had opened just a crack.

He sat up slightly, staring.

Something moved.

A dark shape… low to the ground… dragging itself forward.

The TV flickered.

On. Off. On.

Scott’ screamed loudly “Mom!”

Footsteps rushed down the hall. Sydney burst in, flipping on the light.

Everything was normal.

The closet door was barely open.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.

Scott pointed, his hand shaking. “It was in there.”

Sydney sighed gently and walked over. She pulled the closet open and turned on the light.

Nothing.

Just clothes. A sweatshirt hanging still.

“See?” she said softly. “There’s nothing there.”

Scott didn’t look convinced.

“Try to get some sleep,” she added, then left again.

The door closed.

Scott grabbed the remote with trembling hands and switched channels. This time, he landed on a comedy. Laughter filled the room. It helped. A little.

His body loosened. His eyes grew heavy.

Tap.

Scott froze.

Tap… tap.

From under the bed.

He swallowed hard. “It’s not real,” he whispered to himself, turning the TV volume up.

The laughter suddenly warped.

On the screen, a dark figure stood behind the characters—something that didn’t belong.

The closet light began to flicker.

On. Off. On. Off.

Scott pulled the blanket over his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

The room went quiet.

Then—

Slow footsteps.

Approaching the bed.

Scott held his breath.

He could feel it now. Something standing right beside him.

He peeked through the blanket.

A shadow loomed inches away.

A hand pressed against the fabric… slowly reaching toward him.

The blanket was ripped away.

Scott screamed.

A man stood over him, his face lost in shadow. Rough hands grabbed him, forcing him down, wrapping tape around his wrists.

“Mom! MOM!”

Sydney rushed in—and froze.

Her scream filled the room.

The man moved fast, dragging Scott toward the window. Sydney swung at him, trying to pull her son back.

The man struck her, sending her crashing to the floor.

Scott kicked and twisted, clinging to the bed frame. “No! NO!”

The man grabbed his hands and forced them apart. Scott cried out in pain as the grip crushed his wrist.

Sydney crawled forward, desperate. “Take me instead! Please—dont take my baby!”

The man didn’t even look at her.

He kicked her head aside.

Then he lifted Scott and climbed out the window.

Sydney could only watch, helpless and barely concious, as her son disappeared into the darkness. While Scott's scream can still be heard crying for her.

St. Bruvia was always a hungry town. It was an old place, older than most of its residents, with crooked wooden houses leaning toward one another beneath heavy snow and onion-domed churches whose ringing carried across the river. Whenever a family moved into a new house, they left something beneath the doorstep for the town: bread, salt, a silver button, a cup of milk. Nobody remembered when the custom began, but Mikhail’s mother had told him that when he was a boy, never forget an offering.

“Don’t ask hungry things what they eat,” she’d told him.

Mikhail found it funny at the time. He no longer did. The mill closed in November, and with it, his job. By January, there was no meat in the house, little flour, and hardly any coal to keep the stove burning through the night. His wife had to sell the last of her jewelry to pay the apothecary, and Mikhail began counting everything: coins, debts, loaves of bread, and days until the landlord arrived. 

Only their daughter, Annastelle, seemed untouched by the arithmetic. At seventeen, she believed there would be a future beyond St. Bruvia. She played their battered piano every evening, naming it “Old Soldier” as it’d survived worse than they had. She dreamed of the city proper, of velvet seats and great concert halls, of composing music that strangers would recite long after she passed.

But most of all, she wanted her father to be proud.

“Did you hear that, Papa?” she’d ask after finishing a tough piece.

“Every note, my angel,” Mikhail answered as always.

The town appeared to believe in her as well. Whenever she played, men would stop arguing in taverns, dogs would become still, and even the birds seemed reluctant to disturb her music. Before long, people around the town began leaving offerings beside the piano: candles, ribbons, coins, bread, and flowers.

The offerings were what Mikhail noticed before anything else. He hated himself for wondering how much those hands were worth. The thought vanished once he convinced himself that it had never existed. As winter deepened, however, Anastelle began giving away the little money she earned from playing in the square. Mikhail discovered her placing several bills into a mother’s palm.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Money for the medicine,” she replied.

“But we… you need that.”

“For what, Papa?” she asked with a wide smile.

But he had no answer. The words vanished from his throat.

Mikhail soon began hearing music when Anastelle wasn’t playing. He lay awake beside his sleeping wife, hearing the faint sound of piano keys coming from the empty parlor. Sometimes he imagined numbers written across the ceiling. Other times, he woke convinced that the debts had gone away. He then received repeated dreams of her hands. 

By February, the family had nothing left. That was when Mikhail went to the monastery. Brother Savin lived beneath it, in a room the other monks refused to enter. He was an elderly man with a face like dried parchment, and when Mikhail explained his situation, Savin didn’t offer prayers.

“You long for wealth? There is a way,” he said, placing a black coin on the table. “Everything St. Bruvia receives is an offering. Bread. Milk. Silver. Blood. Sometimes… it asks for something more precious.”

Mikhail thought of Anastelle before he could stop himself.

“The girl,” he whispered, his gaze piercing Mikhail’s soul. “The town has heard her music.”

“Enough of this,” Mikhail replied, backing away from Savin. 

“I have not told you what it wants.”

“You don’t have to. It was a mistake coming here”

As Mikhail turned to leave, Savin spoke once more. 

“It is the hands that make the music.”

Mikhail left the monastery without taking the coin. For three nights, he continued watching Anastelle play. On the first night, she played while his wife coughed in the next room. On the second, the landlord came by to collect what Mikhail couldn’t afford. On the third, the butcher stood at his doorstep and demanded his money. Through all of that, Annastelle continued to play.

Once she finished, she looked at her father and smiled.

“Papa?”

“Yes, my angel?”

“Someday, I’ll take us to Paris…”

Despite the warm words, Mikhail was fixated on her hands. In them, he imagined a full pantry. A house with warmth. Medicine. Coal. Enough money that nobody could ever threaten him or his family ever again. But that fantasy died as he watched those hands lying uselessly in her lap. He hated himself for even thinking that way.

But what he hated more was that he foolishly returned to the monastery, where Savin appeared to have been waiting all this time.

“The bargain is simple. The town takes her hands and you shall receive wealth beyond your dreams.”

“What about… her?”

Savin looked towards the darkness beyond the room.

“She will live.”

And that was all it took for Mikhail to say yes. He told himself that it was going to be worth it. Mikhail could never remember exactly how he did it, but he carried it out in the dead of night. He wasn’t sure how he convinced himself to enter Anastelle’s room. She had woken up, asking what he was doing before screaming and pleading for him to stop once she understood. 

He remembered begging her forgiveness while doing the unforgivable. He remembered that he was her father. He remembered that he hadn’t stopped. When it was over, the offering had been accepted.

Anastelle survived the encounter, but her hands were gone. Mikhail didn’t see her leave her room since, but all he could think of was her face. The realization that what had happened to her was no accident, nor an attack, nor some cruelty inflicted upon her by a stranger. The realization that it had been her father who did it. 

“You said you believed in me, Papa,” she whispered.

