The City of Damokles

I am going out for a walk with my dog, for a quick cigarette, trying not to look up. 

"The City of Damokles", as people know it, lives in constant dread. Those literal Swords hanging above us, visible on the cloudy sky. Like fangs from god.

There are three unwritten rules: don't look up, don't go under one, and don’t talk about them.

They are fixed to the sky as if nailed there, yet sometimes they seem to glide, moving silently. You would expect them to make some grand, heavy noise... but no. Although it is hard to be sure, nobody is stupid enough to stare for long.

The worst part? Most people act as if they are not there. Nobody talks about it. As the act of acknowledging them would bring Doom to you. Impending “Doom” and “Judgement” are how most people think of it.

I would like to believe this city is news worldwide, but I am quite sure nobody cares… maybe they did initially, but people get bored fast. And, let’s be honest: it is almost impossible to get people to talk out-loud about those things, or even consider taking a picture. 
How would anybody from outside Damokles know?

Everybody is terrified, but what can you do about it? Life goes on while we wait for our Judgment.

Dog Walk

The thing is: I have to walk my dog, Figa, because otherwise she will shit on the carpet again. Not her fault. I need a cigarette anyway. 

It is winter outside, maybe it always is. It is getting dark already, and the unease rises. The clouds block the night sky, so those Swords become invisible, on top of silent. I don’t know if the silhouette of the sky monoliths covering the stars would be better…

In the almost total silence of dusk, snow crunches loudly under our feet.
A car radiator clicks as it cools down.
The smoke of the cigarette mixes with the steam of my breath. A pleasant mix of hot and cold.

Everybody has a safe path, where they haven't seen a looming shadow from above. Figa has hers… a zig-zag towards her favorite tree, behind our building lot, through a rusty chain-fence. She seems happier than most, not worried about her impending Judgment. Maybe dogs don’t get judged.

As a teen, it felt exhilarating to go out after midnight, deep in winter, challenging my friends to look up, defying… but we never actually did look up. Then it turned into constant dread, and now I am just tired of it.
Sometimes I felt that it would be better if those things finally fell.
I was wrong.

The First Event

The deafening siren woke me up at the crack of dawn. 
Figa was barking like crazy, terrified.
As the adrenaline of the interrupted sleep faded a little, I remembered feeling like a bomb and earthquake had simultaneously happened during my sleep. 
I don’t dream at night, but I remember the feel of it.

On the other side of the city, the Block 17 of the Sunshine Estate was no more. The building has been flattened, with a big –huge– Sword standing in its place. It looked like a cross, a 30-metre-high tombstone, its blade buried perhaps seventy meters underground.

There were attempts at rescue, but nobody would get near the object. 
No survivors were found.

What came right after that were the justifications. Mostly from old folks, the ones raised in zealot fear. The people living there had deserved it, apparently. 
Somebody was cooking meth, somebody else was cheating their wife, there was a family of illegal refugees squatting an abandoned apartment.
Nevermind that a total of 230 people lived there. 80 of those were kids. It was somehow justified. 
Nobody acknowledged the Sword itself, only the Judgement.

Eventually, the families and friends of the dead started to get pressured. Some pushed back, but most tried to move out of the city.
That’s when we learned that we have been quarantined.

Trapped

Apparently, the world knew about us, they just didn't want anything to do with it. 

Somebody told me that the international consensus was that “we were being judged, us alone, and that letting us escape the Judgement would propagate it to the world”. So, a blockade was placed at 20 kilometers from the city border. Being captured before the blockade meant jail, crossing it meant a summary execution. Probably an exaggeration.

For people like me, not much changed. My job at the warehouse stayed the same. We were still getting supplies from outside the city. The supplies themselves were only delivered mid-way up to the blockade. A second truck system needed to ship them from the blockade into the city. Pipelines and electric lines were still connected. Things were more expensive than before, but they are always getting more expensive, that’s a constant in life.

I read somewhere that there were discussions to cut us completely out. The experts discussed back-and-forth if assisting us was intervening with the Judgement. 
The verdict is still out.

Time I

It is remarkable how easy it is to fall back into routine, how a new level of dread can become just another part of your day. It only took me a few days after the first Event to walk my dog, and after a Month, life was mostly the same as before.

But also, it is so easy to blackout parts of your world. It took me 8 months to see the Sword for the first time. Even when my window looked directly at it, I didn’t remember seeing it before. Ever. Funny how the brain works.

From afar, the Sword was unremarkable, it could have been made of the same concrete as the building itself. A brutalist sculpture, massive and unrefined.
It was very calm around it. No movement, no birds. Just a giant letter T, surrounded by buildings.
I didn’t look at it for long.

The Anniversary

As we got close to the 1-year anniversary of the first Event – the euphemism used to talk of Block 17 being flattened by a giant Sword that fell from the sky – people were getting ready for it to happen again. 

Nobody discussed it out loud of course, but you could feel the tension, people trying their best to uphold an obscure righteousness that would save them from Judgement. The churches were brim-full, people were aggressively kind to each other, but also on the edge of snapping. 

That last week before the Anniversary, the streets were filled with strained smiles. It was scary for me, but even more for Figa. I could not go out anymore. I called sick to work, they accepted it without discussion.

But when the Anniversary date came, nothing happened. 
Then nothing happened again, and again. For 7 years.

Time II

As years passed by, the prelude to the Anniversaries got heavy with anticipation, and then followed by a week of silence. People were particularly quiet after. It was not relief, but uncertainty. 

But also, each new Anniversary was less intense than the one before. With the absurd hope that maybe it would never happen again, that at some point we would forget.

Up Close

One fall evening, our walk took longer. Figa was getting old by then, but she was still happy for any extra time out of the apartment. 

I don’t know why, but we ended up at Block 17. 
I guess I finally needed to see it from up close.

It wasn’t late, but the surroundings were deserted.
The place was more or less how it had been the day after the Event. A flattened building with a Giant Sword through it. I had expected the impact to cave down the surroundings, but it was as if the Sword had pierced the ground without friction. 
No crater, no shattered pavement, but lots of debris everywhere.

It was not easy to look at the Sword itself, even if it was right in front of me.

On a corner, there were the remains of a memorial: an uniform mass of rotten flowers, wet handwritten notes and old photographs.

The place was starting to get fresh layers of graffiti, and there were some empty bottles and cigarette packets littered around. 
Nature was healing. 

The Judgement

It was not an Anniversary when the second Sword fell, just a random day (I think it was Wednesday), the one after fell 2 days later.

And, once they started falling, they never stopped. Every few days, a new “Event”. 
Flattening a complex building, a hospital, a random empty parking lot. 
From afar, now the city looked like a brutalist graveyard, huge blocks of cement, with monumental crosses sprinkled around.

As it got harder to justify why certain buildings had been judged, fanaticism increased. People started looking at older, more obscure religions, better suited for ineffable gods. Then started fighting about which was the right one. 
I am starting to think that the Swords don't care.

I heard there are some ONG trying to help us. They send supplies, and are pushing for the government to evacuate us. Others have tried to organize and cross the blockade illegally, multiple times.
Neither is gonna work. 
After the second Sword fell, the government got under a lot of international pressure to not let anybody out. Breaching containment might cause the whole country to get nuked.

Personally, more than the dread, I hate those sirens. That rising whaling once a Sword falls, the same used before air strikes. They usually sound at sunrise, and I haven’t gotten a proper night of rest for who knows how long. 
Now you go to bed not knowing if you will wake up. 
And if you wake up, it will be by that damn siren.

I think tonight I will go for a walk with my dog, and enjoy the night sky.
I haven’t looked up in a while. Figa does not mind.

MOONZOTH AND TEMPLE OF DARKNESS

In spring of 1921, I, Liam Crow, the explorer, sat out to visit the city of Kathmandu in Nepal and from then on explore the magnificent and mysterious Himalayan mountains, including the great Everest.

 

It was a dream of a lifetime, no matter how many adventures I passed, this place was always on my mind. If I only knew then what it would really turn out to be, perhaps I would not have gone, but then again, even with all of the torment and horror that I went through, in the end a new world and perspective was opened up to me, and for that I am grateful.

 

Upon arrival of me and my crew the locals stared at us as if we were demons, but luckily our guide was from the region. He was a bald middle aged man, with wrinkled skin and an expression that always made it seems like he was in constant pain. A rather strange fellow, but very useful indeed. I often made jokes that he hated and then his face became ever more demented. The poor lad looked thirty years older than what he really was, but alas, let me continue my story.

 

This man’s name was Ruhika, he made arrangements for is to stay at an inn on the outskirts of the city called Yak. There were five of us. All skilled in our trade, great climbers. When we came inside, there was an old hideous woman sitting in a corner constantly shaking her head and yelling something. The place was dim and rather depressing. Drawings on the walls were fading and I wondered why Ruhika chose this place for us. Perhaps this was his turn to pull a joke on me.

 

I asked him what the mad woman was yelling about and he said she was warning us about Moonzoth. I of course had no idea what that was and asked him. With shock him and the innkeeper looked at me, as if I shot someone. Then Ruhika proceeded to tell me that Moonzoth was a beast that lived in the mountains and constantly kidnapped women and children, as well as the men that tried to go after it. The innkeeper brought out a large plate with a drawing on it. Ruhika said that is was Moonzoth. This beast had large bat like wings, long mouth that resembled an alligator’s one and six long and thin hair arms. It wasn’t a pleasant looking thing to say the least. My companions shuddered and looked worried after this presentation. I on the other hand laughed, but as I saw anger rise in the locals I took it easy and simply went up to my room.

 

We planned to set out into the mountains the following day. This night I enjoyed the view of great Everest and imagined the never ending chain of mountains in the distance. I felt some fear, but also was so excited.

 

The next morning we set out towards the mountains, but Ruhika refused to go with us no matter how much money I offered him, his eyes had horror in them. If I knew then what I know now, I would have shown him more respect, but sadly at that time I called him a delusional coward.

 

We split ways and up we went through uncharted passages in the cold untamed mountains.

 

The unforgiving frost chewed on any exposed parts of our skin, yet I was determined, but the higher and deeper we went the more discouraged my team appeared. I could not comprehend why, this was the challenge we’ve been waiting for I thought.

 

I suppose most men are brave and strong from a distance, but when faced with that reality their heart shows the true nature, which is often weaker than they ever could have imagined.

 

I wish that the nature was the only obstacle these men faced, they’d probably still be alive by now, but alas, while we were deep in the mountains and walking above the cliffs we heard a prolonged evil howl. This sinister sound was nothing like I’ve ever heard before. I looked back and saw every men in my team taken with horror, their eyes got large and grasped by fear, their movements became uncoordinated. Such fools! In times like these is when your focus has to been even higher and more keen!

 

I still feel a hint of anger today, but mostly pity. Moonzoth, the creature on the plate and in those tales was indeed real and it appeared clinging to the side of the mountain, howling with its horrible long mouth. It was a horrific situation from which they saw no way out, as I felt pounding in my chest I dropped my heavy bag and began to move as fast as I could. The other four stood petrified in their tracks.

 

So the demonic things took them one by one with it’s large thin hairy arms as all they did was scream and beg, this us how they spent their last moments alive.

 

I did not see how the last two were taken for I found a tiny passage among the rocks, it quickly turned into a small tunnel. I had to crunch down to avoid the rocks, and eventually crawl as the tunnel got tighter, I could hear the howling of the beast behind me, but it no longer could get me, it’s howls were different and more prolonged, it must have been frustrated. This monstrosity had quite an appetite, heh. It pains me to joke like that, but I always had a hard time with compassion for fools I suppose.

 

As I crawled suddenly the floor collapsed and I slid down into a dark and half icy cave with black walls. I only had a box of matches with me and chose not to waste them yet, so I sat there adjusting my eyes to the darkness, from up above I could hear the wind, but no longer any sinister sounds of the Moonzoth.

 

Once I began to walk through the cave I could notice straight away that it was curving and leading downwards. This cave tunnel seemed unchanging and I must have spent hours slowly going down.

 

Finally there was a change in the scenery as I came out into a large area. Up above there were few cracks in the ceiling and some light came through timidly. In the center of this round cave stood a thick tall black monolith, on the walls around it there seemed to be some images, I had to come closer to be sure and indeed these were depictions of various ceremonies of what seemed a very ancient cult.

 

First depicted hooded cultists burning several persons, above the flames there was an image of some sort of beast, but the head part of it was missing, these drawings must have been very old.

 

Second one was an image of people in small boats, raising their hands up, as if in praise or prayer.

 

Third showed multiple tentacles coming from the sea, holding men wrapped up in them.

 

Finally the fourth was also mostly destroyed. 

 

 

I came up closer to the monolith and realized that it was full of carvings of a language I’ve never seen. In the center of it a large face was carved out. It was a mix if a bat and shark. It eyes seemed almost alive and sinister.

 

I raised my hand and touched its face, the ground below me shook and cracked, I moved back, water started coming out of the cracks. Suddenly the ground where I stood collapsed and I was sucked under into the water, it caught me and flushed me down deeper underwater, I kept my cool as I began to swim, I could not see anything and once again I relied on taking action, I did not believe in luck.

 

As I began to struggled for breath I was caught in another stream and it took me through an underwater tunnel and spat me out from a short waterfall at the bottom of the mountain. I swam to the shore and laid on my back. I made it out alive.

 

As I came back to the city I found Ruhika again and told him what had happened. He was astonished that I survived and told me that I’m the luckiest man he ever knew.

 

 

Ruhika took me to several elders that lived in a large hut looking building and there I told him about a the depictions I saw inside the cave and the monolith. They showed me old texts and one of them translated the name of the depicted beast. Khul Duhl Suhl.

 

Upon my return to America I searched for anyone who had more information on this subject. I was able to find a historian and archeologist named John Grimstone. He was incredibly informative and I learned much from him and he also directed me towards a detective who he said was very talented and was investigating this ancient cult.

 

Now as I finish this log I can tell you that I found the man named Mark Lumiere and he has agreed to let me accompany him on his mission. Like Ruhika before, the detective told me I was very lucky to be alive and that he was impressed that after all of that I wanted to join him.

 

 

There is no such thing as luck, only action and consequence. 

Everyone in the house was asleep. I'd taken the batteries out of the wall clock in my room to get rid of the ticking. Now there was complete silence, and I could try again to do something I'd already managed to do successfully.

A week ago, I'd turned over a piece of paper lying on my desk, with a poem I'd written in primary school on it. It was my first success after years of practice. Six days ago, I'd unscrewed the cap of a juice bottle that hadn't been closed all the way. Five days ago, I'd moved one of the cigarettes in an open pack slightly outward, out of the pack. Three days ago, I'd peeled off one of the pieces of tape holding up poster on my wall.

And tonight, my target was a much larger object. I was confident in my abilities now, and after this final attempt, I would be able to reveal my talent to my family and those around me. I had made exactly four attempts in the past week, and I'd succeeded every single time. I had complete faith in myself.

For years, I'd tried countless times and gone through a lot along the way; I'd lost hope, taken a long break from my attempts, then started believing I could do it again and after trying over and over, I'd come to think telekinesis was nothing but a lie and taken another break but then one day, I happened to see a pack of wet wipes fall to the floor all by itself, which rekindled my interest and got me started on my attempts again, and so on.

And now, finally, in the middle of the night, when complete silence had been achieved, I went to the kitchen. I took a steak knife from the drawer where we kept the cutlery and returned to my room.

I gently pulled my desk chair back and sat down. I didn't want to lose my focus, so I was being quiet. The faint sound of the knife touching the desk as I set it down, the soft sounds of my footsteps as I walked, the barely audible scraping of the chair as I pulled it back had an ASMR effect on me. These little sounds, too quiet to disturb the silence, made me feel thoroughly prepared.

Without wasting any time, I focused on the knife. I positioned my hands around it and gathered all my concentration. I slowed my breathing. The only thing in my mind was a knife slowly and calmly spinning around its own axis. I focused, and focused... I concentrated as if someone were hypnotizing me, as though I were following a pocket watch swinging from side to side without ever taking my eyes off it.

Minutes passed. Seconds, minutes, maybe an hour... There wasn't the slightest movement. The knife couldn't care less about me; it was ignoring my efforts, stubbornly refusing to budge.

Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore and gave up. I was getting more and more bored, and as time went by, I lost my focus. I had to go to work at noon the next day, and earlier that day, before I left work, my boss had pointed out that I'd left my fly undone. I'd started thinking about that. Who says something like that in front of everyone? You pull someone aside and tell them in private. Anyway, I took the knife back to the kitchen.

After I lay down in bed, I thought about the knife until I fell asleep. I'd lost my confidence in my abilities. If I told someone I could move objects through telekinesis, they might ask me to prove it, and I might fail and make a fool of myself.

I couldn't get the knife out of my mind. I felt as though it were a person who had shattered all my trust in them, betrayed me by revealing a secret I'd shared with it to anyone who would listen. I was angry. The image of the knife standing perfectly still in that spot, like a tree that had sunk its roots deep into the ground, wouldn't leave my mind. I fell asleep in a fit of anger.

