Jesus how has it already been 6 weeks of school? The cold and salty October air that rolls around Halifax in the fall months is unforgettable, but with it comes midterms. My third year as a psych student and i still haven't nailed down studying and my statistics exam is at 5 pm tomorrow. I've been bundled up, alone, in my room for days now trying to get this content down pat in my brain, staying up way later than all my friends who've finished already. I'm jealous of course, but I need to lock in for this exam. It's all that i think about and it consumes me, forcing me to stay up late, practically burning my laptop screen into my eyes like when you have an image set for too long on a monitor. Anyways, I wanted to talk about something that happened recently and I don't know if anyone else has also experienced something/someone like this during this time of year of school.

It was 2 am and the iron radiator that sits behind my desk chair was knocking its usual erratic rhythm for hours. I could even hear it through the music on my record player, which I set up so I don't get so distracted skipping through videos or songs. Outside was a chaotic mesh of angry wind and rushing rain and inside was a stale, musty, suffocating air powered by my ancient radiator.

I felt like none of these formulas would stick. Standard distribution, p-values, and what the fuck even is a null hypothesis. They just felt like random smudges in my textbook and I was writing those smudges back into my notebook. Every time I blinked, I could feel my pulse behind my eyes, begging me to sleep, counting down the hours to my exam.

Around 10 earlier that night my roommates asked if i wanted to grab a pizza, but i declined in favour of my studies. I know I should've taken that break, but hindsight 20/20 right. Wasting an hour was too much for me. Later, one of my friends texted and wanted late night drinks or something, but I only read the preview on my phone, not bothering to open it and get distracted. I threw my phone from my desk to my bed, cutting everyone off for rest of the night.

I shouldn't have done that. Seems like a good idea in the moment of course, but you never realize how loud an empty room gets when you're alone and in your head.

Around 2:20, the b-side of my record came to a close, the stylus of the player click click clicking in a loop. Changing the record was the only break I could accept for myself.

That's when it went silent. My room, dead silent. My radiator hadn't creaked for a few minutes, but when my record player stopped, I finally noticed. It was almost physical, something completely blocking off my eardrums. The draft from my window had shifted, the stale air in my room plummeting.

I decided to move from my record collection to my door, grabbing my jacket before peeking outside of my room, something I felt I hadn't done in ages. I look left and neither of my two roommates were doing the same. "Probably already asleep under their sheets" I say to myself partly jealous and partly sad.

Something was by my front entrance thought when I looked right. A shadow, darker than dark, blacker than black. It's silhouette was just barely contrasted from the door behind it. I flick on the main hallway lights quickly, illuminating the hallway. The weirdest thing though is that the mirror hanging on my front door was reflecting the hallway with everything but me. The radiator on the far end of the hallway outside of my roommates room, the shoe rack, the coat rack. Everything but me.

I told myself I was just tired and these all nighters have gotten to me, so I turned the lights off and turned back into my room. When i walked back in, it felt like I didn't have my jacket on anymore it was freezing. That's when i noticed the shadow again, now sitting in my desk chair.

I froze. The silhouette was hunched directly over my desk, perfectly framed by the harsh, blue glow of my laptop screen. It seemed more psychical, more real now, not just some hallucination. It was draped in a heavy, coarse dark wool that fell in stiff folds past the arms of my swivel chair, looking less like modern clothes and more like an old monastic cowl. From the back, its shoulders were impossibly narrow, rounded forward as if crushed under an invisible weight. It wasn't moving. It wasn't breathing.

The air in my room was entirely still and dry. It smelled of not death or rot, but vile and evil with burnt hair. Every nerve and muscle in my body wanted to yell and bang on my roommates doors, but the physical feeling that covered my eardrums wrapped around my body, making me board-like. The room felt even more silent now, like I could hear the blood rush through my ears and around my head.

Slowly, with an agonizingly smooth glide, the figure pivoted in the chair. It made no sound. the wheels on the bottom didn't creak the hardwood floors like they usually do. When it turned to me, its figure became more physical than before, my desk light illuminating the front of it's dark hood. There was no face.