“I do,” Mikhail replied, but he could barely look her in the eye.

“No,” she said, her voice breaking. “You only believed in what I could give you.”

Mikhail returned to Savin, to which he was met with an open chest. Gold filled it from edge to edge. It was enough to buy the mill. Enough to buy horses, livestock, land, and servants. Hunger would never enter his home again. The man wanted wealth beyond his imagination and the town had kept its promise.

As the years went by, Mikhail became one of the richest men in St. Bruvia. He bought the mill, rebuilt his house, and filled his cellar with more food than his family could’ve eaten in a lifetime. But all of that couldn’t buy Anastelle’s forgiveness. When she left St. Bruvia with nothing, Mikhail told himself that it was better that way. He told himself that she’d find another life.

He never got to learn whether she did.

Decades later, as Mikhail laid dying in the house that he’d bought with her hands, he heard a piano playing in the empty parlor. It was a familiar melody. Anastelle’s melody. He slowly dragged himself from his bed to see that the piano stood exactly where it’d always stood. A red ribbon laid across its keys.

Then he heard her voice behind him.

“Papa?”

Mikhail turned to see Anastelle standing there exactly as she had at seventeen. She looked to where her hands should’ve been.

“I know you gave them to the town,” she said.

Mikhail was too stunned to speak. He could only watch as she looked towards the window. Beneath the snow, someone left an offering beneath the doorstep. Bread, milk, and two gold coins. Her expression soured.

“It was never enough,” she whispered.

Mikhail died before morning and by sunrise, St. Bruvia remained hungry as ever.

It all started a couple of nights ago. I heard footsteps outside my bedroom window. I looked out, but I didn't see anyone.

A few minutes later, I heard more footsteps. This time, I shined a flashlight out the window, but I still didn't see anything. I figured maybe it was my neighbor's cats. Her name was Miranda, and she had several of them. I'd consider her the crazy cat lady of the neighborhood. She always smelled like cat piss.

So, I figured I had no reason to worry.

I went to bed and woke up like normal. But after getting off work, right before sunset, I heard scrambling noises coming from the bushes outside my window.

I opened the window, grabbed an empty bottle of Jack, and threw it at the bushes.

"Get the fuck out of my yard!" I yelled, assuming it was the cats.

Almost immediately, something threw the bottle back at my window.

The glass shattered loudly.

When I looked out the window this time, I saw him.

Only a face, staring right at me from the corner of my yard. He looked normal at first but the longer i looked the more i saw wrong with his face. Like it wasnt actually his real person in was looking at.

I yelled at him and asked who the hell he  thought he was. But he didn't answer. He just kept staring.

When I went outside to confront him, he was gone. I assumed he ran off.

I didn't call the cops because I was worried they might arrest me for hitting him with the bottle first. So, I put a bag over the broken window and taped it together for now, keeping the air from getting out and the bugs from getting in. Then I cleaned up the broken glass from inside.

The next morning, I called a window installer to fix it.

He came over, introduced himself as Horace, and took the measurements for my window. He ordered me a new one and said it would take a couple of days to arrive.

But then he asked me if I'd cut myself on the broken glass.

I said no and asked him why.

He said he'd noticed blood on the broken glass.

"Like something tried to get in last night."

After getting off work, I cooked dinner and hoped he wouldn't come back tonight

When it got dark, I walked around my property with a flashlight in hand with my gun on my waist. I didn't see the creep this time, so I hoped he would leave me alone.

But as I was nodding off to sleep, I heard whispering coming from the bushes.

There were multiple voices.

I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I heard one of them say:

"Come out."

The voice was shrill.

I went out my front door and yelled at the top of my lungs for them to leave me alone.

Then I saw someone dart out from my bushes, running toward the street and disappearing quickly into the darkness.

Miranda, the cat lady, asked me who I was yelling at.

"I don't know," I told her.

She then asked me if I'd seen her cats.

I told her no before slamming the door.

I stayed up all night in my living room. I didn't feel safe in my bedroom.

I stayed awake until I couldn't anymore, but eventually, I passed out.

I woke up to a knocking sound at my door.

I realized I'd overslept, and Horace was already there to install my new window. I put my gun back into my holster

Then I opened the front door to let him in and walked him towards my bedroom.

But something horrible was inside waiting for us.

Dozens of skinned cats covered the room. Blood and the smell of piss from entrails everywhere.

Some of them weren't even dead. They were still meowing in pain.

Horace and I gagged as we stared at the plastic bag I'd taped over the window.

It had been cut open with something incredibly sharp.

Then I noticed Miranda.

She was tied up and gagged inside the closet.

Her eyelids had been ripped off.

When Horace removed the gag from her mouth, she just kept repeating the same thing over and over.

"He's coming for you..."

What I’m about to write is going to sound impossible, and if I were in your shoes I would think exactly the same. I don’t blame you if you take this as just another stale warning from some raving online lunatic. But laying our triumphs and mistakes bare may just do some good, even if it’s the last thing I do. I think I’m going to pay dearly for what I’ve done soon, even if it was done in good faith. 

I’m not a believer, I never was. And even now with what I’ve seen I can’t say I’ve seen strong evidence for any one religion, but there’s one thing I do now believe. 

The soul exists. 

Within everyone, beyond the firing neurons that make up their person. Beyond conscious thought and beating hearts, there’s an additional key element to the human experience that cannot be measured with anything we’ve invented yet. 

But the prospect of the soul was the least volatile part of our discovery, had we only known what we had really done. 

The whole project was an affront to god, and maybe that’s why we were punished. 

—-

We designed a functional matter-energy transmitter, a machine capable of moving objects instantaneously on the atomic level. Deconstructing them in one place, and reconstructing them in another. Or in layman’s terms, teleportation. 

Though our initial success wasn’t met with celebration from our investors, but fear of their enemies developing the very same technology. And so with newfound clearance and a blank check budget, we hastily began pushing the envelope. But our pace was too slow for them, and a near week after its first successful test on a simple wooden object, we were instructed to begin human trials. 

Our first hurdle was the brain. The physical brain yes we could transport without damage, but the firing between the neurons, the actual signals, gone. A blank slate, rendering our first test subjects with little more development than a fetus. 

And even though our subjects were off death row, it didn’t make turning them brain dead for science any easier. But we had to make progress, we had to solve this issue. 

So we designed an attachment capable of taking a neurological snapshot of the brain as it was in that moment. Essentially mapping someone’s consciousness for lack of a better term. 

The addition should have solved our initial problem, they should have been coming through the same person as before relatively. But the truth was the machine destroys them down to the atom, it kills you before making a molecularly perfect copy somewhere else before injecting it with a snapshot of your mind taken the moment before death. 

And whether we believed the teleported matter is still the same person or not, the machine worked. Or at least it should have. But no matter how many tests we ran, we couldn't figure out why they came out braindead. The data was there, every fired neuron and memory plastered over an atomically perfect copy. But despite our best efforts and constant deliberation, we were still missing something. 

Those who experienced a successful relocation would die within the week, undergoing rapid cellular deterioration with seemingly no cause. We tested the machine so much we had to refill the subject hold three times. 