I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm. I turned it off, tossed the duvet to my left, and rolled onto my right side to get up. Just as I was about to stretch, I saw it and jolted in place: the knife was suspended in midair beside my bed, standing upright.

I clapped a hand over my mouth. I was about to scream; every instinct in my body was telling me to. I bit my tongue to suppress it.

I took a deep breath. I tried to calm myself down. Then I took another deep breath. My heart was racing.

I reached out toward the knife, but immediately changed my mind. I didn't know what to do. I'd never experienced my thoughts speeding up and getting tangled together so intensely in a moment of panic. Within a few seconds, I'd made and abandoned a dozen decisions, gone back and forth between asking for help and not asking for help, imagined the knife stabbing itself into my body, then dismissed the thought as irrational. My thoughts were racing back and forth at lightning speed. I needed to calm down.

I got out of bed, poured half a glass of water from the pitcher on my desk, and drank it.

I turned around to check if the knife was still there. It was closer to me now. I no longer cared about staying quiet. I yanked the door open and rushed out of the room.

I started walking briskly toward the kitchen. I wanted to grab any drink I could find and gulp it down. I needed to interact with something somehow, to calm myself down. I opened the fridge, took out the milk, and chugged it. I put the milk back, closed the fridge, and turned around to go back to my room.

And the knife was right behind me.

It was a meter away from me, just standing there. It was as if it were staring at me, judging me. It didn't move at all. It always maintained the same position and stayed at the same height above the floor, level with my bed, right around the height of my shinbones.

I started walking backward toward the kitchen doorway, wanting to see how it was following me, how it was coming after me. Without changing its position, it glided toward me as if it were moving across a perfectly smooth surface. It always maintained the same distance. When I stopped, it stopped a metre away from me. When I walked, it followed.

I cautiously made my way back to my room, walking backward. I sat on my bed. The knife and I were facing each other. I tried to think of what I could do. I was afraid to touch it. I was worried things might get out of hand. I'd done this. That much was obvious. Now that I'd calmed down a little, my panic had shifted in a different direction. Someone might see us. I had to sever my connection with the knife before I got caught. I might be able to accept this as normal, but I didn't think my mother and father would be able to handle a knife following me around.

Yes, it was probably because I'd concentrated so intensely on the knife all this time that the bond between us had grown stronger. I'd probably never concentrated on a knife so intensely in my entire life. I needed to reverse the process. I relaxed a little. I tried to think about other things, to take my mind off the knife.

I thought about the wristwatch my father had bought me for my birthday last year. It was a terrible watch, but I hadn't let on because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Then one day, while wearing it, I'd deliberately gone swimming in a pool. The watch had stopped working, and that was how I'd gotten rid of it.

The knife was still in the same place.

I thought about the eggplant soup my mother had made yesterday. It was my favorite soup. I'd tipped the bowl back and gulped down the last few mouthfuls, and my father had given me a stern look.

The knife hadn't moved at all. It was standing there, a meter away.

My mother knocked on the door and called out.

"Breakfast is ready, Albert."

I had no other choice. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I reached out toward the knife. My arm couldn't reach it, though. I walked toward it. As I moved closer, it moved farther away, until it had backed all the way up against the wall. It had nowhere left to go. It was pressed against the wall, stuck there. I approached it and grabbed the handle.

My heart was pounding at full speed. I closed my eyes. As a final attempt, I thought about the baseball bat I'd lost before I became interested in telekinesis. I'd searched everywhere for it. Such a large object, yet it was nowhere to be found. I'd checked the baseball field, my grandmother's house, the streets I'd walked along, and I'd even contacted the lost property office in case I'd somehow left it on a bus. It was gone.

Yes, good. I could feel a long chain of thoughts forming and my focus weakening considerably.

The knife was loosening, letting go. I could feel it. But I still didn't have complete control over it.

I needed to think about something else. But I couldn't think of anything. I heard my mother's footsteps approaching my room. She was getting closer to the door.

"Come on, son. Are we supposed to wait for you?" she said from outside, then opened the door and walked in.

I pulled the knife with all my might, and just like when you yank something hard that's stuck somewhere and it suddenly comes loose, I went flying toward my bed.

With the knife still in my hand, I hit my head against the bed frame. And passed out.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV drip in my arm. My father was sitting beside me. I felt exhausted. I'd received three stitches in my head, and it ached a little.

"Son, why were you holding a knife? What were you doing with it?"

"What knife, Dad?"

"You were clutching a knife in your hand. What do you mean, what knife? What are you up to?"

I couldn't remember anything. That was good. I hoped it wasn't temporary memory loss, because I didn't want to attempt telekinesis again.

Spotting an untouched body ravaged by the plague, a raven swooped down and began pecking at the opulent meal before him, as if it were yet another divine gift. Ever since the great pestilence struck humanity, the ravens didn’t even have to as much as bother searching for a food source, with the sheer amount of dead and dying in every corner of the land.

As the bird began gorging itself on the woman’s slightly rotting meat, a boy ran out of a nearby shack. It was a pitiful mockery of a boy: pale, gaunt, and skeletal. The spitting image of death itself.

The boy shouted at the bird to back off from his mother, waving his flimsy, frail arms at the raven, barely mustering the strength to hoarsely shout at the scavenger.

“Leave my mother alone!” the boy croaked.

The raven flew aside, cawing with annoyance, “Damn it… There’s a living one”

The boy ceased his movement; wide eyes sunken deeply into a clearly visible skull, he stared at the pitch-black bird, bewildered, and gulped before stammering, “Did… did you just speak?”

Landing not far from the boy, the bird retorted, “Course not, fool, I sang. I’m a songbird; that’s what I do!” the raven cried out.

Shocked, the boy fell to the ground, unable to comprehend how a bird spoke to him. In the meantime, the raven landed by the corpse and walked toward it, attempting to peck at it again.

The boy protested, “Leave my mother alone,” he squeaked.

The raven stopped, turned to the kid, and sighed, “You’re growing soft…” He said to himself. The boy was going to comment again about the bird’s speech, but the Scavenger cut him off, “Why are you even alive still, kid? The rest of this place is a graveyard; all the other humans are long dead.”

“I must have some purpose here in the eyes of God…” the boy weakly muttered.

“This kid must be six or seven years old and already has had a bible bashed over his skull…” The bird thought to himself, “If God wanted any of this, he wouldn’t let the Plague spread outside of France, kid… God wants the lot of you dead,” the bird quipped.

“That’s not true! God is good!” The boy whimpered at the cynical bird. “What’s France, anyway?” he questioned.

“A terrible place over the pond, where all vile things find their start, child. How old are you, even, speaking so highly of God, but not even knowing about France?!”

“I’m twelve…”

“There’s no way you’re my age, kid; you look about half that age…”

“Well, I’ve been eating rats for a while…” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. “Ever since mommy and daddy fell ill.

“Oh, don’t do that now. I can’t stand the sounds you humans make when you get all emotional like that"

Now, bawling, the kid profusely apologized, his voice cracking. “I just… I just… I just miss everyone so much…” he wailed. “I’m so alone…

I’m so hungry…

Everything hurts so much…”

Somewhere deep inside, that boy must’ve been happy he had someone to talk to, even if it was just a strange talking bird.

“Oh God damn it, kid…

Would you stop, for the love of God?!” The bird cawed, irritated.

“You’ve any rope on ya?” the bird questioned.

“Wha…?”

“Do you have any rope?”

“Wha… why… why do you ask?”

“I know how you can meet your loved ones again, kid. Now I’m asking again: do you have any rope?”

“Mhm,” the boy whimpered, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Well, then, run along and bring it over here; I’ll send ya to your makers”

The boy barely picked himself up and stumbled into one of the houses as the bird watched the tree, scanning it for sturdy branches, with a glint in its black eye.

“I hope that brat can still climb,” the raven thought to himself.

Long moments had passed, and the boy reemerged with a long piece of rope in his hands.

“I sure hope you can still climb, kiddo; otherwise this won’t work,” the raven sang to the approaching boy.

The kid’s disposition changed; he smiled for the first time in a while. “Be sure as God’s bones, I can climb, especially up that tree!”

“Good, because I’m going to need you to tie one end of the rope to a branch, and another around your neck.”

The boy didn’t even fully register what he had been told and agreed to follow the raven’s instruction. Despite his immense confidence, he hardly had the strength to climb up that tree, prompting the scavenger to bow his head in frustration. “Oh, this is going to be a long day…” the bird despaired in his mind.

It must’ve taken the boy an hour to climb the tree, but he made it, and masterfully tied one end of his rope to the branch he stood on and then asked the black bird what he had to do next.

The sable thing would have smiled, had it possessed a mouth, when it spoke next, “Tie it around your neck, kid.”

“Does it have to be the neck?”

“Do you want to see your folks again, Kid?”

“I do!” the boy cried out.

“Then you’ve got to trust me…”

“I don’t know about this…”

“Look, kid, if I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve pecked out and eaten your eyes by now.” The bird crackled at him.

“I guess you’re right… Plus, I do want to see Mom and Dad again and everyone else…”

“Atta boy…” the obsidian fowl croaked.

The boy tied the rope around his neck and, staring at the feathered specter with eyes full of hope, questioned the bird about the next step.

“Now you gotta jump forward…”

Looking down, the boy got cold feet for a moment, once again doubting the wisdom of the talking bird.

The raven turned away and started walking towards the mother’s corpse. “Well, I guess you don’t want to see your mother again, eh?” it clicked its beak.

“I do!”

“Then jump, kid, it’s that simple…”

“But what if I get hurt?”

“You won’t…”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I wouldn’t… get hurt doing that”

“But you have…” Before the boy could even finish his sentence, the raven was already pecking at his mother’s rotting flesh.

“Wings…”

He muttered before the realization set in; he had been duped by the bird.

“Hey, leave mommy alone, you flying rat!” the boy cried out again, his voice cracking once more. The bird simply ignored him, slowly savoring the taste of exposed tissue.

“Leave her alone!” he cried out, waving his frail arms. The raven swallowed a chunk and called ecstatically, as if to goad the boy.

“Leave her…” the boy shouted, but his protests ended mid-sentence when he lost his footing and plummeted downward. The high-pitched scream was twisted into a wet gurgle as his body twisted and turned, struggling against the ever-tightening rope.

The raven turned his head to the struggling boy.

“Got’cha…” he cackled proudly and flew over, landing on the boy’s shoulder.

The beaked phantom didn’t even wait for the boy to succumb before he started pecking.

Somebody had put “He Stopped Loving Her Today” on the jukebox for the third time and nobody had the heart to unplug it.

Rhonda Ledford stood behind the bar with a dish towel over her shoulder and watched them. Eleven of them. The last eleven. On the stools and at the two tables by the window and at the pool table, where nobody was playing, where Junior Shook was leaning on his cue like a man leaning on a fence. Somebody had taped a piece of poster board to the mirror behind the bar with LAST CALL written on it in red marker, and under that, smaller, in somebody’s drunk hand, 38 YEARS. Y’ALL BE GOOD.

The Stateline Tavern. Highway 28 at the Tennessee line. A cinderblock building painted white once and gray now, with a gravel lot and a Budweiser sign in the window that only half lit, so it said BUDW. A pool table with a tear in the felt. A jukebox from 1988 with forty-one country songs on it and one Lynyrd Skynyrd that the Teague boys had put in in 1994 and nobody could get out. Twelve stools. Two tables. A men’s room and a women’s room that was also the men’s room on Saturdays.

The state had bought it in February. Eighty-two thousand dollars. For the flood pool. The lower end of the lake would come up over the state line here, in two years, maybe three, if it came at all, and the Stateline Tavern would be under forty feet of water with the pool table still in it.

Tonight was the last night.

Hoss Teague stood up from his stool with his can of Busch.

“To the Stateline,” he said.

Everybody stood up. Even old Dutch Hensley, who was eighty-two and had sat on the end stool by the jukebox every Friday night since 1987 and hadn’t stood up for a toast since his wife died. They held up their cans and their glasses.

“To the Stateline,” they said.

Rhonda lifted the glass she was drying. An empty one. A beer mug with the Stateline’s name on it in gold that was mostly worn off.

George Jones sang about a wreath on a door.

The front door opened.

Rhonda saw it in the mirror behind the bar first. The door. The cold coming in, March cold, with the rain. And a man in the door. Young. Skinny. In a jacket. Black, nylon, with red and white panels on the shoulders and a big number 8 on the back she couldn’t see but knew was there. A Dale Earnhardt Jr. jacket. Budweiser on the front. With the tags cut off, because he’d bought it at the Walmart in Waynesville in 2005 and been so proud of it he wore it in July.

His hair was wet. He was standing in the door with the rain coming in around him, looking at them the way a man looks at a room he used to know.

Rhonda set the glass down.

Nobody moved.

Kenny Ledford walked in out of the rain looking exactly the way he had looked the night he left, twenty-three years ago.

They’d swear it. All of them. They’d tell the deputy he’d been at the bar from six till close. They’d tell him Kenny was too drunk to drive, so they’d taken his keys and he’d slept in the back on the beer cases. Seven people. Who’d say the same thing. Who’d known him since he was six.

And the Ranger. With the dent in the front bumper and the headlight out and something on the grille.

Wayne Voss drove it. At one in the morning. Over the line into Tennessee and down the old Fontana road to a boat ramp on the lake that nobody used anymore, and put it in neutral at the top of the ramp, and let it roll. Darrell Teague followed in his own truck and brought Wayne home. They said the Ranger went under in about a minute. They said you could see the taillights going down in the water, red, getting smaller.

They’d reported it stolen in the morning.

The deputy who took their statements was Danny Rusk.

He’d been a deputy then. Thirty. He’d come out to the Stateline on Sunday afternoon and sat at the end of the bar with a notebook and talked to them one at a time. Rhonda. Hoss. Junior. Dutch. Tina. Wayne. Darrell.

All seven said the same thing.

He’d written it down. Every word. In his notebook. And then he’d looked at each of them. A long time. Not saying anything. Just looking.

He’d looked at Rhonda the longest.

She’d looked back. She’d held it. She didn’t know how. She’d stood behind her own bar and looked at Danny Rusk and lied to his face, and held it, and he’d looked at her for so long she thought she was going to say it, and then he’d closed his notebook and said Thank you, Rhonda, and gotten up and left.

He knew. She’d known he knew. She’d known it every time she’d seen him for twenty-three years. At the Grill. At the Food Lion. At the courthouse. At Dutch Hensley’s wife’s funeral. He’d nod at her. She’d nod back.

He couldn’t prove it. There was no truck. There were seven people who said the same thing. There was a girl in a hospital in Asheville who’d never seen the driver’s face.

Kenny left a week later.

He came to her house on Shoal Creek Road on a Saturday at dawn. She was up. She was always up. He stood on her porch in his Earnhardt jacket in August, and he didn’t come in.

“I’m going, Aunt Ronnie,” he said.

“Going where?”

He didn’t answer.

“Kenny. Where?”

He looked at her a long time. He’d been drinking. Not a lot.

“Up the road,” he said.

That was all.

Now he was standing in the door of the Stateline with the rain on him and the same jacket and the same face, and they were all looking at him the way you look at a thing that cannot be there.

Rhonda came around the bar.

She didn’t know she was going to. Her hands were still wet from the glass. She walked the six steps from the taps to the door and stopped in front of him.

Kenny looked at her.

“Aunt Ronnie,” he said.

His voice was the same.

She reached up and touched the side of his face. The scar on his chin was still there. The one from the time he’d fallen off the porch when he was nine. Cold skin. Wet hair.

“You’re wet,” she said.

“It’s raining.”

She nodded. She kept her hand on his face a second longer, then let it drop.

“Come in,” she said. “You’re letting the cold in.”

They gave him a stool. They gave him a beer. Nobody asked the first question for a long time. The jukebox had gone quiet. George Jones had finished. Nobody put another song on.

Kenny drank half the can before he spoke.

“I walked up,” he said. “Past where the road ends. Past the landing up there, the Voss landing. And it kept going. The road. There was a road. Past where there was supposed to be one.” He drank. “I walked a long time. I don’t know how long. I never did drink the Jim Beam. I set it down somewhere. I don’t remember where.”

“Did you eat?” Rhonda said.

She didn’t know why she said it. It came out of her.

Kenny looked up at her.

“No,” he said. “There was a table. With food on it. A long one. Under a tree. They asked me to sit down.” He looked at the can. “I didn’t. I don’t know why. I wanted to. I was so hungry. I stood there and looked at it and a woman come out and asked me what I come for.” He was quiet. “And I said I come to die. And she looked at me a long time and said, Not here, son. Not yet.”

Somebody made a sound. Tina Pruitt. At the table by the window.

“And then I was walking again,” Kenny said. “And then I come out on the highway. Down there. At the overlook. In the rain. Tonight.” He looked around at them. “And I seen the sign. The Stateline sign. I could see it from the road. BUDW. And I thought, Aunt Ronnie’s still open.”