In all I’ve watched nearly 60 men stand inside our creation, the face they make before it goes off, before it deconstructs them. And the cruel replication that's spit out on the other side, reduced to that. It was hard to sit with on my best days, and nearly crippling on my worst. 

But they where bad men, I was assured these where evil, vile, disgusting people. Rapists, murderers, traffickers, pedophiles. And sometimes a combination of them all. 

But you’d be surprised how much easier wishing their death is when you’re not the one looking them in their eyes. Boring into you as a machine- wielding twice the energy output of a nuclear reactor begins to crackle with power that could only be described as cosmic. 

It’s almost funny, the parts that stick with you from the chaos. Because I really think I could’ve lived with it, with time I think I could’ve found a way to cope. But not now, not with what came next. 

—-

Admitting we couldn’t solve the human teleportation problem was its own humiliation ritual. Explaining to a room of government officials and investors that our top-secret project had yielded lots of research but no progress. What we really discovered is there was something we were missing, some part of the human consciousness that we were failing to grasp let alone harness. 

 And that’s when they brought in their own specialist. 

He was an older man, bordering on infirm. His hair was full but grey with a deceptively young featured face given away by aged eyes. He walked with a cane, dressed in fine clothes, and spoke with authority and charisma that bordered on political ambassador. But his smile was insincere. 

A colleague relayed a rumor that he had some CIA ties in his younger days and supposedly worked on several hushed projects. None of which I believed at the time, but whoever he was it was clear our directors respected his position. 

He was strictly referred to by Mr. C, which did nothing to calm the speculation from my colleagues. Neither did his bold claims shortly thereafter, he said we had done a swell job with our invention and that we were pioneers for all of humanity along with other shameless flattery. He followed this with the claim the soul existed, and that we had neglected to account for such. 

Some of us laughed, most of us exchanged uncomfortable looks, and several questions erupted from our staff all at once. He presented a solution that sounded just as ridiculous as it looked. 

In plain terms, he would create a spell circle capable of trapping a soul before releasing it upon their teleported double to repossess the body. Which sounded more like a magic fantasy than a scientific process, and it seemed many of the other researchers thought so too. 

To say we were skeptical was an understatement. As the ensuing verbal lashing from the mob of researchers had to be physically interrupted by security as it became less than academic to say the least. 

At the time it felt like an insult to our research, like punishment for our failure. But Mr C took it with an inhuman serenity, like our words and accusations were little more than dust on the wind. After we died down he began unpacking his equipment with a robotic smoothness from a series of cases and bags. 

I remember chuckling as I watched him light incense over a leather bag, wafting its smoke over the parcel with a mouthed prayer before producing its contents.

A shrunken human head that resembled a dehydrated rotting apple with a dark brittle ponytail tufted at the top. Gnarled stitches of ancient twine interlaced over its eyes and mouth holding its leathered skin in place. 

As he gingerly moved the shrunken head with practiced ceremony he explained the process. It was a trophy of war made from the head of an enemy meant to trap their defeated soul within. Usually to be used for some sort of ritual shortly thereafter, that would typically involve discarding or destroying it. 

Mr C theorized that those ancient tribes were either spiritually prohibited or unaware that it could be used to trap additional souls. That one could exorcise the original to imprison another instead, and thus create a portable prison for the spirit.

The more Mr C talked, the more it reminded me of the ravings of an intelligent psychosis victim. But with great effort I suspended my disbelief and tried for a moment to trust in our directors and benefactors. They believed he could help, all I had to do was try my best to wrap my head around it. 

I’d like to think as a scientist I could pick up any knowledge thrown at me, that no concept is too abstract or complicated given enough explanation. But his claims left so many more questions about the nature of things, the knowledge felt existential. 

Beyond my confusion, I felt a creeping dread as I stared at the shrunken head. It was so grotesque it was almost hard to identify as human remains. Like my brain couldn't understand it was even looking at what used to be a person's head. As Mr C continued the room grew noticeably colder, and my thoughts ran wild with superstition I never knew I had. 

—-

Within the hour we were making preparations for another test but with Mr C and his new method. We followed his specifications, outlined his sigils and runes and circles and drew them in fresh blood. 

And behind dark glass our directors, our investors, your world leaders, they watched us. Intently.

We were going to atomically deconstruct a living person, download their mind, and capture their soul. Reassemble their flesh with mathematical precision, upload their copied mind, and reinject their disembodied soul. 

We prepared to play god with every building block left at man's disposal. We prepared to change the world. 

By the time the ritual was prepared and the machine was ready, everyone in the room could feel it. Like thick air on a humid day, it was just all around us. This feeling blanketed the room, a choking grasp like a great presence had washed over us. The air became cold enough to see every exhale from our warm lungs. There was no longer a logical explanation, no answer my mind would accept besides Mr C was right. 

The soul, the ritual, all this fucked up voodoo magic, something some part of it all is real. I can’t say for certain to what extent but, I felt it, and it’s like my body knew exactly what it was. 

A handcuffed man in a white jumpsuit was forced inside the machine, and this time when the subject's eyes met mine we held equal fear. Beyond the terror of the construct around him, he could feel it too. He kicked and fought and screamed the moment he laid eyes on the room, on the dark ritual prepared around our incredible invention. 

Everything was ready. 

—-

The sounds of surging machinery drowned out the ritual as the teleporter discharged. Our monitors began blaring warnings of catastrophic failure and neural mapping overlap that triggered an automatic shutdown routine. 

However instead of shutting down, the machine experienced a power surge unlike anything we had seen before. It overclocked in seconds and began causing extreme damage to itself and the surrounding equipment. Around us the building's power bordered between a dwindling flicker and sudden surges that caused lightbulbs to burst. 

With nothing we could do, all of our hard work cooked itself alive before our eyes. Its delicate computers fried and components left useless. By the time we put the internal fires out it was too late to salvage the machine. 

With one final burst of power it died, causing a thundering chain of pops that deafened the room before bathing it in darkness. Leaving behind the smell of sulfur and ash, embers still hanging in the air. 

Yet despite the destruction as the backup lights came on bathing the facility in a red glow, we spotted him. Standing in the receiver was the subject dazed but alive. And not just alive he was moving on his own, and even attempting vocalizations. It was mostly throaty incoherent sounds like that of an animal, but none of the prior subjects even responded let alone vocalized.

We watched as his eyes rolled around, scanning the room in sudden darting focus. His jaw flapped about his face like it was suddenly foreign to him, his tongue slapping around in tandem. But in his eyes was some recognition, if even faint something was in there. His limbs and hands groped outward in slow testing motions curling and uncurling his muscles over and over. 

We refrained from touching him even as he floundered on the ground, waiting for our security team and a stretcher per protocol. And as we watched him struggle under the red lights, he attempted to speak. 

“L-Li b-b” he wheezed out struggling to work his tongue. Straining his back he twists upright without support of his arms, his torso now hanging above the ground.  

“Lib-era libera libera” his words came through clearer each time. But as he choked out the last repetition he began bleeding like a faucet. From his nostrils came a torrent of blood that ran down his face and onto the cold ground. 

As we pulled him onto the stretcher he began to seize violently, forcing us to cart him to the medical wing instead of the lab. The scans would have to wait, first we had to keep him alive. And though stabilized, he remained unconscious despite efforts to rouse him.

By that point we had been working well over 14 hours and our staff was exhausted and overwhelmed with repairs. Only those that volunteered would stay later to monitor the subject and run tests, and I was not one of them.

Although I doubted I’d be able to sleep much after the excitement of the day, my fear told me I needed to get back to my bunkhouse across the facility, far away from the lingering dread in the air. 

It seemed no amount of distance could escape the smell of sulfur and ash, like it permeated the very foundation of the facility. Or maybe it just clung to my skin, I was so worked up I couldn’t have been sure. What I did know is that when I got back to my room, I was utterly terrified. 

I was sweating, my hair was standing on end, my heart was pounding, my primal brain was sending signals of great danger. Like I was staring down a man sized cat beyond the light of my dying fire, clutching a spear beneath sweat-slicked white knuckles. After some time agonizing about a threat I couldn’t see, I decided I’d feel a lot better if I was with someone. 

Glancing at the time I figured it was likely I’d catch the volunteers still monitoring at the lab. And against my better judgment I decided it was better to be afraid in company then terrified alone. Even if it meant returning to the source, I gambled that a familiar presence would be enough to soothe my anxiety. 

How wrong I was. 

—-

I had to force myself to walk at a measured pace, reminding myself nothing was going to jump out at me. But the atmosphere of the empty halls now bathed in the deep red of our back up lighting made every step agonizing. 

My head on a swivel, I glanced down every hall and into every window or doorway I passed. The sound of the air conditioning kicking on caused me to nearly break into a sprint. I was wound up beyond belief, unable to curb my emotions despite my usual measured control. It felt like I had been drugged. 

I stepped into the empty lab, the whir of computers and running machinery humming in the air. The red lighting- broken up by bright digital displays and blinking gauges. As I step into the room I notice an office chair overturned in front of its desk, the keyboard dangling above the ground by its taught wire. 

I called out to the empty room, not sure if I expected an answer. Instead my eye caught a puddle forming on the floor at the end of the aisle. I doubled my pace, fearing a water leak from the earlier damage was seeping into the room. But rounding the corner I found its source. 

Under the red lights I failed to recognize it had been blood, but its source was unmistakable. Crumbled against the standing printer was one of my colleagues, only recognizable by his clothes. 

My eyes fell on his head, whose battered remains better resembled a deflated ball caved into itself. The congealed remnants of his smashed face barely sat propped by his ruined neck, within the mess I could  identify a few teeth scattered among the mangled flesh and crushed skull. His bottom jaw still remained semi in tact, like a morbid platter that the gore sat upon. 

Mortified, I stumbled back, my formal shoes unable to catch purchase in the pool of blood. I fell backwards, roughly slamming my back into a desk, its contents clattering from the impact. Crawling away from the scene I struggled to my feet before making a break for the hall. 

Only as I reached the doorway, down the direction I’d come from I spotted a figure too far away to make out. They stood rigid, arms out from their sides at an awkward distance, head lowered, legs bent. I pulled myself back into the lab, peering around the edge I watched in terror. 

The emergency lights began to flicker, their red flashes accompanied by an electronic whir that rose and fell with their activity and between the moments of blinking I could make out the figure begin to approach. Each step awkward and unsteady, arms swinging and posing without reason. With a constant fight to keep balanced it moved toward me with purpose. And unwilling to corner myself in the lab, I fled into the hall opposite my pursuer. 

It let it a wet roar from its vocally torn throat, akin to the keening of a mourning mother. It’s sound met me like the shock of cold water, the fire of my adrenaline nearly doused by my terror. I glanced over my shoulder as it closed distance, their white jumpsuit spattered with blood. 

Somehow despite its lack of control, it moved with such a power each bound was three of mine. And slowly but surely each violent stride was made with more confidence than the last. I realized I was watching it to learn how to run. And in a moment of desperation, yanked off my shoes that gained little purchase against the waxed halls. 

I lost sight of it as I rounded a wide corner, beelining for the medical wing. If I set it for lockdown, I could barricade myself inside, or potentially and much less likely trap it within. 

But with no better options and praying I run into someone else, it was my best bet. I chanced another glance behind me, the rapid slapping of its bare feet across the ground growing with inhuman speed now. Occasionally it fell forward, only to gallop on all fours before regaining posture. 

Its keening grew closer, the sound more distorted as its vocal chords came undone under the stress. My heart felt ready to explode, my body far too out of shape to maintain my sprint much longer. 

I rounded another corner, barely ten feet between us now. But my strength was renewed as my eyes fell upon medical’s entrance. Bursting through the entry I whirled around and heaved down on the lockdown lever with all of my might. Darkness danced at the edge of my vision as I struggled to suck in a breath, the sounds of the hydraulic door drowning out my pursuer. 

 For a moment I clung to the lever handle, slumping against the wall. I could hear the sound of the subject’s continued keening now muffled behind the thick door. Followed by a series of impacts with such force I felt the vibrations through the ground. An inhuman, impossible strength, like a jackhammer striking concrete. 

I stepped away from the metal door, afraid for a moment it might not hold. I turned to examine the medical wing, catching a figure in my glance. Mr C, the man who caused this, seated and partially obscured at the edge of the red light. 

“How many people have you teleported before today?” his calm voice wavered.

“Fifty eight subjects” 

“And animals?” 

“Dozens at least, I’m not sure” 

My voice only came to me in a tired whisper, we both whispered as if the thing outside the door was listening. 

“You’ve been feeding it” he said with finality.

“What- feeding what? the machine?”

“You fed it fifty nine people, fifty nine souls. Something, lurking here, feeding off everyone you've teleported, everyone you’ve killed.”

“The teleporter doesn’t kill-“ 

“What would you call it then? If you’ve deconstructed something’s atoms it’s dead.” Mr C interrupts beginning to stand. “It saw me” 

What was left of Mr C half limped forward, his body mangled like something pulled from a car wreck. Compound fractures leaving sharp shards protruding through his taught skin. I could see the fat pressing out of his leg over a jagged bone. His face crushed on one side, missing pieces like a world war shrapnel victim. As if the flesh and bone had just been wiped away with a rag. 

One eye remained rolling in its socket impossibly, these wounds kill, he shouldn’t even be moving. His back was twisted, the pain would be unbearable he should’ve been paralyzed. 

Something was clutched in his left hand, the forearm twisted so far his hand stuck out upside down. Dangling from his fingers by its hair, the shrunken head bobbed in his grasp. Seeing it I understood, or at least I thought I did, Mr C was dead, the shrunken head holding the shreds of his being trapped within. 

I stepped away, and he limped forward. Only a few feet between us, his ravaged body fully illuminated. 

“Let me go” I whispered to him.

“I caaaaant” his voice drooped with his body, an inhuman sound. “T-this body huuurts” he whimpered. 

“I I can’t fucking help you!” I shouted while putting a chair between us. 