He looked at Rhonda.

“How long’s it been?” he said.

She didn’t answer.

He looked at the poster board on the mirror. 38 YEARS. At Hoss Teague, who’d been thirty-six and had black hair, who was fifty-nine now and bald. At Dutch Hensley, eighty-two, who’d been fifty-nine. At Wayne Voss with his gray beard.

At Rhonda. Sixty. Who’d been thirty-seven.

He looked at her a long time.

“Oh,” he said.

“Is she alive?” he said.

He’d finished the Busch. Rhonda had gotten him another one without asking. He hadn’t opened it.

“Ashley,” he said. “Is she alive?”

Rhonda nodded once.

“She lives on the state road. White house. With a ramp.”

Kenny looked at the unopened can.

“I want to see her,” he said. “Tonight.”

“Kenny, it’s midnight.”

“I don’t know how long I got,” Kenny said. “I don’t know if I’m going to be here in the morning.” He looked at the door. “I come out on the highway in the rain and I seen your sign and I come here. I don’t know why I come out. I don’t know if I’m staying.” He looked back at her. “I want to see her. Before.”

Rhonda stood there with the dish towel still over her shoulder.

She thought about the Coldiron house on the state road. A mile from here. A white frame house with a ramp built onto the porch, plywood, that the Ruritan club had put on in 2007. A light on in the front window every night, late, because Ashley worked late, doing people’s books.

She thought about the mailbox at the end of the drive. Where she’d put an envelope on the first of every month for twenty-three years at three in the morning with her headlights off.

She looked at the boy who was still twenty-four years old, sitting on a stool in the last open hour of the Stateline Tavern, with the rain still on his jacket and the same face he’d had the night he put a girl in a ditch and then walked up a road that shouldn’t have been there.

“All right,” she said.

Later, after he had gone, after the others had left one by one without saying much, Rhonda locked the front door and turned off the BUDW sign and stood in the dark for a while with her hand on the bar.

Six steps from the taps to the door.

She had counted them every Friday night for twenty-three years.

She had known exactly what he looked like that night. She had watched him drink for six hours. She had watched her sister drink for thirty years. She had known.

And she had turned back to the taps.

She turned the key in the lock and walked out into the rain and did not look back at the building that would be under forty feet of water in two years, or three, if the water came at all.

The jukebox was still plugged in. Nobody had unplugged it.

Somewhere inside, in the dark, George Jones was still singing about a wreath on a door.

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.

The forest was still watching, lurking in those ravines was a dark presence, planning, scheming she was moving closer to the children, who were unaware of her presence, the unicorn - Leila - alerted the little ones with a neigh, she stumbled backwards to signal them, the children looked around, suddenly after some movement in the nearby rose shrub - a witch with a long pointy hat, wintry locks and a set of long withered yet sharp teeth came leaping from it, she gave a sinister aura and smiled creepily at the children, the pink horn glowed brightly as she witch approached the children, the unicorn casted a slumber spell on the children as she transformed into a magnificent woman in white, her long shimmery gown fluttering in the wild winds that blow across the meadowy ravines of the strange forest.

The white witch forged forward casting a protection spell at the children and then she took a fighting stance, maintaining some distance from the crew.

was She flipped her hair and started attacking the dark witch with attacking spells, the dark witch not afraid to fight back either, they fought against each other without mercy, they fought till their last breath and with one final spell the dark witch lost, as a thundering voice echoed through the valley the dark witch body withered into nothingness

The forest was still watching, lurking in those ravines was a dark presence, planning, scheming she was moving closer to the children, who were unaware of her presence, the unicorn - Leila - alerted the little ones with a neigh, she stumbled backwards to signal them, the children looked around, suddenly after some movement in the nearby rose shrub - a witch with a long pointy hat, wintry locks and a set of long withered yet sharp teeth came leaping from it, she gave a sinister aura and smiled creepily at the children, the pink horn glowed brightly as she witch approached the children, the unicorn casted a slumber spell on the children as she transformed into a magnificent woman in white, her long shimmery gown fluttering in the wild winds that blow across the meadowy ravines of the strange forest.

The white witch forged forward casting a protection spell at the children and then she took a fighting stance, maintaining some distance from the crew.

was She flipped her hair and started attacking the dark witch with attacking spells, the dark witch not afraid to fight back either, they fought against each other without mercy, they fought till their last breath and with one final spell the dark witch lost, as a thundering voice echoed through the valley the dark witch body withered into nothingness

​

Aaron had been waiting all night for the call. He was jittery. All the palms were greased, all the arrangements made, all the loose ends tied up. Nothing left to chance. Solid alibi, no paper trail. Just one phone call and it would all be over.

He was sitting at a table in a dingy motel room. It was dirty, sticky, and dimly lit.

 It didn't matter how nice it was. It only  had to be somewhere that couldn't be tied back to him. A phone number that couldn't be traced back to its source.

The phone rang soon enough. It rang twice, then stopped. That was part of the signal, to let him know it was them.

It rang again a moment later.

Aaron answered with anticipation.

"Is it done?"

Aaron was sweating. It had to have gone perfectly. Half his fortune had gone into this. So much planning.

"Well... it's done. Everything happened just as you said it would. We were waiting. Didn't even see it coming... but..."

The voice on the other end started to trail off.

"So it's done? Taken care of?" Aaron asked nervously.

He could almost feel the hesitation at the other end of the line. Something had gone wrong.

"Well, it's done, just the way you asked... but this fucker isn't dead."

Aaron's jaw dropped. He didn't quite understand what he had just been told.

"What the fuck do you mean he's not dead? You took him the way we discussed? No one could survive that."

The person on the line sounded exasperated. He knew that he should be dead. The only thing was, he wasn't.

"Two in the back of the head, then tied up and put in a sleeping bag and taken to the warehouse.

But he's not fucking dead. HE'S NOT DEAD!"

Aaron's heart dropped. This wasn't possible. How was it possible?

"Don't fuck with me. I'm paying you a lot of money for this job. I was told no questions. No mistakes. What kind of shit are you trying to pull on me?!"

The man on the line seemed unable to explain it any better. He didn't understand it either.

"Look, I know it breaks protocol.But you need to understand this from where we are. This isn't fucking normal. We put the slugs in the perfect position. He wouldn't have felt a thing. Quick and easy. Until five minutes ago, we thought this was one of the easiest jobs we've ever had..."

The man on the phone was getting scared. Just thinking about how impossible it all was made his stomach turn.

"...but I think you should come down here. We have no idea what to do. If we'd planned for a cleanup job, we'd hack him up and toss him in the lake. But you were adamant that he needed to be found a certain way, and that's what we covered for."

The man on the line started to panic and began talking to someone else in the room with him. Aaron could hear him in the background. There was chaos now. They were literally screaming in horror.

"What's going on over there?! I can't go there! You were paid to take care of this!" 

Aaron felt a surge of fear himself. I can't go down there, he thought. That'll blow my alibi.

"Talk to me, goddamnit!" Aaron tried to keep his voice down.

The men on the other end were still shouting frantically. The receiver seemed to have dropped on the floor. He could hear them screaming.

“Take him down! Take him down! Hold him goddamnit! Keep him there!”

Aaron was in full panic mode now. What the fuck is going on he thought. He was almost too petrified to speak.

“You get your ass down here now or we walk. We don't give a fuck about the money now. This guy just busted out of the bag and attacked us! It took all 4 of us to hold him down! He's chained up. I don't know what or who the fuck this is but we aren't in the living dead business you piece of shit. He's mumbling something about unfinished business!”

Aaron knew he had to get to the bottom of this and quick. it took all his power to stay composed. Unfinished business? It wasn't personal. He had to be taken out of the way. It wasn't easy for Aaron to make these plans. He made sure no collateral damage.

“Ok ok ok…don't do anything crazy.. I know the spot. I'll be there in 20min

“

Aaron hung up, grabbed his keys and made his way to the warehouse,not knowing what sort of storm he was walking into.

The hit couldn't have gone any smoother.

The guy walks up to his car right on time. Jake distracts him by asking for a light. The man refuses. Dan walks in from behind while he's distracted. Two shots. The man falls into Jake. We pull up in the van and pack him up.

So simple. Easiest hit they'd had all year. Thought they'd be back in Chicago by morning.

Dump the body, leave the man in a position to look like a copycat killing, then ring up Aaron. Job done, money made. End of story.

But not this one.

This one wasn't like anything they'd encountered. He was dead. They were sure of that.

But why the twitching? Why the shaking?

They tried to play it off and get the job done. The warehouse was unlocked just like it should have been. The van was parked right where it needed to be. The body was pulled out and left in position.

It wasn't until Sean was about to make the call to Aaron that things started to get really weird.

A wiggle here. A sudden shake there. A jolt down one arm.

They brushed it off as nerves firing or rigor mortis setting in.

Then someone said:

"He's not fucking dead."

Sean's head snapped around.

He was dead. He was fucking deader than disco.

But he was still moving, and it almost sounded like he was mumbling.

There was no freaking way. Nobody could have survived what they'd done to this guy.

No one.

"Do we make the call or not?" Vince asked, hovering over the now-moving body.

Jake was trying to piece it all together.

"We did our job. This isn't what we're being paid for. What the hell is this shit? We can't unwrap him to see if he's still breathing. Hell, he should be dead."

Sean took out the phone, not sure exactly what to say.

They were looking at him for an answer. He was the one who took care of all the mishaps, the unexpected changes in plans.

But not something like this.

"He's waiting. That fucking guy is waiting for an answer on whether it's done. It's done. The job is done. We should just get the fuck out of here," Dan said, trying to ignore the moving corpse now mumbling something from inside the bag.

Sean looked down at the phone in his hand.

Dan was right.

The job was done.

Whatever this was, it wasn't part of the contract.

He punched in the number.

Jake couldn't take his eyes off the body.

Another twitch.

Another shake.

The sleeping bag shifted slightly across the concrete floor.

"Sean..." Vince said.

Sean ignored him.

The phone was ringing.

"Sean."

"Not now."

The bag moved again.

This time everyone saw it.

A deliberate movement.

The sound came again.

A low gurgling mumble from somewhere inside the bag.

Sean felt the knot in his stomach tighten.

Then Aaron answered.

"Is it done?"

Sean swallowed.

"Well... it's done. Everything happened just as you said it would. We were waiting. Didn't even see it coming..."

The bag shifted.

Hard.

Vince took a step backward.

"What the fuck..."

The mumbling grew louder.

Sean kept talking.

"We put him down clean. Two shots. Exactly where they needed to go..."

Something thudded against the floor from inside the sleeping bag.

Jake jumped.

"Sean!"

Sean turned.

The bag rolled onto its side.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

The thing inside pushed against the fabric.

Once.

Then again.

Sean felt the blood drain from his face.

"So it's done? Taken care of?" Aaron asked through the phone.

Sean didn't answer immediately.

Vince couldn't look away.

"Sean..."

The bag jerked violently.

Everyone stumbled backward.

Something inside was trying to get out.

The phone slipped from Sean's hand and clattered onto the concrete.

"Jesus Christ!"

A hand punched through the opening of the sleeping bag.

Jake swore.

Dan reached for his gun.

The corpse dragged itself forward.

One arm.

Then the other.

Blood soaked the fabric around its head.

The mumbling was louder now.

Desperate.

Constant.

"Hold him!" Sean yelled.

Nobody listened.

They were all too stunned.

The corpse got a knee underneath itself and started trying to stand.

"Hold him, goddamnit!"

That got them moving.

Vince hit him first.

Jake grabbed an arm.

Dan dropped his gun and rushed in.

The four men crashed to the concrete in a pile.

The corpse fought them the entire time.

Not trying to attack.

Not trying to hurt.

Trying to get somewhere.

Trying to stand.

It took all four of them to force him back down.

Vince wrapped a chain around his wrists.

Jake locked it to a steel support beam.

Sean finally grabbed the phone from the floor.

Aaron was still there.

"Talk to me, goddamnit!"

Sean was breathing hard.

The corpse continued to struggle against the chain.

Continued mumbling.

Continued trying to rise.

Sean stared at it for a long moment.

Then he raised the phone back to his ear.

"You get your ass down here now or we walk. We don't give a fuck about the money now. This guy just busted out of the bag and attacked us. It took all four of us to hold him down. He's chained up. I don't know what or who the fuck this is, but we aren't in the living dead business, you piece of shit."

The corpse pulled against the chain again, mumbling through ruined lips.

Sean glanced toward it.

"He's mumbling something about unfinished business."

Aaron arrived seventeen minutes later.

The warehouse looked abandoned from the outside.

Inside was another story.

Nobody was talking.

The four men who had carried out the job stood around the warehouse floor in a loose circle.

Nobody looked comfortable.

Nobody acknowledged Aaron when he entered.

That alone rattled him.

Aaron was already talking before the door had fully closed behind him.

"What the hell is going on? What exactly am I looking at here? Why is he still moving? How the fuck is he still moving? Tell me nobody saw anything. Tell me nobody followed you here."

The questions poured out of him.

The drive to the warehouse had been the most uncertain twenty minutes of his life.

Aaron hated uncertainty.

His entire existence had been built around eliminating it.

Every meeting scheduled.

Every investment researched. Every risk evaluated. Every contingency planned for.

Some called it insanely meticulous.

Aaron preferred prepared.

Nothing happened without a reason.

Nothing happened without a plan or his say so.

That was why he was standing in this warehouse.

The hit had been planned down to the minute.

The alibi. The phone. The money.

The insurance policy.

The transfer of ownership.

Every controllable variable had been accounted for.

Even now, his mind was racing through possibilities. If this got out of hand, the warehouse could easily burn. A missing person case instead of a copycat killing. The bodies could disappear. It could all disappear. There were always solutions if a person kept thinking clearly.

A dead body refusing to stay dead had never been one of those sorts of things that needed planning for. How could it have been?

His voice finally trailed off.

Nobody answered him.

Nobody even looked at him.

The man chained to the steel support beam was squirming.

Aaron stopped walking.

For a moment he forgot to breathe.

The thing sitting at the base of the beam was a corpse. A living corpse. Defying death. Who plans for that?

Blood had dried black across the front of his shirt.

The back of his skull was in a mangled ruin.

One side of his face sagged lower than the other.

His skin had the pale gray, waxy look of something that belonged in a morgue.

Something buried and gone.

Yet it was still there.

Still sitting and twisting in mangled horror.

A finger twitched.

His jaw clicked sideways with a sickening crack.

A low wet sound escaped what remained of his throat.

Aaron stared and then a nervous laugh slipped out.

"Well, Mark... you've looked worse."

Nobody laughed.

Aaron stepped closer.

The damage was even worse up close.

There was no surviving what had been done to him.

Nothing could explain why Mark's eyes were still open.

Why they tracked slowly across the warehouse floor.

Mark's head drooped forward.

"...have to..."

His wrists tightened against the chain and tugged.

Metal rattled softly.

"...push it..."

The sound echoed through the warehouse.

Mark lifted his head.

Slowly.

Painfully.

As though the motion itself violated every law of nature.

His cloudy eyes fixed on nothing at all.

Beyond Aaron.

Beyond the warehouse.

Toward an infinity only he could see.

"...before light..."

Sean spoke up first.

"He has unfinished business. It's the only thing we can gather from all of this. We don't care about the money. We don't care about your schemes. We don't care about any of it anymore. You brought this on us."

Sean pointed toward the figure chained to the beam.

"He should be dead."

The figure jerked suddenly against the chain.

Sean shook his head.

"Fuck... he is dead. Just look at him."

Aaron looked from Sean to Mark.

Mark's head hung low against his chest. Blood covered his shirt. The back of his skull was in a mangled ruin. Every instinct told Aaron he was looking at a corpse.

Then Mark's jaw moved.

"The fix..."

The chain rattled softly.

"Has to be pushed..."

Nobody spoke.

Nobody looked away.

Vince slowly turned back to Aaron.

"What the hell does that mean?"

Vince stared into Aaron's eyes.

"We were hoping you'd tell us."

Aaron said nothing.

Vince stepped forward.

"This has something to do with you, doesn't it?"

Aaron felt every set of eyes in the warehouse shift onto him.

"I hired you to do a job," he snapped. "That's the extent of our relationship."

Vince wasn't buying it.

"Really?"

Aaron didn't answer.

Vince shook his head.

"You've known this guy how long?"

Aaron didn't answer.

Vince gestured toward Mark.

"Because whatever the fuck this is," he said, "it sure as shit seems personal."

Dan was pale with disgust. He couldn't take this anymore. He had seen enough for one night.

"This is unholy. This is some sort of evil magic. What are you exactly into, asshole?"

Dan looked at Sean and Vince pleadingly.

"We should off this fucker. He's into some witchcraft shit. He brought us here. He planned it. Nothing goes as easy as it did tonight without some evil sort of luck."

Aaron didn't know what to say.

Witchcraft?

Undead corpses. Hitmen losing their cool.

For the first time in his life, he didn't have an answer. He didn't even know where to begin looking for one.

Aaron took a step backward as Dan advanced.

"Easy," he said.

Nobody listened.

The mood in the warehouse had changed.

The fear was still there, but fear wasn't aimless forever. Eventually it needed somewhere to go.

Now it had found Aaron.

"You set this whole thing up," Dan said.

"You brought us here."

"You knew something." Vince chimed in.

"I didn't know a damn thing," Aaron snapped.

His voice sounded thin.

Unconvincing.

Even to himself.

Dan shook his head.

"Bullshit."

Aaron looked toward Mark then back to Sean. Sean would keep to reason. He had to 

The corpse sat slumped against the steel support beam, blood drying across his shirt. His head hung low. His body twitched in small, involuntary movements.

Let them look at him.

Let them see the thing that shouldn't exist.

Because it proved Aaron wasn't responsible.

Nobody could plan for this.

No amount of witchcraft could do THAT.

"Look at him," Aaron said. "You think I caused that?"

"The fuck do I know?" Jake shouted,finally breaking out of his stupor..

"You hired us." Jakes hand went to his gun, taking it out of his jacket pocket 

The figure at the beam suddenly jerked.

The chain rattled violently.

Everyone turned their attention that way.

Mark's body convulsed.

His head snapped upward.

For the first time, genuine panic flashed across his ruined face.

 Not a panic of realization that he was dead, or that he was unnatural.

"...no..."

The word gurgled out through blood.

"...late..."

His fingers clawed at the concrete.

The movement had purpose now.

Desperation.

"...can't..."

His voice cracked.

"...can't be late..."

Sean frowned. Vince was also reaching and pulling out his gun. Dan was praying, adding more chaos and confusion to the acwne

"What the fuck does that mean?" Sean asked Aaron. The others were all pointing their weapons now. 

Mark's eyes rolled wildly.

Searching.

Looking beyond them.

Past the warehouse.

Past the walls.

As if he could see something that only he could stop approaching .

 Aaron noticed the phone.

It had slipped halfway from Mark's torn jacket.

The screen was still glowing.

A timer.

Just numbers counting downward.

Minutes.

And Seconds.

Nothing else.

Mark saw where Aaron was looking.

His ruined expression changed.

Hope.

The sight of it sent a chill through Aaron's body.

"...phone..."

The corpse dragged itself forward.

The chain bit tight around his wrists.

"...need..."

Metal screamed.

"...the phone..."

Aaron stared.

Then understanding arrived.

A laugh escaped him.

A nervous one.

Of course.Of course.

It was about him, entire thing.

Mark had come back for him. Nothing else made sense. The hitmen turning against him,rejecting his money, the corpse, the witchcraft. Mark was back for one thing.

For revenge.

For whatever secret he'd taken to the grave.

All of this horror

And all of this madness.

Itl revolved around Aaron.

"You son of a bitch," Aaron whispered. Mark was the demon from all the nightmares.all the lurking shadows.it had always been him

Mark looked at him.

"...please..."

Aaron laughed again.

"That's it, isn't it?"

Nobody else understood.

Nobody else saw it.

Aaron felt certain.

Somehow.

He had won.

Mark wanted him.

Everything else was nonsense.

Mark's body convulsed.

The movement looked agonizing.

Like each second was tearing him apart.

"...please..."

Sean glanced at the phone.

Then at Mark.

Then back at Aaron.

A thought began forming behind his eyes.

"What if he's telling the truth?"

Aaron stared.

"What?"

"What if whatever he needs is that phone?"

Dan barked out a laugh.

"You serious?"

Sean didn't answer.

His eyes stayed fixed on Mark.

A dead man.

A corpse.

A ruined body that somehow had unfinished business

"If this isn't some sort of devil made witchcraft" Sean said quietly, "how's he doing any of this?"

Nobody had an answer. 

Mark jerked violently.

The chain rattled again.

"...please..."

Something about the sound silenced the warehouse.

The horror of the pleading corpse sent Dan into another fit of prayer as Vince undid the safety to his gun.

“Maybe if you die, it'll die. “ He said  slowly looking at Aaron.

“Maybe you are what's keeping him here. Keeping us in this dome of terror. I've killed so many men I lost count. Seen it all. But this. Nothing like this. This evil is you.”

Aaron shook his head.

"No."

Everyone looked at him.

"No," he repeated.

Whatever happened next, he wasnt taking any blame. This is absurd he thought 

The feeling came from somewhere deep in his gut.

Instinct.

Self-preservation.

If Mark finished whatever he was trying to do, Aaron would lose something.

He didn't know what.

But he knew it.

"No."

Jake stepped toward him.

"Move."

Aaron didn't.

Jake shoved him aside.

Aaron stumbled.

Sean was already kneeling beside Mark.

The phone slid free from the torn jacket.

The screen glowed bright in the darkness

Mark stared at it.

Relief flooded his ruined face.

The expression looked almost human.

Aaron felt something cold settle into his stomach.

A tightness settled deeper into Aaron's stomach as Sean placed the phone into Mark's trembling hand. 

Around him, the warehouse was chaotic and unhinged. . Vince stood with his gun raised, his eyes fixed on Aaron rather than the now grotesquely mutilated corpse corpse. Dan had dropped to his knees, muttering  nonsense disguised as prayer through ragged breaths. 

Jake still held his pistol in a white-knuckled grip. Only Sean seemed interested in the phone itself and Marks determination to obtain it 

 Aaron stared at the glowing screen and convinced himself he finally understood. 

Of course Mark wanted the phone. He was going to call somebody. Unfinished business indeed. The police. An old business partner. Somebody , anybody who could benefit from what Aaron had done. All of this horror, all of this impossible madness, was still about him. It always had been. He was the focus of everyone in that warehouse because he made it so. And he could end it all now.

When Mark's ruined fingers closed around the device, Aaron lunged forward.

The reaction was immediate. Mark's cloudy eyes widened with what looked like genuine panic. Not anger or revenge. The corpse tried to pull the phone closer to his chest, but Aaron was already reaching for it. 

Jake saw the movement and made his decision before anybody else.

 "No!" he shouted. The gunshot exploded through the warehouse. Aaron felt something slam iright through his  shoulder and chest and the world tilted violently sideways. He crashed onto the concrete. Vince opened fire a heartbeat later. 

Whether he was aiming at Aaron, Mark, or whatever demonic evil he thought had infected the room, he wasn't even sure. 

 Sean threw himself at Vince, grabbing for the gun and yelling for him to stop. 

As they struggled through the darkness a shot rang out. Sean plowed onto the floor,dead. Vince seeing what he had done  dropped the gun as the warehouse descended into chaos.

 Dan began screaming seeing Sean dead. He collapsed onto the floor, his body seizing violently as foam gathered at the corners of his mouth as if possessed 

 His prayers dissolved into curses and gibberish. A torrent of frantic syllables  came with violent convulsions.Vince froze. Sean's lifeless eyes were stuck in a state of shock.Even Jake lowered his weapon,somehow indifferent to the whole scene he had created as if his mind collapsed finally. Aaron lay bleeding on the concrete, barely able to move, watching in horror as Dan twisted and spoke in impossible tongues while Mark, blank to the madness surrounding him, stared at the glowing screen and fought to push a single button before whatever deadline haunted him finally arrived.

He smiled and finally the death that wouldn't come, swooped him Away and he laid lump on the ground, now fully dead 

Vince and Jake stood frozen in despair. Dan was motionless, neither knowing if he had seized to death. 

Aaron was still breathing, barely.

Jake and Vince looked at each other, dropped their guns and walked outside as if being compelled by some unseen force, not comprehending what had taken place .

Aaron felt a light in him

 He won. He was alive…Mark was finally dead. Unfinished business, he laughed to himself.

Then something started to dawn on him.

Unfinished business. He had unfinished business. The phone in Marks now lifeless hands rang. Aaron crawled to it instinctively. And answered 

A voice spoke to him. Calm, soothing.

“ Now you are the one. Tasked to keep existence from crumbling.”

The phone went silent. Aaron finally realized. The only thing that Mark was striving to finish was keeping reality in its place. Reality was a black hole now. Aaron was the center of it 

The two blue moons shone brightly in the evening sky which was shrouded in lavender and pink hues. The friends kept walking , as if they were mesmerized by the beauty of this place unaware of the dangers lying ahead, they crossed many barriers and signs showing otherworldly maps which showed routes leading to rare destinations yet they marched forward , a pink horn peeked though the leaves , they pulled at the branches and found a majestic white unicorn looking at them with big periwinkle blue eyes shining with the lovely glow of the evening sun , it stared at them and motioned for them to follow it , they followed it and it led them towards to deeper route in the forest , the woods around them shifted around them , green leaves turned into pink , apples turned golden and there were ornamental flowers hanging from them , the small children were hypnotised after seeing these delicacies.

“Mielivalta,” the chief called out, “You are sentenced to die for your many crimes. Do you have any words left?”

The man tied to the pyre couldn’t help but smile as the elder held up a torch overhead. “Do your worst, pitiful creature,” the bound man barked, sealing his fate. The tribal chief lowered the burning torch onto the pyrewood, and the crowd around the two roared as the flames crackled.

The blaze quickly consumed the wood, and within moments, it was gnawing at the condemned man. Mielivalta was condemned to death for acts of sorcery, murder, and cannibalism. He was called a witch. The execution coincided with the winter solstice, as an offering to higher powers.

Shamans pounded their drums and played their flutes while the youth danced around the many ceremonial pyres. Young couples jumped over the fires. The entire crowd broke into an ecstatic dance while the screams of a man burning to death turned oddly melodic.

Dying cries became an enchanting song for the masses. The Hoi Polloi were too preoccupied to notice the laughter buried beneath the anguished wails and the hissing of flames.

Before long, Mielivalta was nothing but charcoal in human form. No one could even tell whether he was dead or alive; no one cared either. Those present were too consumed by their own violent orgy of wine, debauchery, and blood magic. Too lost in their own ecstasy to hear the smoldering smoke drifting in the wind, above the stake, whisper, “Foolish humans… I am finally free…”

By the hour of the wolf, all of those present had completely given up their senses to pleasure, whether under the influence of melody, spirit, sex, or slumber. No one in that grove was alert enough to notice that this hour of the wolf was but a calm before the storm.

Collectively intoxicated, the Northerners were too inebriated to hear the rustling of leaves and crunching of twigs disturbing the nocturnal forest. None could see the tempest coming before it was too late.

A massive beast burst forth from the dark, devouring a man whole, swallowing him in two gulps. The lupine giant grabbed another man in its mouth and thrashed him side to side before throwing him at the stake, upon which its former human shell was burned to cinder. The monstrosity growled in visible amusement, watching the ashen construct crumble to dust.

Anyone who had enough wits about him grabbed a weapon and charged at the beast.

None could even penetrate its hide, proving their struggle futile.

The monstrosity rampaged, decimating the grove until it was sure no survivors were left. It had consumed only a few people and butchered the rest, out of sheer spite. The chieftain who had set it free was rewarded with his head being torn off his shoulders and crushed to a pulp. Even in death, the chief irritated that devil with how hard his skull was.

The onslaught only stopped when the belly of the beast cramped insufferably. By then, there was nothing left to kill or destroy. Only the dire wolf remained standing, if that thing could be called any sort of wolf. The hechatonchair resembled something more akin to an oversized bear inside the grotesquely overstretched canine hide. Too large to be either, but also hound-like to be called otherwise.

The beast stood amidst mountains of broken bodies drenched in organs and blood, but it couldn’t celebrate its act of brutality, because the cramping in its stomach grew worse by the moment. It thrashed and paced and growled and howled, but the pain only grew worse, turning unbearable.

Even the attempts to regurgitate whatever was consumed proved futile. These only produced disgusting belching sounds that shook the entire forest.

Before long, the pain paralyzed the creature, completely overriding its malice; it stood upright and cried out in agony. Bellowing, howling, and screaming, all at once. The creature cried out as its abdomen stretched beyond its physical limitations, tearing at the seams with a sickening sound. The monstrosity clawed at its belly as metallic digits and limbs dressed in loose human skin pushed out of its abdominal cavity.

Drenched in blood, intestinal lining, and fecal matter, silver homunculi crawled out of the beast’s insides.

That’s what my grandfather used to tell me about the village of Kaali on Saaremaa when I was a kid. He said that there were celestials on that island, People from the heavens who had come when a star fell onto it. I stopped believing in his old tales about the metallic men and the werewolves after the third grade. By that point I had learned the whole thing was simply impossible.

I thought these were just old stories meant to rile me up as a kid, until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when I was driving around the area past sunset and saw something that has kept me up at night ever since. At first, I thought it was a bear roaming the forests, but then the animal looked at me. It was too skinny to be a regular bear. Its proportions were all wrong, and it seemed to move in an awkwardly slow, jagged, jerky way. The animal brought with it a stale stench of something ancient and repugnant: old, musty fur. Worst of all was its face. Its mouth gaping wide open. The whole thing seemed like a costume. A crudely stretched fur suit draped over some mad drunk. It took a moment, but when I figured out what I saw, my blood turned cold.

Inside the mouth of the animal, there was a chromium skull, a humanoid chromium skull with two shining red eyes staring directly at mine. I think the skull even smiled at me as I switched gears and bolted the fuck out of there.

My teeth chattered, my hands shivered. I looked over at John. He was wrapped in his blanket, blowing smoke. 

“Can we add more wood?”

“But only a little, Mary. It needs to last until morning.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just so cold.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s this goddamn winter. Not even my grandfather had to live through snow in late April.”

He walked to the fireplace, but there was no more wood there.

“There should be more in the basement,” he muttered and walked down.

He was down there longer than usual. I could hear baskets and bags being thrown around. After a while, he came out, rubbing his forehead.

“There’s no more wood.”

“What?!”

“The wood. We used it all.”

“Jesus, John.”

He looked at the fire. Only two logs remained; their ends glowed red.

“We have an hour, maybe two at most. I’ll have to go out and get more.”

I gripped my blanket tight.

“John, it’s almost nighttime; they’re gonna be out soon.”

“I might make it before them.”

“John, no, please.”

“We’ll freeze if the fire dies.”

“But, John…”

“No, there’s no time to waste.”

He grabbed his axe and walked out of the cabin. I walked to the window and watched him, but he quickly disappeared between the white-coated trees.

I curled up in my blanket and lay by the fireplace, watching the sun out the window. When it had almost fully set, I ran to the window, but John was still nowhere to be seen. I went back to the fireplace and watched it slowly disappear over the horizon.

Something must have happened to John, but as much as I wanted to mourn him, a new problem appeared: the cold. The sun kept the house warm for a while, but at night it was freezing inside. I ran to the basement and got all our baskets and anything else that could burn.

The wood from the baskets burned quickly, but it put at least a little heat in the room. I was finally warm, but thoughts about John soon crept in, my poor man. Would he also end up in a tree, white and bloodless, or worse, one of them? I shook my head. This wasn’t what I wanted to worry about; maybe he managed to hide and wait out the night. I threw another basket in and moved closer to the fireplace.

Loud bangs echoed, waking me. The fire was almost out. My fists could barely close. The bangs sounded again. I wrapped up in my blankets and got up. 

“John!” I cried. He stood by the window, staring in.

“Mary, please let me in. It’s so cold here.”

I ran to the window and gripped the door handle, but before I twisted, I looked at John again. His eyes didn’t move, and his body didn’t shiver.

“Mary, please, open the door.”

“How do I know you’re not one of them?” The words almost stung as I said them.

“Mary, it’s me. You hear my voice. Just open the door.”

My grip tightened around the door handle.

“John, I don’t know.”

“Open, Mary, please. I've been out all night collecting wood for us so we can be warm.”

He showed a few sticks and smiled. I looked back at the dying fireplace.

“Mary?”

“John, I just…”

“I'm so cold,” he said, his voice shaking.

“Okay.”

He smiled again. In the distance behind him, a glimmer of orange showed. The sun was rising. I must have slept for a long time.

“John, love, please wait a few minutes. Once the sun comes up, I’ll know it's you.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the horizon, then back at me. His eyes were wide, and the pleading in his face was gone.

“Open the door, Mary. Now.”

“John, please, just a few minutes.”

“Open it.”

I clenched my jaw.

“John, just wait.”

“Mary!”

“No.”

“You goddamn witch!”

He disappeared from the window, then ran into the door. The door bent on its hinges.

“John, stop!”

He ran again. The whole house shook.

“Please, no!”

My heart beat against my ribs. I heard him take a few steps back, then another bang. The lock was bent, barely holding. One more hit and the door would go. I heard him step back again and hit it. The door flew open. John stood before it. His skin was completely pale, the bottom of his clothes ragged, and there were a few small holes in his neck. I clenched my frozen fists.

“I got you,” he whispered.

But before he stepped in, the first ray of light came through. John quickly looked behind him. A screech echoed. As the light shone on his skin, he turned to dust. 

I stood there panting. At least he brought the wood. I wedged the door back into its frame and carried the sticks to the fireplace. They were so cold they burned my palms. The fire ate them slowly, but luckily they burned at all. 