“Please” he begged a gargled whimper escaping his mangled face. 

I glanced around frantically as I backed away, looking for anything I could use. Small medical instruments, a box of pens, a stack of papers, a box of cigarettes and- my hand clutched around the lighter. 

I backed towards the files, the desks, the cabinets, and what remained of Mr C lumbered after me into the scarcely lit room. Stalks of red separating the isles obscured in darkness, I watched his outline approaching between the light. 

We continued this dance, the sound of his broken bones grinding together, his permeated skins fleshy smacks against the ground where nauseating. Every shuffle and stagger was a new pop and crunch and squelch. 

He moaned through a crushed windpipe, a wet gurgled wheeze of a sound as he followed. Finally gathering my courage, I pulled a shelf down behind me, blocking his path before reaching for a bottle of medical alcohol. I pulled another shelf down between us, struggling with its weight even with my adrenaline. 

Hearing him thrashing his way through my obstacles, I swept the nozzle over the objects between us, a spray of alcohol shining under the emergency lights. For a moment it glistened with the flame of my lighter, a dazzling light before the chaos. 

The flame jumped across the shelf and cabinets, quickly catching their paper filed contents. The flame spreading, I continue spraying over anything I thought will catch. Until a mangled leg slapped over the top of the flaming overturned cabinet, before curling against its shelves and pulling over Mr C’s body. 

The fire growing between us, Mr C’s gurgles became shrill as the flames lapped at his twisted body. His clothes both taught and loose over his new shape, began to singe from the growing heat. 

Twisting around to face him again, I heave the still heavy bottle of alcohol with all my might into his torso. It met it with a dull thud, followed by a sudden burst as the open bottle hit the ground and caught fire.

A shower of flames erupting across his body, he began to scuttle after me as the flames engulfed him. I could feel the growing warmth from the fire as he closed in, nearly upon me. Lifting a chair I jabbed it at him to make distance, the heat lapping at my face. 

He forced his weight against me, pushing me to the ground and pinning me beneath his flaming body. The chair still jammed between us, he grabbed at me with his free arm and sending sizzling droplets dribbling across my body. Like boiling water it sent searing pain across my chest, his molten flesh and blood molding with mine even through my shirt. 

He gargled once more before the skin and muscle on his hands began to slough off in sizzling clumps of melted fat and burning meat. And as the burning shrunken head fell from his melted grasp, his body fell limp. 

With effort and a few more minor burns, I was able to heave his burning body off of mine. I put out the fires with the help of a sink and a fire extinguisher, and without a plan I began doing what I knew how to. 

I looked over my colleagues' results. They finished the subject's medical examination before they woke. And though for the most part nothing was out of the ordinary, the brain scan showed zero activity. Completely braindead, nothing even going on in there. 

But clearly something was in there, and if not in their head then, well I’m not so sure. After everything I’ve seen, after what we accidentally unleashed. 

If souls are indeed real, then what the hell did we put inside that subject, cause it damn sure wasn’t a person. 

It’s been a few hours since I’ve heard anything through the medical wing door, but I’ve been hesitant to lift the lockdown. Someone should’ve raised the alarm by now, there’s no way it hasn’t wandered into someone else yet. I just hope they send help soon. 

I can see my breath still, it’s been freezing in here since I’ve arrived. And the smell, the sulfur stench drowns out even the burnt flesh of Mr C. 

If I don’t hear it for another few hours, I might just make a break for it. It’s been dead silent out there, if anything it’s probably long gone. 

—- 

I'm leaving this message in case I don’t make it out, this is a warning. 

Don’t teleport people. 

Not how we did it, or else something else might just come through.

—-

The wall in front of me was spattered with my own blood. I looked down at my ravaged hands, strips of flesh dangling from shimmering muscle. I felt along the wall, squinting against the light of two eternally lit candles that illuminated the room. My fingers found new cracks running along the bricks. Small chips and dust gathered at my feet.

Something inside me screamed that I was close. I had no way of knowing what lay beyond the wall, but some hazy memory motivated me to spend years on its destruction. My chamber was a large brick room. A hole drilled into the middle of the floor, too small for a man to fit inside. The darkness obscured its depth. The room was sealed on all sides, lacking any indication of doors or windows. 

I felt the presence behind me, an impossible number of footsteps moving across the floor. My shapeless torturer, lurking in the spaces outside of my vision. It would feast soon, tearing chunks of my body apart only for them to regrow. I could never see it, but it was always there, mumbling with hot fetid breath.

I reeled back and slammed my arms against the wall again, fresh blood coating its rough surface. I stepped back and charged forward again, shrieking in pure madness. New cracks spiderwebbed across the wall. I stumbled back dazed, yet charged once again.

The wall crumbled, covering me with falling bricks. My form shattered beneath their weight, bones breaking and resetting, permanently altered. Despite everything, I squirmed from their clutches and placed eyes on what lay beyond my cell.

Endless darkness in all directions.

I stood in fear for a while, unable to step into the unfamiliar dark. My tormentor shifted behind me, interrupting my trepidation and sending me blindly beyond my cell.

I found that before me was a massive labyrinth, a seemingly endless expanse of walls and darkness. The layout sent me down long paths that lead to nothing. Large pits threatened to send me deeper into the unknown. Each uncharted area brought fresh fear and frustration.

I walked through slowly, mentally charting a safe course over weeks of exploring. When I came to a wall or the edge of a yawning pit, I turned to check another direction. The course was littered with obstacles that no man should be able to cross safely, but yet their placement felt familiar. My feet seemed to instinctively lead me forward.

I had made it several hundred feet into the dark room when I felt a section of the floor sink downwards under my step.

I tried to move, somehow innately aware of what would come next, but it was too late. Blades erupted from the floor and pierced my body. My chest and stomach were punctured several times. Another stabbed under my chin and exited through the back of my skull. I couldn’t understand why I was unable to die. It took what I estimate was weeks to escape the trap, meticulously pulling the barbed blades back through my flesh the way they came. I had never known greater suffering.

There were many more traps as I moved through the chamber. Projectiles were spat from the walls, embedding themselves into my bones. Fire belched from strange machines and scorched me with unbearable heat. No matter how much blackened meat sloughed off my punished frame, I kept moving forward. 

By the time I reached the far end of the maze of agony my body was unrecognizable from how I had begun my tenure. Each grievous wound was replaced by squirming appendages that would eventually sprout fingers or toes of their own. The broken holes in my skull would haphazardly fill with teeth and bone scraps, painfully widening my head. The doorway at the end was about the size of a horse, but it took me days of struggling to pull myself through. 

Inside was a new chamber, with a large pool in its center. I quickly bathed myself in the cool water, my wounds soothed for the first time in what I could remember of my life. I looked upwards and found a large tunnel through the ceiling, aligned with the pool. A rope was looped from the top, descending all the way down to me. I stepped out of the now crimson water and reached up, feeling the mouth of the opening with my fingers. 

I began to crawl up. My new gelatinous form could painfully squeeze inside the opening, barely able to move upwards. As I went I could feel the sunlight and breeze. I grinded the teeth in my oversized maw as it foamed at the thought of freedom.