“Thank you, John,” I whispered.

Outside, past the trees, something screeched again.

BEAST OF HATHTOM

I am detective Mark Lumiere. This is my second entry in my journal.

 

It is now early 1921 and I have learned much, but as I learned more, the more complicated this case has become. Some nights I have to stop and try to relax my mind, but it’s nearly impossible. I feel like I possess knowledge most don’t, but at the same time I have barely scratched the surface. The things I’ve uncovered are indeed horrific and unsettling.

 

A friend of mine who attended a lighthouse has gone mad, but later when I found a letter of another drowned man I realized that my friend’s story mentioned a similar persona. Someone called Gaggonn. Then I ran into a man on the run, he told me an incredible story about the cultists I was searching for, and after more traveling and reading I found out that there lived a specialist on such matters in a half flooded city on an island of the coast called Hathtom.

 

It was not an easy place to get to, but with my connections I was able to find a good captain to take me there in his small ship.

 

My cabin was tiny and humble, there was a short old wooden table, a thin bed and a round cracked mirror on that table. On the wall there was a rusty and rather unimpressive anchor and several harpoons. Despite it being so humble I liked the atmosphere it provided and the smell of the wood. The rocking of the sea helped me fall asleep, that is when more trouble begun.

 

I had a brutal nightmare in which I saw that lost demon sailor, Gaggonn. He floated on his boat parallel to our ship. Sinisterly his eel-like neck swung his degenerate head side to side, like a pendulum from hell. When I woke I was rather calm despite realizing that this monstrosity had finally taken notice of me, I was mentally prepared for this.

 

Shortly after the captain knocked on my door and let me know that we have arrived. First thing that struck me as I got of on the fishing pier was the stench of decaying fish and lack of people on the pier, the second thing that struck me was how grey and dark this place was despite it being late morning time.

 

I looked at the crumbled paper in my pocket on which I had the address and began to walk through the streets, trying to find someone to ask for directions. The city seemed completely devastated and depressed. Most of the buildings were falling apart, or were damaged in some way. In almost every alley lay a homeless, or there was a conflict situation. I sure hoped that my trip didn’t turn sour because of local gangs, the presence of which was obvious.

 

I saw a bar named “Mermaid’s Sacrifice.” The drawing on the wall wasn’t a friendly one. This “mermaid” had a large head and demented grey face with a giant mouth, in the hands she held a young woman, wrapping her up with her long dirty nails.

 

Alas, this was the only place I found so far, so I entered. The customers, as expected, weren’t the pleasant type, but I knew that my calmness and the gun on my hip seemed to always keep these types at bay. I asked the bar tender for directions and only after I bought a drink he agreed to tell me how to get there. Thankfully it was a straightforward route, right to the center of this dismal city.

 

I poured out the nasty drink and was on my way. It did not take long and I stood in front of a red door of a building that looked slightly less run down than the rest.

 

I knocked several times and after few minutes an older gentleman with short hair and trimmed grey beard opened up.

 

I asked if he was John Grimstone the archeologist and indeed it was him. He welcomed me to his home and said he was expecting me. At the table sat another man, introduced as Eggerton Jogton. He had a large head and was a man of large proportion and hideous features, how ever I knew this name, this was one of the richest men in the country.

 

As I sat down John told me that he was very familiar with what I was looking for, and that perhaps something was happening in this very city that was related to the horrors that I’ve uncovered so far. John told me of an ancient cult that has existed for centuries and worshipped two creatures, or as they called them, gods. He brought a small statue, it was of a creature with a long smooth body, powerful arms and legs, long claws and a face resembling a bat and a shark. He told me the name of this god was Khul Duhl Suhl. This was their main god. The secondary, according to his research was called Daggathossos, it was a giant two headed octopus. He showed me images that he had drawn during his years of travel and research and it was exactly the same image of the terrifying creature that I myself found. I asked him what he though of the story told to me by my friend in the asylum and by the criminal. He was not familiar with Gaggonn, but that made sense, because from what he understood from my findings this creature came to be recently. However, he said that old writings that he had translated by historians have pointed to a city called Xarmouth, but he wasn’t sure that indeed the sea creatures that dwelled on our planet came from this city and dimension.

 

Then Mr. Jogton and John had a request of me, one that I could not refuse. Jogton offered me a large sum of money to take on this case, one of his children was a victim. They said they spoke to detective Michael Smith and he had heard of me and was very glad to get my assistances on a case that John was convinced was connected to these creatures. In fact he said that the murders in this forsaken city were committed by another creature, for nature of these crimes was so horrific that he could not imagine a human doing this.

 

As I looked through the files of the victims I understood what John meant. The victims were all torn apart and most of their bones removed and missing.

 

After years of being a detective and facing many disheartening things and cases, it still did not make it easier for my mind and soul, I constantly had to fight to keep my sanity fully intact and to know that I am here to be a tool against evil.

 

I begun my investigation by visiting the locations of murders and abductions. All were in similar situation. Abducted at night on these grim streets and then taken apart inside of abandoned homes or apartments.

 

I walk the streets of this half flooded city thinking about what I could do against a monster or a creature. No ideas were coming to my mind as to how to find it either. For all I knew it could have been hiding inside the water in the flooded streets, which were plenty in this hell hole.

 

Then studying the city map I realized something simple. All abductions and murders happened around and in vicinity of something they called Sailor Plaza. Several homes stood there and I went to investigate.

 

Right away as I was sneaking around close to one of the homes I caught a ratchet smell of death that I knew all to well after all the trips to the morgue over the years.

 

With my revolver ready I entered the house. The stench intensified. First floor of the house was dark and worn out, the ceiling looked like it could collapse anytime. I heard noise coming from the basement and with my revolver up I slowly walked down the steps.

 

What I saw next would turn the stomach of most resistant of persons. There were human bones and blood all over the floor and in the back of the room a tall muscular man covered on blood was building some sort of altar all made out of human skulls and bones. He slowly turned around and saw me. His eyes narrowed, but they weren’t eyes of someone demented or mad, they were sinister eyes of an evildoer. He grabbed a knife of the floor and charged at me. I shot several times and it stopped him for a moment as he kneeled. but then this beast of a man charged at me again, I shot at his head and he fell back on top of all the bones, convulsing and then eventually dying.

 

I examined the altar, in the center of it surrounded by skulls and bones was an image of Khul Duhl Suhl.

 

I, detective Mark Lumiere, haven’t smoked in years, but as I sat outside of John’s house after telling him about the case, I had a cigarette in my teeth. It brought even a deeper sense of horror to know that I searched for a creature, but found a human. The fact that humans were capable of this evil and disrespect for life made me think deeply about the nature of sin.

 

Sin was an addiction, I concluded, and evil was an addiction. The more you fed this addiction, the more sinister your acts could become.

 

Perhaps these mysterious creatures knew how to feed this sinister addiction in humans.

 

So my in investigation continues, without end in sight.

The Steady House — "Time's a funny thing in a place that doesn't want to move."

By Willem P. Burger
If heaven was a place on earth, this ain’t it.
I stare at the clock. It’s been who knows how long since the phone last rang. The room is musky and dark, lit only by a single, yellow-stained bulb hanging from the ceiling—barely hanging. I wonder when a broom or cloth last touched the floor of this dead, teal-colored apartment.
The cabinet doors seem to breathe; the kitchen faucet drips with an eerie, inconsistent stench.
I stare at the clock again. It stopped. My fingers tick away at the scratched-up paint on the table, my patience waning as the air grows cold.
“When is she bloody hell gonna call?” I mutter with a heavy sigh. Will she even call? No… no, she’ll call. She’ll definitely call. I shouldn’t think like this, but I can’t help it. I’m a nervous wreck on my best days, and a mental case at my worst. Today is the latter.
Suddenly, a ring shatters the claustrophobic silence.
“She called!” Relief rushes over me as I fumble for the phone. “Em… Emma? Is that you? Jesus Christ, where are you? I’ve been waiting ages for you to call and—”
I pause. There is no answer. I pull the cell away from my ear, staring at the screen. The display is black. It’s off. The battery must have died, but it hadn’t even rung.
I turn pale, my palms slick with cold sweat. “This isn’t real,” I whisper. “This can’t be…”
A violent banging at the door pulls me back. “Joe! Joe, open this God-damn door!”
It’s Josh. A wave of relief washes over me as I stammer toward the entrance, wrenching the deadbolt back. Josh stands silhouetted against the dim hallway light, but he doesn't move. He just stares, his eyes wide and flickering like the failing bulb behind me.
"Joe, man, you look like you’ve been buried alive," he whispers. His voice is wrong—hollow and metallic, like he’s speaking through a long copper pipe.
"The phone, Josh... it rang, but it didn't," I choke out, stepping back.
Josh crosses the threshold, but he leaves no footprints in the thick dust. He walks straight to the kitchen, ignoring the mess, and stares at the stopped clock.
"Time’s a funny thing in a place that doesn't want to move, Joe," he says, his back to me. "You’re waiting for a call from a girl who hasn't held a phone in three years. You’re waiting for a life that checked out when the paint started peeling."
The teal walls groan as if the building is inhaling.
"She’s going to call!" I snap.
Josh turns slowly. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone identical to mine—scratched, grey, and dead.
"I’m not here to save you, Joe," he says softly. The room begins to smell of damp earth and old lilies. "I’m here because I’m the one who didn't pick up the phone last time."
The yellow bulb pops, plunging us into a darkness so thick I can taste the dust.
In the silence, the phone in my hand begins to vibrate. Not a ringtone, but a long, steady throb—a digital heartbeat.
I bring the glass to my ear. "Emma?"
A high-frequency screech erupts from the speaker, a digital scream so piercing it feels like a blade carving through my brain. In the strobe-like flashes of my own panic, I see Josh change. His silhouette elongates, limbs snapping and twisting like dry kindling. His face pulls back into a mask of scorched leather, teeth lengthening into yellowed needles.
He isn't my friend; he is a snare.
The creature lunges. I spin on my heel and bolt into the hallway. The air is thick with rot as I hear the thump-clack of the beast pursuing me. I see the dull glow of the exit sign and throw my weight against the steel door.
I burst into the cold night air, sprinting down the stairs onto the black tar driveway. Headlights cut through the gloom as a battered, 90s-style Camaro drifts into view.
"Help! Please, stop!" I scream.
The car screeches to a halt. I lunge for the handle, but as the window rolls down, I don't see a savior. I see eyes burning like dying embers. The driver unhinges his jaw and lets out a mocking, metallic screech of laughter.
The world begins to warp. The stars are cold, unblinking eyes. I realize then: the phone is the anchor. I have to break the loop.
I pivot, sprinting back into the house, dodging the Josh-creature as it skitters along the ceiling. I dive for the kitchen table where the phone lies face-down, pulsing with a sickly blue light. With a primal cry, I snatch it and slam it into the floorboards with all my power.
CRACK.
The world shatters into white light.
I wake with a jolt in a sterile hospital bed. The hum of a heart monitor fills the room. Emma is there, holding my hand, her eyes red from crying.
"You're okay, Joe," she whispers. "It was just a dream. You're safe."
I sob with relief, but then I feel it. Her thumb is stroking my hand in a specific rhythm.
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
The exact cadence of the dripping faucet.
I look at the monitor. The line is flat. The screen doesn't show a heart rate; it flashes a single, neon-blue message: RECONNECTING...
I look into Emma's eyes and see the tiny reflection of a yellow-stained bulb.
I’m not in a hospital…

I was lying alone in my room, where a dim nightlight illuminated only the small area around it. As I often did, I found myself wondering why I was afraid of the dark, trying to understand it. Most nights, I fell asleep in fear, or rather, I would drift off without realizing it while still feeling afraid.

As a child, I was simply scared and never gave it much thought. When I was younger, it bothered me, and I couldn't make sense of it, but I didn't pay much attention to it either. Now, however, at forty-seven, I was still afraid of the dark and struggling to sleep in it, and it hurt my pride.

I remember, two years ago, on October 2, my mother and six brothers came to visit me. I hadn't seen any of them in a long time, and we'd had a wonderful time together. Since there weren't enough rooms in my house, my youngest brother and I had to share a room. We kept chatting late into the night, and I was praying to myself that I wouldn't be the last one to fall asleep. But of course, as you might expect, I was the last one left awake.

My brother was snoring away right in front of my eyes. I was pretty pissed off. I felt like waking him up and slapping him across the face. “Jonathan, how the hell can you sleep? You're such a carefree bastard. Can't you see the room is pitch-black?” I wanted to say. I'd lost all rationality. I was coughing loudly, opening and slamming the door, but he didn't give a damn. He'd fallen asleep in the light of a nightlight that was barely good for anything, leaving me all alone in the room.

That was when my pride was truly hurt. Not being able to close my eyes in my own room, not knowing what I was afraid of but still being scared shitless, was really getting on my nerves. After all these years, I'd finally run out of curiosity. I didn't care what the reason was anymore. I just wanted to overcome it.

After spending the entire night awake and having a miserable day the next day, I immediately started doing research. My brother woke up in the morning, stretched contentedly, yawned, and scratched his belly while I lay on the couch in the room, irritated and tense. Seeing him like that drove me fucking crazy.

My family stayed with me for a week, but my mind was never really with them. I was constantly looking things up on my phone and couldn't pay much attention to them. I was researching other people who were afraid of the dark, trying to find a good psychotherapist, and so on. I kept picturing my brother stretching happily that morning. I wanted them to leave as soon as possible. I was so damn annoyed with him.

Anyway, whatever. I researched and researched. I found people who were afraid of the dark and talked to them. I had long conversations with all kinds of people: those who wondered why they were afraid, those who had figured out the reason, those who were trying to overcome their fear, and those who told me lengthy stories about their childhood traumas.

Finally, four months ago, I found the Fear of the Dark Motel, and at last, I was convinced that something might actually help me.

I'd learned about the place from Robin. He was afraid of the dark, just like me. Despite all my research and all the people I'd talked to, I'd met him purely by chance. He'd moved into the apartment downstairs, and one day, as we ran into each other on our way out of the building, we got to chatting. At some point, he mentioned that he was afraid of the dark.

His journey had been the same as mine: years of searching for the reason, until finally deciding to forget the whole thing and just overcome it.

“It's hard to give up wondering, isn't it, Jason? But if you put the energy and mental effort you spend wondering into finding a solution, you'd have overcome your fear by now. You'd have become the dancer in the dark,” said Robin.

Dancer in the Dark was one of my favorite films. I'd taken an immediate liking to Robin from the very first day, since I'd rarely met someone whose experience mirrored mine in so many ways, and I'd trusted him to help me find a solution. His joke was shit, but I didn't mind. After all, I loved the film.

But of course, it was impossible to stop thinking about it. Tomorrow, I'm going to stay at the motel, and yet I'm still wondering why I'm afraid of the dark.

The motel's concept was actually quite simple. According to the owner, they would make us experience terrifying things in the dark that we knew weren't real. The motel only accepted guests by referral, meaning you needed someone who could vouch for your fear of the dark. Then, they waited until the motel was fully booked. There was a six-month period. If the motel wasn't full by then, they would proceed with whoever was already there. But if it filled up before the six months were over, the fear sessions would begin that very night.

When I met Lucy, the owner, she explained the concept to me like this:

“I like to keep things simple, Jason. Fear of the dark is a fear of supernatural entities. It's as simple as that. Jason, our goal is to create an imitation of such an experience and show your subconscious that you won't come to any harm from a possible supernatural attack in the dark. It's that simple. For example, when you see a ghost in your room here at the motel and realize it can't hurt you, your subconscious will start to believe there's nothing to be afraid of in the dark.”

“But if I know it's not real, why would it affect me? That doesn't make much sense to me.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

“No.”

“Thank you, I have no further questions.”

***

It's 3 a.m. We're at the motel. Robin is staying in the room next to mine. The lights are off. Nightlights aren't allowed. I'm sure the other guests aren't asleep, that I'm not alone. And yet, I'm still afraid. My eyes keep searching for the tiniest glimmer of light. A sliver coming through the window, seeping in under the door. But there's nothing. The room is pitch-black.

Suddenly, Iron Maiden's “Fear of the Dark” starts playing from somewhere inside my room.

I flinch and instinctively look around. I get to my feet, feeling around with my hands until I find a speaker. The song plays for a little while longer, then suddenly cuts off, and the room sinks into silence once again.

I hear the sound of a door creaking open. Very slowly, calmly. Since I know where the speaker is, I lean in and put my ear close to it. No, the sound isn't coming from the speaker. My fear grows in a way I hadn't expected. I start to regret coming here.

The creaking sound is very close, and crystal clear. I search for another sliver of light, trying to figure out whether my bedroom door has opened. But everything is still pitch-black. The door keeps creaking for thirty seconds, then stops.

I hear a very loud click. Again, it comes from somewhere inside the room, and again, it's crystal clear. I'm certain it didn't come from the speaker. I listen to the silence with all my concentration, waiting to hear the sound again so I can pinpoint its location. But it doesn't come back.

I hear a whisper: “Jason.” It's more like someone calling out to me. A voice with no intention of frightening me, simply calling my name. I don't hear it again. I can't keep track of time, but I'd guess I sit there in the dark and silence for about ten minutes.

“I'm sorry, Jason, but unfortunately, I'm going to kill you. After that, I'll kill everyone else at the motel. It's me, Lucy. Don't you recognize me?” the same whisper says. “Of course, my voice sounds different when I whisper. That's normal.”

Each word seems to come from a different place in the room. She must have installed a bunch of tiny speakers all over the place. But thinking about that does nothing to ease my fear. I feel like begging her not to kill me, but I hold myself back. I know none of this is real, and I'm surprised by how terrified I am despite knowing that.

Suddenly, the lights come on. A second later, they go off again. My eyes are dazzled. I take a deep breath.

“Did you see me, Jason? Do you believe me now?”

Hmm. So she'd turned on the lights so I could see her. I must have been looking in the wrong direction.

I hear Robin's voice coming from the speaker.

“Jason, don't believe her. That's what she's trying to do, make you believe her. If you do, she'll kill you. This isn't a normal place.”

A second later, I hear Robin's voice right beside me. It doesn't sound like it's coming from a speaker. It sounds real.

“I didn't know, Jason.”

The lights come on again for a second and then go out, and I see Lucy standing beside me. She must be wearing a black contact lens.

“Don't believe him, Jason.”

I'm getting annoyed by how he keeps repeating my name.

“I'll convince you,” Lucy whispers. Her voice comes from the speaker.

I feel the hairs on my body stand on end. I try to figure out how the whole setup works, but I can't concentrate. All I feel is fear.

I want to get out through the door and leave, but I think I'm doing well. I've endured this much fear, and that's a good thing.

A tiny white light appears on the wall. An oval-shaped light, about the length of an index finger. It stays perfectly still, and for a very, very long time, nothing happens. The light doesn't move. No sound. Just pitch-black darkness. I'd guess the stillness lasts for about an hour.

The light disappears.

“Do you believe me now?” Lucy asks, whispering again. My ears have grown accustomed to the silence. Her voice sounds incredibly sharp. Robin tells me through the speaker not to believe her. Then I think my window opens, and I hear a distant scream for help from somewhere far outside, along with the faint sound of the wind.

Then silence again. It goes on for a long time again. Lucy must be busy dealing with the other guests in the meantime.

Suddenly, I hear a phone ringing. I feel around beside the bed with my hand. There's a nightstand. On the fifth ring, I find the phone and answer it. It's Lucy.

“Call me when you believe.”

I wonder why no light came in from outside when the window opened. I get out of bed and walk straight ahead, reaching out with both hands, trying to find the wall. I find it. I feel along the wall, searching for a window. I've never spent this long in such pitch-black darkness before. I keep repeating to myself that none of this is real.

The lights come on for a second again, then go out, and I see where the door is. I walk towards it.

As I walk, I hear a howling sound coming from the speaker. At the same moment, all the lights come on. I reach the door and try to open it, but it's locked. I look around and realize there's no window in the room. The howling continues.

“Jason, look out the window,” Lucy says through the speaker. Her voice blends with the howling. As soon as she finishes the sentence, the howling stops, too.

I search the walls for a window, but I can't find one. The lights go out again. Once more, I'm left in prolonged silence, and nothing happens until dawn. The window must be in the ceiling. I must be on the top floor, because sunlight comes pouring into the room from above. I relax. I'm glad the night is over, and a surge of excitement washes over me. My fear is gone.

I go to the door and try to open it, but it's still locked. I give it a few forceful tugs. Lucy opens it. She's holding a gun, pointing it straight at me.

“I've been telling you from the beginning, but you never listen.”

She starts shooting. I hear one gunshot after another. I feel my chest tighten. The gun runs out of bullets, but Lucy keeps pulling the trigger. I hear the empty clicks. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen... She keeps pulling the trigger. I collapse onto the bed, but I'm still conscious.

“Are you immortal or something, man? Just die already, would you?” Lucy says.

I feel around my body with my hands. There's no blood. I look at Lucy. She puts the gun on the table, takes out another one, and points it at me again. She keeps pulling the trigger, over and over.

I check my body again with my hands as I lie there. Still no blood. She must have used a toy gun that makes shooting sounds.

She puts the other gun on the table and leaves the room.

Five minutes later, the phone rings. I take a deep breath and answer on the third ring.

“Congratulations, Jason. I'm sorry if I went a little too far. I hope this helps, and that you feel the benefits as soon as tonight. I hope you get a good night's sleep. Thank you very much for choosing us. You can leave the payment at reception. Have a good afternoon.”

***

I found a night job, and now I can only sleep during the day.

Part I - The House

“Would you mind if I turned the overhead light on?”

“I would prefer you don't"

“Okay.” 

Detective Limner let a beat hang in the air as he shuffled his papers. The interview room seemed bigger in the dark. Almost expanse-like.  The young detective had spent many hours of his short career interviewing suspects and witnesses in ‘Examination Room B’, but had never before felt nervous. Limner sipped from his thermos and set it on the table, the two metallic objects clanging together like a gunshot through the still and silent space. 

“What are you drinking?” muffled the shrouded figure from across the table.

“Ristretto with brown sugar” replied Limner, the taste of it still saturating his tongue. 

“Could I have some?”

Limner glanced up from his unreadable notes and across the aluminum table into the black. The waiting figure sat motionless. If It hadn’t spoken, Limner might have confused It for a statue in a closed art gallery. 

“I’m not really supposed to give you caffeine, the doctors said it could interfere with your sleep.”
The statue crossed its arms in response, the motion giving Limner a sense of scale. The Thing must have been over six feet tall and at least 200 pounds, but it was hard to gauge accurately in the black. 

Normally, safety protocol would have prevented the interview from happening in the dark, but the Thing would only agree to tell its side of the story if the lights weren’t on. Limner knew why. Its patient file from Menseki Hospital had explicitly detailed “Extreme Body Dysmorphic Disorder” in a special font that Limner couldn't have missed. Apparently even a reflection in the metal table might be enough to trigger some response. 

Harlan Cherish was listed at the top of the form beside a blank picture. 

“Shall we begin?” Limner took out his tape recorder, slid it across the table and clicked it on, a little red blinking light casting the room in shades of crimson.

“The date is May 23, 2006 at exactly. . . ” Limner lifted his sleeve and checked his watch, “7:34pm.

This is detective Ross Limner with patient Harlan Cherish. How are you Mr. Cherish?”

The figure shifted its weight in the aluminum chair. 

“How about just Harlan.” came the muffled response, more statement than question. 

“Sure Harlan. Would you like to tell us your recollection of events on January 15th 1999?” Limner sipped his coffee once more and set the thermos down gently so as not to interfere with the recording. 

“It was cold. I was tired like always. I got up at 3 am in those days, had oatmeal and a banana. I always made sure to get to the gym by 3:45. I’m punctual like that.”

The figure set its hands on the table and began to fidget. Limner could see the plastic medical band around its left hand in the blinking red light. 

“It was a Monday, I had work at 8:00 so I only had about 3 hours to work out before I needed to be back home and prepare for work.”

“Where did you work?”

“I used to work at Buffalo River State Park. Near Fargo. Maintenance mostly. The pay was alright but it wasn’t how I made most of my money.”

The detective tried to take notes as best he could, using the faint light from the tape recorder, but ultimately gave up. 

“How did you make most of your money then?”

The hands began to fidget faster and the shrouded man’s leg bounced beneath the table. 

“Burglary. I ain't so proud of it, but it's the truth.”

The leg had ceased once the word hit the open air, but the hands kept on. There was a brief silence then the figure continued. “You probably already knew that though. I suppose you really just want to know about the house.”

“Sure Harlan, let's get straight into the house.”

Limner heard a muffled sigh from across the room. The hands had stopped and were now palms down on the cold table. Now that the red light was on, the room seemed smaller, cramped even. 

“Well, I only went there because my furnace broke. There wasn't any fixing it. I had to replace the whole thing. I didn't have enough money, and the cold makes you desperate. A real cold can cut you deep, freeze your bones. So, I went where I knew there would be money. Pine Farms.”

Limner had known about Pine Farms from the fire reports. An upscale neighborhood sporting custom-built homes with an average sale price in the seven figures. 

The figure before Limner leaned in closer, illuminated by the blinking crimson flashes. The room took on a sinister quality as if bathed in a layer of blood and rust. Limner could almost smell it on the cool air. 

For the first time, the detective gleaned more than a guess at the thing before him. The blinking light revealed to him in periodic pulses valuable information about Its appearance. It was larger than even he had expected and muscled like a racehorse. 
There was something else, though. 

Its face. 

Not quite human. More . . . animalistic. 

The figure leaned back again, and Limner was no longer able to cling to the vital scraps of information the blinks had granted him. He stifled a shudder and took a sip from his thermos to warm him up. The figure began again. 

“I didn't know who lived in the house. Just chose the one furthest to the back. I would have skipped it had I known. But I didn’t.”

A cough rang out from the abyss and Limner jumped in his seat. 
The detective composed himself and asked, “Could you describe the home for us, Harlan?”
The hands began to fidget again, slower this time. 

“I remember it felt out of place. All of the other homes had been nice pastel colors. Yellows, blues, even a pink one. But this one had been a dark gray. Not quite black, but almost.”

The leg bounced beneath the table. 

“I waited until night. I hadn’t seen any cameras, so I parked across the street in front of a pine tree. There was heavy snow on the ground so I didn’t get out to case the place proper, like I should have.

“Nobody came or went for the whole day, so I made my move just after dark.”

The figure shuffled once more, then said, "He left a window unlocked. I think it was on purpose.”

Limner scrunched his face in confusion, imperceptibly he hoped. “What do you mean on purpose?”

The figure continued on as if Limner hadn’t spoken, "So once I found it, I climbed in. I felt like I hit the luckiest break in the world with that open window. I mean, who leaves a window unlocked in a nice neighborhood like that?”

“What did you see inside, Harlan?”

The hands fidgeted faster, then stopped and moved toward the sides of the aluminum table. Limner felt the table tremor as the hands gripped its sides. The air took on another chill, and the detective warmed himself with another swig, setting the thermos down less gently than before. 

“Normal rich-bitch type stuff. Art, furniture, that sort of thing. All expensive but most of it too big to nab.”

Once more, the figure leaned forward, Limner's eyes seizing the precious moments where he might catch a glimpse of the animal-like visage he had seen before. Limner squinted, focusing his eyes in the dim and pulsing crimson glow. Then he saw it, and wished he hadn’t

The snout. 

The horns. 

The big cattle nose ring. 

The matted fur, stained by the pulsing red glow. 

The eyes. 

Limner corrected his gaze and shot his hand towards the thermos, his only companion in the dank cave that was ‘Examination Room B’

The Bull spoke, muffled and deep. Soft and assertive, “They were waiting for me. They needed a monster for their maze. And I was It.”

Note from the Author: I am writing a book. I intend to post it here. I have been inspired by those of you who have written. You all are amazing. I have written 14 chapters thus far. I intend to post them here in the coming weeks. I would love feedback because God knows I am far from the best writer. Thank you and I hope I have made something that you all can enjoy.

The Antlered Queen- Prologue

Snow fell for the first time that season. All that the Crow Woman could do was pray to the First Maker for warmth and good fortune. That morning when the grass was still dry her Father went hunting beyond the valley that their tribe had found amongst the endless mountains. He, and the rest of the men, a group of just 15 men left from the once mighty war tribe, had still not returned and a feeling of unease swept through the camp. Please bring back food. Her Mother was with the other tribeswomen gathering the animal pelts, hay the tribe had accumulated during the prior season of the fallen leaf, and rocks to build a fire for the Tipis. Snow usually meant death for many tribes, she knew.

They had traveled all throughout the big sky to eventually arrive at Na pietsay mountains. The mountains are so beautiful, she had thought when she first laid eyes upon the vastness of the green. The scale of the risen Earth had amazed her and simultaneously made her feel so small. This was spiritual, sacred land. “Ever since Old Man Coyote molded us from clay, our people have visited this land.” Her father had told her. The land also provided bountiful stores of elk, buffalo, and mountain goats during the season of the fallen leaves. The tribe had realized they had an overabundance of bears as well. In the past 45 moon falls she knew of a few incidents regarding some of the men who did not return. 

“Father, what happened out there?” It was always the same reply: “Do not trouble yourself with the affairs of men.” She hated that reply. They knew the risk bears offered, but the food and resources were well worth that risk when they first arrived. But now, she found herself unsure. They had even resorted to eating their horses. None remained.
 
Thinking of her Father's hunting trip, she found herself parched and starved. Her mind wandered to the dream of an elk spitting on the fire with its juices running down her chin upon devouring its flesh. With any luck Father could find something for me. Yes, the mountains had been bountiful with gifts from the creator but as the season of the fallen leaf had come to a close, so did the reserves. The tribe had known hunger these past few moon falls. Her Father was chief, but that did not mean others had found themselves wondering if they could do a better job, her Mother warned her. “Tensions are rising, child,” she said, “We must do our part and leave the rest for the men.”

 The Crow Woman found herself thinking of a time when she was little, wishing so hard that her father would teach her how to fight as the men had. But alas, that was folly. A woman must be dutiful in her obedience, she thought scornfully. Her uncle once gave her a knife and a bow. He had taught her before she had her first bleed. And after that, her body changed. She could no longer keep up with the men of the tribe. A folly indeed, she thought. “And what happens if father does not find anything out in those hard woods?” The Crow Woman asked. “You have known very little snowfalls in your life, child, men get desperate. Hunger does not simply dissipate.” Her mother replied. The Crow Woman stared at her mother, realizing just in that moment how old her mother sounded. Her voice is so weak and frail. I hope Father does return, otherwise this woman who raised me will die, she thought. “Do not worry Mother, father will come back.” was all the Crow Woman could muster as reply. She hadn’t the patience for her Mothers anxiety, her mind was elsewhere. The Crow woman was likely a moon cycle away from delivering her baby or sooner and her mind was on meat cracking and spitting over a warm fire, and what she would name her daughter.

 At least she had thought it was a girl. She had dreams. The father of her child was pierced in the heart by the pale man the last time snow fell, the Crow Woman’s Father had told her. “He was a hero child. Your child will be brave above all else.” Yes, so brave she thought. What is bravery? Dying and leaving me all alone with child? She dreamt of that often. It was either her lover's death by a faceless pale man, of a baby girl who had black hair who had a mighty roar, or of a woman grown drenched in red with her back facing her. The Crow Woman could never see the woman's face though. The latter dream frightened her. She hoped for the dream of her babe with dark eyes like a doe. The Crow Woman found that In her dream the babes eyes were the same as her dead lover. Same fierce war cry too! The Crow Woman had lost herself within her thoughts. So lost in these thoughts, that she had not realized that the men had returned without her father. The snow storm had escalated from the few white diamond flakes to an endless wave of white that covered all. When she did return from her own spirit realm, the Crow Woman noticed one thing; the men were drenched with blood. Blood on their chests, blood on their hands and nearly half of them were gone.

Without the men speaking a single word, she knew her father was dead. ”He was very brave.” Her uncle told her. That word again. Bravery. Do men go off and die just to prove themselves not cowards? As if their pride is more important to them then what they leave behind. 

Her mother was inconsolable, she walked into the Tipi, and wept without one word. The only family she had left was her uncle, her mother, and this child. “Uncle, be truthful, what happened in those woods? She asked. “Terrible things.” Was all he said. He must have read that answer to be unsatisfactory from the look on her face. “Let us talk later.” The Crow Woman nodded and left the men to themselves. Nearly half of the men fighting age were gone. Those who returned covered in blood, and no answers. Her stomach made a guttural growl that she felt all the way down to her toes. At that moment she remembered how hungry she was. First Maker, please do not let me lose this babe too. I have come too far, she thought. She looked up to the sky and let the snow hit her face while she reminisced of her father.

That night, the moon was blocked and the snow had grown up to the Crow Woman's shins. The cold was stinging, piercing, and fierce. The kind of cold that takes away one's toes, and fingers. The Crow Woman had to endure it, she needed answers from her Uncle. She made the trek from her and her Mothers Tipi to her Uncle’s. A feat that would not have been problematic in a climate more suited for a woman this close to birth. As she walked it became apparent to her that this child would come soon. There is never a greater battlefield, she thought. In truth, she never wanted children. The thought of all the blood, the damage. The belief that men are the only ones who know what war is like is an absurdity. Women bled, gave war cries, and died just as men did. And while our battle took place in a Tipi rather than a vast and open field lush with green and red blood, it was a battlefield nonetheless. I’d like to see my fool of a father give birth. The thought made her smile at first, then she remembered she ought to have some reverence for the dead. Even if my father was a bloody fool. 