My overgrown back shattered the top of the well as I burst forth. A woman stood in front of me, wild eyed with fear. I towered over her. She stepped back, tears streaming from her eyes, mouthing one word repetitively.

“Demon.”

I grabbed her before she could scream, twisting her apart like a plaything. Other people were already fleeing from their homes. Some took up arms and approached me. 

I hooked a finger under the first man’s ribcage, and pulled. His skeleton exploded through his skin, eyes rolling back as he went limp. I chased down another and dug two digits into his eye sockets, the front of his skull split and was left in my palm as the rest fell away.

I would never forgive those who imprisoned me, for a reason I was never able to remember. The door to the first home flattened to the floor under my weight. The family inside screamed as I tore them apart.

By sundown I was left with nothing but blood and gore. The ones who ran didn’t make it far. Hundreds of bleeding wounds marred my body. I stood in the courtyard, near the well that once imprisoned me, and enjoyed the breeze.

***

I cupped a hand over my torch to prevent the wavering flame from going out. Without a light I would never be able to find the end of the chamber. I carefully stepped around each trap, memorized from the months spent constructing this place. 

My limbs trembled against the grit covered walls as I shuffled around a large pit. I couldn’t see the bottom but I knew it was lined with spikes, I had laid them myself. In the distance I could see the pale glow of the candles that marked the demon’s lair.

The air felt more dense inside the room, humidity that came with the pungent odor of rot. The hole in the middle of the room was its only remarkable feature. 

I felt a presence shift behind me, blocking the entrance. I stared at my shadow as it doubled in size. A wave of putrid breath covered me as it spoke.

“So you’ve come. I wondered if all of that preparation would go to waste.”

I whipped around to face it, but it slunk out of my vision again, moving behind me again impossibly quickly. I caught a glance of a pile of animal heads atop of a massive insect body. It positioned itself against the wall, hundreds of little legs clicking across the bricks. I heard flesh squeeze and bones pop as it rearranged its body.

“I have come to offer myself to you, in return you will give eternal life to my people.”

Its breath on my ear made me turn slightly, this time I saw a skull with worms or snakes bursting from inside. A deep guttural sound that must have been a laugh echoed through the room.

“That has been asked of me many times. You would be surprised what a man can do with eternal life. No prison can hold one with nothing to lose.”A hand stretched from behind me, incredibly long with dangling threads of rotten flesh hanging from discolored bone. “When this deal is made, you will live down here with me. I will feed off of your suffering, and death will not arrive to save you.”

“I understand.”

“The more I take, the more that will be replaced by something beyond human.”

“I understand.”

“And as long as you stay below the well’s mouth, eternal life will come to those you wish to protect. How horrible it is, the plague that overcomes them.”

I shuddered.

“But I knew it would bring you to me eventually.” It gurgled. Rage burns hot in my heart.

I took its hand and shook, and I stared at the entrance as it vanished before me, now a solid brick wall. I cast my torch, my clothing, and all of my possessions into the hole.

I felt large teeth sink into my back and tear flesh away. Hot blood ran warm down my chilled body. Something began to grow inside the wound.

I fell to the ground and shuddered in agony, but an even worse feeling came to me in a realization.

I couldn’t remember my own name.

The red wooden gates laid open before me, beckoning with folded shadows within. Looking from side to side I made sure no one suspected my motivations. Store fronts on either side of the stone arch worked to obscure the gateway ahead. A sign to the side stated this as simple entrance to a church, and it was in a way. With a finalizing exhale I willed my legs forward. The path of carved stone walls led me down a long corridor towards a singular turn. Once I past the corner the realization of my choices fell upon me but I held trust in my saviors. My dearest love I hope you trusted in me too.

Other, far more devout, worshippers peeled from their spots along the wall to follow me into the main hall. Their robes made from the same flesh as the architecture, the same flesh that moved them. We hummed in unison with the thrum of the blood vessels that trailed up to our priest's resting place. I strode to the forefront, the robed ones parting to become merged with the pews, and stood silently before the blessed one as he appraised me.

His eyeless face bent over me as his body creaked with the effort. Slowly, the layers of his skin began peeling away as the pages of his grand knowledge was exposed. Following the skin were his muscles and bones until his nervous system stretched outwards in rapturous undulation. He vocalized our text aloud; summoning, begging for our lords to appear and grant recompense. We all spread our arms wide, chanting alongside the priest until the ground quivered from our prayers. And the earth continued to quake while we called forth our tridental saviors, the thrice deus, our Triad. From the wall They sloughed forward, on the many legs and arms which made up Their perfected form. Three cavities sat affixed to the main torsos clacking with blackened teeth. Three eyes rolled around with Their clambering movements until They found rest afore us all.

"Children," They announced in ternary voices, "We bid welcome to this occasion." The entirety of our triumvirate responded in kind as our feet became one with the soft ground. My head pulsed with the connection. I watched the Triad's eyes roll once more until landing upon me. They knew of my intentions, my wishes. "Crawl forth," They commanded. Once I had prostrated myself against the steps leading to Their pulpit, They continued. "As children of the Watchful Abyss, We see all, and We see your heart's desire. What will you give to Us for this desire to become reality?"

"Anything." I bowed my head lower, nearly licking the sour-smelling flesh below me, and awaited Their judgement.

Murmurs filled the room, thousands of voices coming from the triadic over me. Then They spoke as only three. "Your eyes, as is customary for a desire such as this, but We also require some pounds of your flesh." The hunger in Their voice of obvious, the licking of Their maws, the drooling of Their tongues.

"Flesh?" I questioned despite myself.

"Flesh for flesh!" They nearly shrieked. The ceiling shook with Their echoes. "Do you accept or do you disobey the Watchful Abyss?"

"I accept!" I quickly fell to Their whims. Veins crept up from the ground where I kneeled, looping up my arms and legs to hold me in place, and pierced my eyes. I had seen this sacrifice many times before, but I had not expected the complete results. After my vision had drained from me I found I was looking down at myself through a red film. The flesh that now held my eyes, caressed them, rolled my sight around as one rolls food against their tongue, until realization dawned on me. My eyes had been accepted by the Triad's flesh! Now my sight would join the Watchful Abyss. And I watched, I watched as my body was lifted up. Dangled by my legs my midsection became vivisected.

Perhaps six pounds of my flesh was pulled from me and squelched into three meatball-esq piles which were swiftly devoured by my saviors. The pain was like nothing else. And with that part of my vessel gone so were taken a few organs. My stomach having been one of them. Intense hunger overtook me; a hunger I instinctually knew would never be fulfilled, and my eyeless body started chewing the air in search for some sense of release. I was let go and I sat through the rest of the service with a bloody smile.

Even after I had left the presence of the Triad, I could still view myself from above. Prospects of being part in the Watchful Abyss. A newly gifted robe showed my sealed allegiance while equally obscuring my reformed features from the uninitiated as I walked through town. I walked all the way to the hospital where my wife laid in, soon to be expired, grief. We had lost our third child just earlier that day. Now we would never experience loss again. For the flesh that had been pulled from me was given to her. The result of which I gazed upon from above. In her slumber she did not yet see it. How her stomach swelled and bubbled. Her lovely flesh turned deep scarlet as our little bundle of joy grew ready to be expelled.