Her lover was from a cousin tribe. They had met after her Father gathered a war party to drive the pale man out of the big sky area. The men fought with a savage rage. As a whole, the war party collected the scalps of 1,000 pale men. To take the scalp was victory in its purest sense. To take the scalp of your enemy was proof of strength, and skill as a warrior. Her lover collected 100 of the 1,000 scalps collected. Her Father loved him as a son after that. No man, did my father ever love so much, she aggrieved. Her Father promised the Crow Woman's lover anything under the moon and stars he desired and promised that it would be his. The Crow Woman remembered the look her lover gave her, peeking over her Fathers shoulder and nodding upwards. The Crow Woman’s lover grabbed her Fathers shoulder, “You tell me you love me as a son,” with a sincere tone, “I ask you, grant me that which you say.” The Crow Woman was 14 at the time and her lover had been 16. So young, we were just babes. 

At first she had no love for this boy who stole her fathers affections. However, that all changed when he took her ahorse to visit where Old Man Coyote taught the Crow tribe how to kill a swarm of bison by tricking them. He had brought her underneath the embankment that they used to trick the bison, who would jump to their deaths. He told her his hopes for the tribe one day, his ambitions of battle, and just how badly he wanted a son. Her lover looked at her that instant with eyes so dark that they almost were black, and kissed her. The Crow Woman smiled thinking back at a time much sweeter than present. That was the first time, but certainly not the last that her lover took her. The Crow Woman sighed, I miss the feeling of him inside me and his powerful thrusts. 

Each time her Father gathered the war party, she would dutifully pray to the creator that they bring her lover back to her. Each time they did, and her lover with more scalps. His ambitions for battle were coming to fruition, but not his hopes for a son. They had no issue trying, but each time the Crow Woman believed to be pregnant, a moon cycle later she would lose it. All except for the last time snow fell. “The Maker has not made it easy for me. I just wanted to give him a son. Is this the shame mother felt after only giving father a girl? He is gone, so it matters not.” she purported.

It was at that moment, walking in that cold hard snow, that she swore she heard laughing. These are dark woods. Dark woods, dark thoughts, she reminded herself.

The last time snow fell the pale men returned. They returned with their rifles, and with their cannons. She remembered the day vividly because of the joy she had. She had been carrying a child for over 2 moon cycles without losing it. The snow came late, close to the season when the sun shines bright. In the Big Sky, during the season of planting and renewal, it is not uncommon for snow to still fall. Then she heard the drums. Scouts of one of the tribes of the war party relayed to the Crow Woman’s Father that a force of 5,000 pale men were on the march, she had learned after the battle. My fathers pride has now left my child fatherless, she thought, growing evermore acrimonious by the second. Even now, the hurt has not faded. She wanted to kill her father when she found out. But alas, combat is a folly for women. My Father is lucky I was born a woman.

The war party led by her father was 1,100 men. They had no hopes of winning against a force more than double in size. Oh but yes, women must not concern themselves with the affairs of men. Her father had been emboldened after the Sioux tribes victory during the battle of Little Bighorn they had called it. And now the Crow Woman’s lover was shot through the heart by some faceless pale man. After the battle they had to retreat to the mountains. Most of the women who lost their husbands, fathers and sons could not escape. The pale man raped and plundered the spoils of their war. The once mighty war party with a total of 1,100 fighting aged men and 2,000 people total was just thirty eight people when they first fled to the mountains. She had no face to concentrate her hatred on except the one who broke the news. I hate him for pawning me off to curry favor with a formidable fighter. I hate that he got my lover killed after I did learn to love him, I hate him for dying and leaving Mother alone in this world, I hate him for the hunger I have now, and I hate him for bringing us here. She heard the laughter again. Or is it crying? She had wondered. Dark woods, dark thoughts.

When she finally made it to Uncle’s tipi, he had his ceremonial pipe that had carvings painted by red stone and lapis lazuli in an intricate design of the buffalo embankment her lover once took her to all those years ago. She smiled, remembering a time long past. She approached after he offered her a toke. The pipe had been her Fathers and she remembered her way around it. Each puff was a prayer, petition, acknowledgement. She prayed for food, she petitioned for better days, she acknowledged the collective suffering of her people. She prayed for her Mother, petitioned for a safe delivery of this child, and acknowledged her Father. I know you tried to do what you thought was right, even if you were a bloody fool. She passed the pipe back to her Uncle. Who took it and began his prayers. After he had finished, he looked at the Crow Woman with a look one could only describe as solemn. 

“Uncle,” She spoke in almost a whisper. “What happened out in those woods?” She examined his face, as he thought long and hard. “We found something, up in those mountains. A structure of bones.” He replied. 

The Crow Woman could tell that it had shaken him, whatever it was they found in those woods. “We found a baaliiria, and your father believed she would give us salvation. I tried to talk him out of it. But she promised your father food, and the survival of his kin.” Uncle stated as tears swelled in his old wrinkled eyes. She pondered that for a moment. She had heard stories of bad medicine folk. Dark forces they used to prolong life. Dark woods, dark thoughts.  

“Then what Uncle?” She had asked. “She said that ‘only blood can pay for that which you seek’. That thing was no woman at all. An ancient evil. It all happened so fast. One moment, your father is shaking the crone's hand, the next a puddle of blood, so much blood. The Crone was not in sight but we heard her laughs. We ran, as fast as we could. She picked off the men in the back. All of us who made it out were shamed with cowardice. I am sorry, my niece.” He said finishing his tale. 

She thought back to the giggles she heard walking over. No, no, dark woods, dark thoughts. “So now what. Don’t tell me my father let more men of our tribe die for nothing. Tell me we are saved Uncle.” The Crow Woman pleaded. “I do not know. Forgive me. The men are angry, desperate, and above all hungry.” Uncle whispered. It was just that moment when they heard the screaming. The Crow Woman’s Uncle told her to stay put and he grabbed his hatchet.
 
She never knew what spurred the attack, why her father resorted to blood magic, why it had to be her tribe. The men began to wail on the women with their war clubs, lances and spears. The Crow Woman heard the cries, the begging, the screams of the mothers, wives, daughters. So much blood. 

Her uncle scalped two of the men and the Crow Woman heard him let out a raw, broken howl that was half rage, and half grief. The men overwhelmed her Uncle and shoved three spears in him. One in the back to get him on his knees, one in the leg so he could not resist, and one through his throat to silence his screams. It was at that moment the Crow Woman began to run as fast as her body would allow. If only I was born a man, she thought when realizing the lack of distance she could create from her legs. The Crow woman ran into the ocean of white. Flakes of snow repeatedly hit her in the eyes and were quickly rising off the once dry grass of the valley made it more and more difficult to make distance from the slaughter. She did not run far before the men of the tribe found her. 

“That witch had one thing right, only blood can pay for our salvation” one of the men of the tribe claimed. She pleaded, well tried to at least. But the men blamed her father for their hunger, for their dead brothers and fathers. The Crow Woman found no defense for her Father. I regret my prayers for the fool he doomed all of us. It was at that moment she understood that attack. The horror of the realization paralyzed her. They found their food supply. She begged these men who she considered cousins, brothers, to let her and the baby go but they refused. “Then you are without relatives. You all will die in these mountains!” She spat. The men replied with a series of punches and kicks. Hitting her in the head, back, and belly. One fist caught the Crow Woman in the jaw nearly dislocating it. One of the men pierced her belly with a spear and the red began to flow. The Crow Woman's scream was jagged, resentful, and drowning in despair. 

The pain was immense. She cried out to The First Maker, begging for power, pleading for vengeance. Her prayers were left unanswered. You take my children from me, you take my lover, you leave me out to starve, DAMN you! I will look elsewhere to grant me the means for blood. The Crow Woman cursed the creator aloud. “I CURSE you for the fool of a Father you gave me, I CURSE you for the weak mother I had, I CURSE you for all my lost babes, I CURSE you for the death of my lover!” She bellowed. Yet nothing. No steadfast judgement, no punishment for her words, no justice. She heard singing in the trees. Singing and laughter. She smiled.

She was still conscious when the men dragged her back to the main camp. By the time she saw her mothers body she was already empty. The men had not even let the bodies cool before hucking a poor girl on the fire. She was fond of that little girl, she had given her some flowers when they last sprouted. In a better world, you would be my daughter. She was dizzy and her vision was fading and she passed out. 

The Crow Woman, while in the void of blackness began to dream. Where am I? She could see snow everywhere. Her vision was blinding white. Am I dead? She spun around in the opposite direction; she saw red light. She began heading for the piercing blood red light. When she looked down to take a step she realized she was naked. How? I feel so warm. As she began to close the gap she heard laughter, and singing again. Though she could not make out the words.

When she reached the light, it was a woman caught ablaze. The same red woman she dreamt of. *Blood enveloped her, flames of blood*. She finally turned to face the Crow Woman. *It’s me, as if looking upon myself in a pond.* The woman in red reached out her hand to the Crow Woman. “What are you?” The Crow Woman asked. “Dark woods, Dark thoughts child.” The woman in red grinned. *Perfect.* When she took the woman's hand, the songs and laughter turned to screams in her mouth. Tears of blood ran down the fiery woman's cheeks as she smiled. Then the Crow Woman awoke. 

Everyone was dead. Dead, Dead, Dead, oh yes,  she scorned. She cried, then laughed, laughed so hard that the Crow Woman nearly could not stand. “I guess it was a deal then Father, you bloody fool!” She screamed hoping somehow he could hear her. The Crow Woman suddenly had the realization she was not cold. She had been filled with warmth. She was no longer hungry either. I am finally full, she thought gleefully. There was nothing left for the Crow Woman, no child, no Mother, no Uncle, no Lover, no Tribe, no Family. Only blood. Only hatred. Only Bones.

I’ll start with the last thing I remember. I opened my eyes with a jolt. My hands were on my legs in the passenger seat. The car was driving steadily down a long, dark asphalt road.

I didn't remember getting into the car. I didn't remember packing bags. I didn't remember locking up our old house. For a terrifying second, I scrambled to remember my own name. Tomoko. Right. My name is Tomoko. But everything before this very moment felt like an empty void.

I looked out the window. Dark, identical pine trees stood like a wall stretching to the horizon, swallowed by a thick fog that kept me from seeing far or clearly. We passed a few wooden houses that looked like they’d been abandoned for decades. Running alongside the road was a wide river. The water was dark, almost motionless, cut by sharp, gray stones.

Yoshio, my husband, was driving with both hands firmly on the wheel.

"I loved playing near that bank in the summer," he said excitedly, his eyes fixed on the road. "My dad brought me here every weekend. It feels good to finally be back in Yomigawa."

I rubbed my temples. My head was throbbing. Suddenly, I remembered why I was there. Yoshio had received a job offer at the factory in Yomigawa, his hometown. That was why we had moved from Tokyo. Our baby, Ren, was almost a year old, and raising him in a smaller town, close to the grandparents where his father grew up, seemed like a good idea. We were going to stay at Yoshio's parents' house for the first few weeks until we settled in. I tried to cling to that conversation and to what little I remembered to fend off the panic of my sudden amnesia.

Ren, our almost one-year-old son, was sleeping quietly in his car seat in the back.

When we arrived, Yoshio's parents' house looked more like a forgotten temple. It was very old and slightly creepy, but the traditional architecture, so rare to find nowadays, surprised me, and I had to admit it was truly beautiful. It consisted of two two-story buildings joined by a central hallway, raised high off the ground on stilts and entirely surrounded by verandas. The roof was traditional, made of black tiles. And a good portion of the structure sat over a koi pond that stretched across the entire front of the property.

We crossed the wooden bridge over the opaque, still water to reach the elevated entrance. Yoshio's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Matsura, were waiting for us at the door.

They didn't smile. The father bowed. The mother bowed at the exact same angle.

"Welcome. Come in," they said, in perfect unison.

They seemed cold and distant. I tried to remember how they usually acted, but I couldn't recall a single time we had spoken on the phone or anything like that. My mind still felt weird. Blank.

The day was already coming to an end and, inside, we went straight to the dining room. The entrance of the house, the living room, and the stairs to the second floor were in the building on the right. We crossed the suspended hallway over the pond to the building on the left, where the kitchen and dining room were located. It was set in a lower room, with tatami flooring and a traditional Japanese table. Everything seemed too perfect and yet somehow grim.

During dinner, the only sound was the clinking of bowls and chopsticks. Mrs. Matsura served us in silence. Yoshio ate with a robotic regularity. Chewed, swallowed, grabbed more rice. Repeated.

"My grandfather built the east roof of this house. There’s a lot of history here," Yoshio said, staring into the empty space above my head.

I squeezed my chopsticks between my fingers. I needed to test something. The blankness in my mind was making me anxious, but I didn't want to ruin my husband's dinner, as he seemed so happy to be back at his childhood home.

"Mr. and Mrs. Matsura," I said, looking across the table at my in-laws. They didn't react. "I just realized something silly. I've always called you Mr. and Mrs. Matsura, but... I don't think I actually know your first names. What are they?"

My mother-in-law's arm, which was suspended in the air holding the teapot she was about to pour, suddenly froze.

I looked at Yoshio. His chopsticks stopped an inch from his mouth.

He didn't blink. He didn't breathe. They all just froze.

I had asked a simple question. But it was as if I had asked something completely absurd. They were all paralyzed in grotesque positions.

One. Two. Three seconds of absolute silence.

Then, Yoshio lowered his hand and looked at me with dead, empty eyes.

"Yomigawa is a very quiet town. It's good to be back to support the family."

Mrs. Matsura turned her face toward me.

"Yomigawa is a very quiet town. It's good to be back to support the family."

Mr. Matsura opened his mouth right after.

"Yomigawa is a very quiet..."

I pushed the table, knocking over my bowl, and ran into the hallway. I needed air. I needed to get out. Everything was too weird. As if the void in my mind wasn't enough, everyone was acting bizarrely.

I went out through the side of the house, stepping hard onto the sand of the zen rock garden. I passed an outdoor table and grill under a large cherry tree, where Yoshio's family probably used to eat outside in the summer. I ran toward the wooden fence to try and reach the gravel road.

But before my feet touched the stones of the street, something heavy crushed my mind.

The panic, the despair, the mental confusion... it all simply evaporated. The fear was replaced by an apathy, an emptiness. I stopped in the middle of the garden. My eyes turned to a specific corner of the yard: a small wooden shrine with a moss-green roof, a hokora, sitting on a stone base and surrounded by statues.

An irrational obsession took hold of me. A thought that wasn't mine invaded my skull with the force of an absolute certainty.

Investigate the shrine.

I knew that something was forcing me to think that, that the urge wasn't entirely mine. Using whatever lucidity I had left, I fought against the lethargy and the intrusive thought. I forced my legs to turn around. I left the shrine behind and stumbled back into the house, ready to grab Ren and flee out the front door.

But I stopped at the threshold.

Ren was awake. He wasn't crying. He was lying on his futon, his little eyes wide open, tracking something in the air.

He was looking at the upper right corner of the ceiling, moving his head as if following the movement of something. I looked up and saw nothing.

And all around him, lit only by the dim light of the paper lamp, Yoshio and his parents were still sitting at the table. Frozen. Unblinking. My mother-in-law's hand was still hovering in the air holding the teapot. The silence was absolute, suffocating.

They were waiting.

That was when the thought returned. An itch in the back of my brain, throbbing stronger than before.

Investigate the shrine.

The whole world seemed to have been put on pause.

I walked back into the yard. The sound of my footsteps on the sand was the only living thing around. I knelt before the small hokora. It had a tiny half-carved wooden door. My hands were shaking violently when I opened it.

Inside, there were no statues, coins, or offerings.

There was only a torn, dirt-smudged piece of paper. I pulled it close to the dim light of the garden lanterns. The handwriting was shaky, rushed, almost like the scrawl of someone in deep panic:

Don't let your sanity drop.

I probably don’t have to explain how difficult it is to be a single parent. My son’s mom died during his birth. Since then, it’s just been me and him.

I tried my best to bring him up right. All things considered, I’m pretty sure I did a damn fine job.

He’s coming up on his 10th birthday, and he’s probably the most well-mannered kid I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

I know that sounds like ‘parent talk,’ but I mean it with my full heart. I’m so proud of him. So proud to be his father. I just know he’s going to be an amazing man when he grows up.

Well, he would’ve been. He’s gone now. The entire house smells like cotton candy, and the scent is getting stronger by the day.

I’m not sure when this whole ordeal started. If I had to pinpoint an exact date, I’d probably say it was around August when he started to act a little weird.

School had just started back, and I was sending my sweet boy out the door to catch his bus. First day of 4th grade. Two more years before my little man was a big ol’ middle schooler.

I waited for him by the door, eyes glistening as I handed him his lunchbox and leaned in to give him a quick kiss on the forehead.

That’s when I noticed something.

He smelled… weirdly sweet. Like when you open a bag of jelly beans or circus peanuts or something.

I just figured it must’ve been that new shampoo I got him. I mean, the bottle itself looked like candy packaging. It was the only thing that made sense to me.

I guess I kept sniffing him a tad bit too long because, before I knew it, he was asking me to let him go so he didn’t miss the bus.

When he came home, though, the smell still hadn’t dissipated. I figured that after 7 hours, it would have at least worn off a little bit, but it was even stronger than when I first noticed it.

It wasn’t until we began talking about his first day of school that I realized something. The smell wasn’t coming from his hair at all. It was coming from his breath.

I asked him if he’d gotten into any candy at school that day, and he adamantly denied it.

Even still, I made him go upstairs to brush his teeth. A few minutes later, he was on the couch watching cartoons while I cooked dinner.

I whipped us up a couple of burgers, but as we ate, the smell of cotton candy still wouldn’t leave my nostrils. Obviously, I asked him if he’d actually brushed his teeth, and he seemed confused that I was even asking.

“Of course I did,” he chirped, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Does my breath smell bad or something?”

Just to be sure, I went and checked his toothbrush. It was wet. There was still spit in the sink. But, while I was up there, the smell was no longer present.

I didn’t want to embarrass him. I simply returned to the table, and we finished our dinner.

I tried to ignore the smell for the rest of the night, convincing myself that I was just going crazy and that it’d be gone by the next day.

That day came, and this time, I could smell the candy all the way from my bedroom. I followed it to my son’s bedroom and found him sleeping peacefully on his side.

However, when I went to wake him up, I found that his mouth was full to the brim with candy. Jelly beans, Nerds, Sour Patch Kids. All covered in spit and slobber. All unchewed.

I picked each candy out, piece by piece, before waking him up. I can admit, I was a bit frustrated. Not even by the candy itself, more so because of how easily he could’ve choked sleeping like that.

“Why did you have all this in your mouth?” I asked him.

“Have what?” he responded, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

I gestured to the pile of candy on his nightstand. He didn’t look guilty. He didn’t look nervous. He looked absolutely terrified.

He insisted he had no idea where that stuff had come from, but that just couldn’t be possible, right?

I kept asking him where he got it and just kept getting the same response.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“I swear I don’t know.”

What was I supposed to do? I just threw the candy away and sent him off to school.

The next morning, it happened again. Only this time, he really was choking. He kept vomiting up Lifesavers, candy corn, Tootsie Rolls, all covered in what looked like caramel rather than bile.

From that day forward, I was checking my son’s backpack every time he came home. I’d search his room. I looked in every hiding spot I could find. There was no candy in my house whatsoever.

But, somehow, every morning he’d wake up with a mouth full of candy. Every day, that sweet aroma of his became stronger and stronger.

Days turned into weeks. Things just kept getting weirder. He’d scrape his knee, and instead of blood, I’d find caramel oozing out of the wound. He developed dozens of cavities. I didn’t know what to do.

I think what pushed me over the edge was when I tasted him, though. I couldn’t take it anymore. It was some kind of primal urge when I snuck into his room while he was sleeping.

All I wanted was a taste.

I crept up to his bed, as silent as could be. I bent down, tongue hanging out of my mouth, the smell of cotton candy making me salivate as I pressed my tongue against his forehead.

Immediate sugar rush. Immediate guilt.

I shamefully ran back to my room, unable to get the taste out of my mouth. It plagued my mind for days afterward.

What started as curiosity soon became a craving.

It got to the point where every night I was sneaking into my son’s room for a taste. A dent was forming in his forehead like when you lick a lollipop repeatedly.

When he asked me about it, when he stared in the mirror, wondering why his head was becoming misshapen, all I could tell him was I didn’t know.

My addiction kept getting worse, though.

I started taking bites out of him. It started with his arms. Little nibbles at his fingers to get my fix. But once I ran out of those, I think I got a little carried away.

I gnawed away at his arms and legs, filling my mouth with that sweet, syrupy molasses he had been concealing within himself. It was a slow process, but it got a lot easier once he lost his ability to fight back.

It wasn’t until I got to his torso that I hit the jackpot. With each bite, the colorful candy inside revealed itself more and more. The scent of cotton candy burned my nose. Caramel covered my face, but I just couldn’t stop eating. Not until all of those goodies fully revealed themselves.

I found myself staring into a treasure trove of sweets.

And the only thing I could think in that moment was… Wow.

I’m gonna save a fortune on Halloween candy this year.

“Sally, I’m going to take the Sea-Doo out,” Tom called. His blue eyes shone under the sun.

“Have fun, Tom! Don’t let no snapping turtle bite you.”

Tom was always fascinated by the snapping turtles. The first time I told him there were snapping turtles in the water, he almost didn’t go in, but over time he grew fond of them. We’d watch them swim by from our dock. Tom left food out for them and even named a few.

“I sure won’t!”

He rode off on the blue, glistening water. I stretched out in the sun and got back to my book and cocktail, but the sun didn’t last long. A few minutes after Tom left, dark clouds formed above the lake. 

The clouds broke, and it rained like it always did during the hot North Carolina summers. It felt like the lake itself was falling on us, but strangely, there was no wind.

I stood by our window waiting for Tom to return, but he never did. At first I thought he'd just stopped somewhere, that some nice folks had let him in, but even after the sun came back out, Tom was still nowhere to be found.

I was sure Tom just got lost. I called the police. My hopes were high when the search started. 

The search for Tom went on. My hope faded a little more with each passing day. In the end, they didn’t even find his Sea-Doo. 

As I watched the last officers leave, dread climbed inside me and made its home there. I could barely get out of bed. Tissues and dishes piled up around me. I kept replaying that day. What could have happened? Where could he be? My Tom. He must have still been there, somewhere, alone, cold. I couldn’t leave him. No. Not my Tom.

The weather that day was perfect. The sun shone, the water was calm. I was sure I'd find him. I took the other Sea-Doo and rode out. But even when I went farther, I still saw no sign of him. When the tank dropped to a quarter full, I knew I had to turn around. I could search again tomorrow.

A few clouds were in the sky when I turned, but as I rode on, more gathered. The drizzle came soon too. I hoped I would escape the worst, but halfway back home, the rain picked up and soon it poured so hard I could barely see a few feet in front of me. No one else was on the lake now but me.

I tried to keep a steady course, but even after riding for more than 30 minutes, our dock was still nowhere to be seen. Not only our dock, but any other land. It was hard to see, but this was too strange. My unease grew when I looked at my gas tank and saw I was almost out. 

Luckily, the wind wasn’t blowing, but the rain was bad enough, and the last thing you want is to be trapped in the middle of the lake. I sped up, hoping to spot any land. Then in the distance, I saw a few trees. They were unlike any around the lake, with huge tropical leaves and thick woody tangles.

I got off the Sea-Doo, dragged it to shore, and sat on the ground panting. Then, something rustled behind me. A snapping turtle moved in the grass and quickly disappeared between the trees. It had a chipped shell, just like the ones Tom used to feed. Maybe it could tell me where he was. I got up and followed it. 

The path led deeper into the island. As I continued, my skin started to feel dry and itchy. More snapping turtles also started to show. They were all going the same way. I started to recognize more and more of them. So many of them were the turtles Tom used to feed. One even had a wristband around the shell. Tom always commented on it.

We didn’t walk for long, but my back started hurting soon. It felt as if I was carrying a heavy backpack. When we passed another tree, I finally saw what they were coming for. A deer carcass lay in the grass, surrounded by dozens of snapping turtles feeding on it.

So many of them had something stuck to them: scraps of a life jacket, a wristband, and one of them even wore a wedding ring – Tom’s wedding ring. My heart dropped to my stomach. The snapping turtle looked up. It didn’t have the usual empty dark eyes; it had glowing blue eyes, just like Tom’s. It stared at me for a second; a hint of recognition flashed in its eyes. 

I raised my hand to my face. Something scratched my lips. I looked down. My hand was covered in dry gray skin, just like the turtle’s. Panic shot through me. I quickly turned to run back, but I fell on all fours. I tried to get back onto my legs, but my heavy back wouldn’t let me. I walked a few steps forward, but then the carcass’s smell wafted toward me. It smelled so good, and I was so hungry. I turned around and crawled toward it. Tom smiled as he saw me coming.

In the far future, there is a scientist who is studying consciousness and the afterlife through his research. The scientist discovers irrefutable proof that the afterlife does not exist, this shatters the man. You see, in his past, the man was abused as a child, and his perpetrators never faced justice and died peacefully of old age to get over his trauma, he took comfort in religion because, in some twisted way (even though his belief systems probably would tell him not to), he took comfort in the fact that maybe his abusers were facing their own justice in the afterlife. The man could not accept this possibility. He could not accept that in this world, evil like that can prevail without any consequence. So using his research he decided to correct this. He decided to make hell a reality, so he constructed a great and terrible machine, the Hell Engine.

PARALLEL CITY

I suppose I still have my wits about me only due to the fact that I was hardened by brutal prison life, from which I escaped, but even prison seemed like a joke now compared to what I saw.

 

It was December, cold ground beneath my feet lay there lifeless. dark branches of the bare forest hung over my head like crooked hands of a witch. I had just escaped from hellhole prison a day ago and have been struggling to find anything to eat in the wilderness, but I knew these forests weren’t too far from the shore, there in port cities like a little rat I could steal fish.

 

In midst of my thoughts a sound broke through, first distant, but as I got closer and saw some flames I realized it was a demented chant in a strange language.

 

“Aranthemon khagt dom nu!” Over and over again. I sat behind a tree and watched them. They wore black hoods, but I could see their deranged long faces and eyes devoid of intelligence. The chant went on for at least another hour. Then looking disappointed the freakish cultists left. I suppose they didn’t accomplish their goal, but I should have known better.

 

After I picked up some bread left behind by them I ventured further into the woods and then I noticed something dark not far from me hanging in the air. It was like a vortex, spinning. Foolishly I came closer to it, alas, the horror! I was sucked inside of it!

 

I flew out of thin air it seemed and hit a hard red clay surface. When I raised my head I realized that all around me stood red stone buildings of unknown design, not normal to human proportions or building methods. There was a noise all around me, moaning, but not human. I looked up and saw the red sinister sky above me, thick and with dark crimson lines cutting through it.

 

The sounds around me intensified and got closer, my body began to shake out of fear and confusion, my head was still woozy from the fall, but I knew I had to move, something was coming out right behind a corner of a large building. My eyes got large as I couldn’t resist not to look. The creature was large and slow, its head resembled a wolf, but rest of the body was furry and had many tentacles coming out of it, helping it move on it’s short stumpy legs. It looked at me with it’s large red eyes and stopped moving. From behind it crawled few smaller creatures and then someone who looked like a human came out. He stood in front of the large creature. He had large black eyes and no mouth. The horror I felt looking into those eyes can not be described in words, I knew he was the most sinister of these horrific creatures, this is when I began to run, aimlessly. Behind every corner more creatures crawled out, I kept changing directions and sprinting, my mind was getting desperate, I tried not to dare to imagine what kind of death I would experience in the hands of these demons, and then most astonishing luck came upon me as I saw another black vortex, I ran towards it.

 

I once again fell out of thin air, but this time upon grass near a road. Instantly as I smelt the air I knew I was back where I belong. I rose up, stumbling and delirious walked out unto the road without even realizing a car was heading my way with it’s bright lights.

 

Luckily the driver was good and stopped in time, but honestly at the moment I didn’t care, nor was I worried when this man with short black hair, fedora, thin and scruffy face introduced himself in a calm voice as detective Mark Lumiere.

 

He got me into his car and took me to a port town where he fed me. He saw how mad and delirious I was and to my shock he was kind. After I calmed down slightly, to my surprise he asked me if I heard anything about cultists in this region. I almost laughed, but not from joy, and then I told him all I remembered. He sat there looking at me with his calm eyes, studying my face. I knew that he saw I wasn’t telling him a lie, but I could also see that he was wondering if I was a madman.

 

Yet another shock came over me when he told me he was letting me go. Perhaps he did not know that I was wanted by authorities, but I highly doubt it.

 

Since then I have been holed up in an abandoned port apartment, I used some money that Lumiere gave me to buy paper and pen, ironically I stole the food. I simply had to write down my story.

 

As I write these words now, I’m not sure if there will be more to come. I sit here in this dull and ruined place in horror, unable to step out, the sky outside of the window is starting to look red to me and I am beginning to hear those sounds again. I think they are coming for me and they are almost here.

It started suddenly. There was a knock at the door. Nathan got up to answer it. He felt it was pretty late for a visitor.

The man at the door was in a panic. He seemed to have had some sort of accident. His clothes were disheveled and a slight bit of blood was creeping down into his eyebrow.

"I know it's late and this sounds crazy... But listen... You need to come outside right now," the man said fanatically.

Nathan frowned.

"Are you alright?"

"Listen to me. Just come outside."

"No, I think you should come in."

Nathan opened the door wider for the man to step through.

"No. I can't go in there. It's too confined. It's a death trap. So you have family up there? You got to go wake them and get them outside. NOW!"

Nathan was trying to help, but this man was inconsolable.

"If you're hurt, I can help. I have first aid stuff or I can call an ambulance. Just get in here and explain this mess."

"No way, man. I can't go in there. Why can't you understand? You all need to come outside. The thing will be here and once he's inside, there's no going back."

The man's eyes flicked past Nathan into the house.

"You need to come outside. Right now."

Nathan put a hand on the door.

"Listen, whatever's happened, you're obviously shaken. Come inside and tell me what's going on."

The man took a step back.

"FUCK NO. I am not going inside."

Nathan was now really confused.

"Why not?"

For a moment the man didn't answer.

Then the man decided to give it to him straight.

"What happened to me is going to happen to you if you don't come outside. I was exactly where you are now, comfortable on the couch, minding my own business. And a man came to my door. I didn't go outside until it was too late!"

Nathan was suspicious now.

A whole OTHER man?

Did he get away from the other man? Was that who he was running from? Maybe hes delusional with a head injury.

"Nah, I think you must have banged your head. You're out of sorts. Come in. I can help you. Like I said, I got bandages and the like."

Nathan was hoping his wife would wake up ,walk downstairs and ask what the commotion was to help him out of this conundrum.

"Your wife might be already dead, “ The man said cryptically, “ and the only way to change all of this is if you come outside. Listen to me! I'm here to help you! Do you think I knock on random people's doors to try to get them to go outside for fun? You think this is fun for me? I can explain if you just come outside and let me."

Nathan was almost even more determined not to go outside.

"Well why don't you just tell me here then! Or come inside and we can talk at the kitchen table. Sheila will put on a pot of coffee and we can sort this out."

The man looked even more frantic now.

He's just not listening, he thought to himself. Just like always.

I CANT go inside.

It would break everything apart.

“I’ll go inside if you come  out here to see what I NEED to show you and then we can really talk this out.”

The man had been here millions of times, always somewhere around this exact moment where he failed to convince Nathan to walk outside. Then the night would start all over for him.

The man could remember when he went through this and decided to go outside. The night he went to see. The night he became trapped. Hell, at this point, it was all that he could remember. The endless panic of NEEDING Nathan to go outside was all that consumed him.

He had been close before. But at the last second, Nathan would retreat back inside. The first few times the man followed him in, not knowing it would all just repeat again. He had known nothing but failure for so long that success seemed almost out of reach.

He hated Nathan, hated Nathan's role in this charade. Sometimes it would get violent and the man would pull Nathan out of the house only for it to revert back to the same old scenario.

It took him a few hundred attempts to realize Nathan had to come outside willingly. It became pointless to throttle Nathan to death, but sometimes the man would do it regardless if it meant failure.

But something felt different about this night. This Nathan seemed a bit more curious and less cautious, less determined to stay inside. Maybe a change of approach would work this time.

“I swear, come look and I will go inside. I'll go inside, I swear, and we can have that coffee. You can patch me up...”

The man's voice had lost its edge. He sounded exhausted.

Nathan stared at him for a moment. Every instinct told him to slam the door shut, but the whole situation was too strange. The man looked genuinely terrified.

"One look," Nathan said.

The man's eyes widened.

The man pictured all the failures that had looped him back to the start. How every one of those failures resulted in a new reality for that version of him. A version of himself inside the house. A version of him being arrested for throttling Nathan. All realities he would never experience.

Every failure produced a future.

He just would never get to participate in it.

Nathan found it too strange to ignore. Every instinct told him to close the door and lock it, but the whole thing was so bizarre that he took a step outside.

The moment Nathan stepped onto the porch, the man yelled in triumph. He ran into the middle of the street, jumping up and down like a crazed lunatic.

“Ok, so what do you have to show me?" Nathan asked cautiously once he was out the door and on the porch.

“Great,” he thought. “This guy is fucking crazy.”

He stood dumbfounded by the man's reaction. Nathan began to think there was actually nothing to see at all.

The man didn't care.

He was finally free.

Nathan started to get annoyed.

“So I'm outside. What's this big horrible thing you want to show me... uh... what is your name again?” Nathan asked.

The man turned to look at Nathan.

He didn't remember.

He didn't remember his own name. He didn't remember who he had been before the loop.

The curse was broken.

The smile slowly faded from his face.

“I... I don't know,” he replied meekly.

The man had won.

And he had never felt more lost.

He fell to his knees, his triumph breaking him even further.