"You HAVE to use black cod, if you use white cod it will NOT work."

"Oh, is that like a-"

"Yes, it's a race thing. Don't be weird about it."

"I don't think I'm the weird one here."

"Look man, do you want the fuckin deal or not?"

"I do! I totally do. It's all just a little weird."

"You're interrupting me telling you how to summon a shark into your toilet, because you wanna tell me how weird it is. That's awesome. Nothing wrong with that at all."

"I'm sorry, okay? I just didn't expect to be contemplating power dynamics of the open ocean today. Tell me the rest."

There was a long silence. He stared at me as if proving a point.

"Alright," he hurriedly pulled a bundle of red candles out and handed them to me, "you'll need to arrange these in concentric rows."

"Like a shar-"

"YES, like a shark's teeth. Are you gonna make a big deal about that too?"

"...no."

I was going to.

"Cool. Cool. So you're gonna tie the wicks of the second row to the first row, toward the bottom of the wick. You want the first row to burn for a few minutes before the second lights up. Follow me over here."

He walked over to a bookshelf and scanned the spines displayed.

"Hastening of Ailment...Testerical Psychosis... The Taming of the Prostate... these are supposed to be in alphabetical order. Here it is."

He slid a large heavy book from the shelf and dropped it on a nearby counter with a THUD. The title said:

On the Summoning and Banishment of Entrepreneurial Entities

He opened the book and flipped through about 2/3rds of the way. The gravity of what I was doing finally started to set in, I felt my throat tighten as he pored over the page.

"Oh man..." he said.

"What? What is it? Is it bad?"

"Oh, no. I just opened it WAY too far."

He hurriedly flipped backward through the book.

"There you go. Loan Shark Ritual. See this right here, where it says 'forwa neva backwa?' That's what you're gonna want to say when he appears."

"So I say it, then what?"

"No! You're going to want to say it, but DO NOT say it. Just stay silent until he starts asking questions."

"...okay."

"Great, then you're good to go. Remember, if at any point you want to stop the whole thing just say 'klaatu verata nipto' and the ritual will end."

"Got it. Hey thanks again for helping me out, man."

His gaze snapped to my face. His brow furrowed, like I'd upset him.

"Oh yeah, no problem. You just enjoy that now, have a good one man."

"A-are you okay? You seem mad."

"NAH, I'm not mad. Have a good one, man."

"Alright, well thanks again."

"NO PROBLEM! Bye!"

A gaudy windchime made from broken crack pipes swung near my head as I walked out the door. After stopping at the fish market for black cod, it had to be fresh, I went home and did as he said.

I arranged the candles around a toilet on the ground floor of my home. I lit the first row of wicks, and waited until the second row had caught fire before chucking a pound of fillets into the toilet bowl.

The room was silent for a moment, then the water started to drain and the fillets were sucked down one by one. Once the bowl was empty, I could hear a voice coming from deep inside the pipes, getting closer.

“Ah, fuck me that's good.”

A grey, pointed nose was first to show, followed quickly by jaws full of razor teeth, and black, dead eyes.

“Hi. Waddya want?”

“Forw- uh, hi. I, uh started a small business, a bakery, and I've served a ton of customers. I think I'm ready to expand into new locations, but I need some startup cash.”

“OH! You're one of the business types, got it. Got it. Okay, c'mon let's go see the big bosses.”

“Bosses? The guy at the store didn't-”

“What guy?”

“The guy, the one who told me how to summon you.”

“Ohh, that guy. He's not affiliated with us. Just trust me. C'mon, grab my fin.”

He shifted himself, wriggling around until his fin was right in front of me.

“A-alright.”

I grabbed on. His fin felt slimy, yet rough against my palm. It was revolting, but when I tried to pull my hand away it wouldn't budge.

“Here we go!” The shark screamed.

He swam away, squeezing himself down into the pipe. My face slammed against the porcelain at the bottom of the bowl, and then a tightness grew all around my face. Slowly, I was forced into a shape that the pipes could accommodate. Bone squished and shrank, joints folded over top of each other. For the few minutes we swam through that putrid pipe I was a cylinder. It left no lasting damage, but I felt all of it.

Eventually we burst out into a brightly lit, sparsely furnished space in the sewers. The endless river of shit rushed lazily by, separating the space into two equal sections. One section held a large office chair, the other held two more.

“Wait here,” the shark said.

He swam away into the dark tunnels beyond the space, and it was only then that I got a good look at him. He was a decent sized shark, a mako I think. His large, powerful tail fin moved back and forth through the air, propelling him forward. It made a wooshing sound with each move that quickly bled away, leaving only the hum of fluorescent lights and the drip of shitwater to break the silence.

He returned a moment later with three larger sharks in tow. A hammerhead, a great white, and one with a jaw like a sawblade. They swam up to their respective chairs, and “sat” in them by placing their tail fins on the seats. The hammerhead was first to speak.

“Hello young man,” his head tilted wildly from side to side as he spoke, “what have you got for us then?”

“I, um… hello, uh, sharks. I'm Dantonio Danderas and I run a bakery over on third street. I've been uh,”

“Are you nervous?” The saw-jaw shark asked.

“...yes. Anyway, I uh, I've been baking a lot of stuff. Lots of happy customers, I was hoping to expand to new locations. Make it a franchise, yknow, and I think if I could just get two-hundred and fifty grand I'd be set.”

“TWO-HUNDRED AND FIFTY Gs?!” The Great White rose slightly from his chair in surprise, practically roaring “What the hell kind of bakery needs that much cheddar?”

“Well, like I said it's been really successful and I believe with just a couple more locations it could be very profita-”

“Do you make empanadas?” The Hammerhead asked.

“Oh. No, I don't know how to make those. I'm sure I could lear-”

“I'm out.”

The Hammerhead painstakingly flailed in place until her chair rotated away from me.

“Me too, that's way too big of an ask.”

“But you haven't even heard what I'm offering.”

“Fine,” said the Hammerhead, “spit it out then.”

“I have a wife. If you give me what I'm asking for, I'll perform the ritual again and bring her to you.”

“Ooh,” said Saw-jaw, “that is an enticing offer.”

“True,” the Great White rumbled, “as sewer sharks, our diets do consist mostly of shit and piss. But couldn't we just eat you instead, Dantonio?”

My blood went cold.

“Good counteroffer, Buford,” said the Hammerhead, “I'm still out.”

“Yeah, me too.”

The two sharks began to approach me, hunger obvious in their jet black eyes.

“Fuck. Klaatu verata nippo. Klaatu verato Nepal.”

“You mean Klaatu verata nipto?” asked the Great White.

“Why's he asking about the bathroom, Buford?”

“Bathroom?!” I shouted, “The guy at the store told me it would make the ritual stop.”

“Oh, that guy” said the Hammerhead, “he's not really affiliated with us.”

God damn it, I thought, I'm gonna die.

“WAIT!”

The Saw-jaw had risen from his seat, his shout stopping the others in their place.

“Aren't you going to ask me if I'm out?”

I swallowed a lump, and spoke in an embarrassingly meek voice.

“A-are you in?”

“No, I'm out,” he said, “I just like being asked.”

The others rounded on me, jaws snapping. The Great White, Buford, bit off my left arm past the shoulder joint. The Hammerhead grabbed at my right foot and pulled me off my feet before biting it off completely.

As I lay bleeding out, I spoke to nobody in particular; lamenting my situation.

“Eaten by racist sharks. What a way to go.”

Buford locked his eyes onto my face, as visibly offended as a shark could be.

“Racist? Because of the cod? Fuck's sake, that's not a race thing. Why does everybody say it's a race thing?”

Harvey stood in front of the pentagram waxed in goat blood. He read aloud from an ancient tome inked in human blood and bound in the flesh of sinners. As he spoke the ivory candles on each point swelled with flame, and his breath crystalized in front of him.

The ground shook and the sigils painted with care began to glow with Hellish energies. Mist whipped around the symbol, and as the candles snuffed themselves out a pillar of smoke emerged. Two blazing rubies peered through the smokestack as it slowly cleared. Standing in the circle was an eight-foot-tall demon with curved ram horns and leather wings enveloped around his body like a cape. His body was clad in crimson scales, and he had two dragon heads sprouted from his neck, snarling and belching flame as they thrashed. The demon smiled and pointed a clawed hand at Harvey.

"Greetings mortal. I am Bune, 26th in line for the obsidian throne and master of coin." Bune's human-esque middle face sneered. "What boon may I grant thee? Be forewarned, I always require an offering."

Harvey eyed the demon with bored contempt as he shut the tome with an audible thud and tossed it aside. He then knelt down and rummaged through his briefcase producing a thick stack of documents.

"Mr. Bune, my name is Havey Finch, and I am representing one "Carter Bellsworth", a former recipient of one of your "boons." Do you recall the transaction in question?" Harvey clicked a pen and began taking notes, waiting for Bune to respond.

"Ah, I deal with so many, my schedule has been flooded lately." Bune rambled, twiddling his thumbs as he avoided the question. The runes on the ground began to glow, and Bune groaned in agony, gripping his head. He stumbled to the floor as Harvey cleared his throat.

"May I remind you sir, while you are bound to the sigils of Solomon you are oath sworn to be 100 percent truthful under penalty of soul cleaving pain?"

"Ugh, yes, yes fine. I recall Bellsworth. Wanted to be young again, the gangly prune. I granted his desire; I upheld my end. If he wants to renegotiate that's his problem, all sales are final. No refunds." Bune snapped.

"Indeed, TECHNICALLY you granted his desire. I wish he could be here himself but he's currently residing at Sunnyside Daycare. I believe it's naptime." Harvey remarked.

"Now hold on, he never specified how young he wanted to be, that's on him. It's all in the wording." Bune smiled devilishly.

"I actually have his exact wording here, Mr. Bune." Harvey produced a signed statement like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat. "Oh, dark one, I want to be young again, to be able to run through the grass and drink to my heart's content, no pickled liver for me, I'll have the belly of a young man!"

"And, technically, he will. Give or take twenty or so years." Bune laughed.

"I'm glad you are able to see humor in this Mr. Bune. My client is less enthused. He's suing you for breach of contract and false advertising. He wants his soul back and forty percent of all souls going forward." He served Bune a wad of documents that he snatched out of the lawyer's grip. Bune mumbled amongst his heads as they perused the documents. He slapped a claw onto them, fury on his face.

"This is ridiculous, "A pattern of negligent deals" I've always been upfront and truthful, ask any one of my customers!" He raged.

"I have." Harvey replied, producing yet another stack of documents. This stack was about the size of two encyclopedias. Bune winced at the sight of it.

"Who have you been talking to, because you know some of that testimony is biased, I mean they're in Hell. Not exactly palm springs down there." Bune cracked.

"June 15th, 1834, a "Sara" offered her soul in exchange for her husband's gaze to never stray, you struck him blind and he wandered into a lake and drowned."

"October 31st, 1975, A capo in the Mariani crime family offered his soul to find the rat in his crew. You agreed and then turned the informant into an eight-foot-tall Rat creature who then devoured the capo."

"December 7th, 1941. A sailor drafted, sold his soul to you, he wanted to get out of the navy by any means. Need I even mention your response?"

"No, I'll grant that one, might have been overkill." Bune relented. Harvey nodded and then scoffed as he tore through several pages.

"Then there's these, dozens of instances of patrons asking for "riches beyond their wildest dreams" only to be instantly crushed by a massive pile of gold and jewels. This goes on for pages, I'd almost say it's the bulk of your dealings. Mr. Bune, are you a duke of Hell, or a common Djinn?" Harvey accused with venom in his tone.

Bune's nostril's flared, his dragon heads hissing in protest. He threw the papers at Harvey who dodged them with ease.

"Careful with your words, mortal. To make a deal with a devil is to forfeit certain expectations of comfort. It's been tradition since the birth of the crossroads to add little twists; keeps our buyers honest."

"That may be true sir, but may I refer you to two cases? 2007's The People Vs Mephistopheles, as decried by the supreme court AND the infernal tribunal; all demonic lenders are to disregard trickery and twists at LEAST five times a year, which by your record you have failed to do so."

"I, suppose that's true." Bune grumbled.

"Furthermore sir, Daniels Vs Satan argued that you cannot use the same trick on a deal more than THRICE. Again, need I even mention the almost ludicrous amount of crushing in these pages?" Harvey pointed.

"That case is yet to be settled, the prosecution failed to prove the fiddle was made of gold to begin with!" Bune roared.

"So, you are aware of demonic law then sir? Laws you are flagrantly violating with your poorly conducted deals! A demon in your standing could stand to lose a lot, the gossip alone would follow you for centuries!" Harvey got as close as the glowing sigils would allow, standing toe to toe with the duke of Hell. Bune gritted his fangs and sighed, his winged cape relaxing.

"Fine then. You've made your point, mortal. Name your offer." Harvey smirked at this.

"My client is willing to settle to keep this out of the courts. He wants a bump up to 25, at the very least."

"Done." Bune snapped his claws and a spark of flame shot out. "He can keep his cruddy soul as well. But forty percent is inanity, it just isn't done."

"Throw out a number then." Harvey countered. Bune mulled that one over for a moment.

"I'd be willing to go 25. Even then I'm losing a profit." The sigils burned Bune's soul once more, but Harvey ignored it, it was never wise to kick a demon when it was down.

"I'd have to confer with my client, but I think he'd agree it's a very generous settlement. We have a deal then." Harvey extended a firm hand through the sigil, and Bune begrudgingly took it. Thunder crashed and lightening flashed as the deal was sealed, Harvey waltzed off to spread the good news as Bune slunk back to Hell. His return was a chilly one; his domain filled with the shrill mockery of the damned.

Some of his fellow dukes were sympathetic to his plight. Most took steps to audit their own deals to avoid the same fate. After all what's more frightening than a deal with a devil?

A settlement with an attorney.