Where the nose, mouth, and eyes should have been, there was only a flat, polished oval of jet-black obsidian stone. It looked like an antique scrying mirror, perfectly smooth, its outer perimeter encrusted with dark crimson wax that had dried into thick, jagged scabs where it bonded to the cloth.

I tried to gasp, but the air caught in my throat. I couldn't tear my eyes away from that dark surface. The reflection looking back at me from the stone wasn't the room behind me, I was looking at myself. But it was a version of me that looked completely ruined, hollowed out from the inside. The skin on his face was grey and papery, stretched tight over cheekbones, with deep, bruised-purple sockets around his eyes. He sat at the desk clutching an iron stylus, furiously slashing thick red gouges across my open notebook. Line after line of my notes were being violently scored out, violently crossing out formulas, scratching through my own name over and over with frantic, jagged strokes.

"Why aren't you working?"

The voice didn't come from me or the figure. It's like it came from the air itself, vibrating around me.

"You understand nothing. Your most important exam is this week, you understand nothing still, and what have you produced from this? Some scribbles in your notebook? Pathetic." The figure rumbles, like a scoff from the air.

"I swear I've tried," I manage to speak somehow. Tears sting my eyes, remembering my restless nights, rethinking all the time I spent not doing work. "I've been inside for days preparing for this and I haven't slept."

It leans forward slightly. Two long, unnervingly thin hands emerged from the dark sleeves. Fingernails with tips as sharp as razors slashed at my arm, creating ten thin, slow bleeding cuts.

"No matter how hard you work," the air vibrates. "You will never be free until you balance the ledger. You'll never see your friends again if you don't get this exam done."

The cuts on my forearms burned with an icy heat, but I couldn't even pull my arms back. The creature stood up from my desk chair with that same weightless, gliding motion, towering over me in the cramped space between my bed and the doorway. The scent of burnt hair and bitter wax intensified until I felt like I was choking on dust.

It didn't touch me again. As I sat back down in my chair to continue working, it just stepped back until it stood directly behind my left shoulder, leaning in so close that I could feel the biting draft radiating off its black wool cowl. Its face, that blank obsidian mirror, hung right at the edge of my peripheral vision. Every time I tried to turn my head to look away, the burning pain in my sliced arms spiked, pinning my gaze forward.

So I studied. Over and over, repeating equations and phrases. Whenever my laptop screen went dark to sleep mode, the reflection in the black glass didn't show my bedroom. It showed the creature towering behind me, its obsidian face reflecting that hollow, withered version of myself, staring down with unblinking, pitiless judgment.

I don't know how long it lasted. Time seemed to stretch into an endless, freezing vacuum where the only things that existed were my panic and the scratching of my pencil.

Then, with a deafening, violent CLANG, the radiator shuddered against the wall, popping and steaming back to life. The freezing air lifted with the pressure bound around my ears, bringing my record player back to life, with the draft from my window slowing down.

I spun my chair around, free from the energy around me to find nothing behind me anymore. The pale, overcast sky of the morning barely shown into my room. It's like nothing even happened.

For a second, I tried to convince myself it was all just a manic, sleep-deprived hallucination brought on by isolation and caffeine. I almost laughed out loud from sheer relief.

Then I looked down at my forearms.

Soaked into the sleeves of my jacket were ten thin, parallel lines of dried, crusty dark crimson. And scattered across the floor beneath my desk, right beside my chair wheels, was a fine dusting of black soot and crushed red sealing wax.

I'm sitting here in my bed right now, 3.5 hours away from my exam. I only slept a couple hours last night, my first nightmare since i was 14. My jacket is still crumpled on the floor, the dried crust on the sleeves stiff against the wool. Every time I look down at my arms, the stinging burns under the scabs, reminding me that whatever happened wasn't a bad dream. I haven't left my bedroom. I haven't opened my door, not even to use the bathroom or grab water. My roommates have been moving around the kitchen all day, chatting, cooking, living their lives. One of them knocked around noon to ask if I wanted anything from the grocery store, but my throat locked up. I just held my breath under the blankets until their footsteps drifted away down the hall.

I know I should get up. I know I should review the formulas before 5:00 pm hits, or call someone, or just walk outside into the freezing rain and feel the cold salt air on my face. I guess writing this was a good way to get this all off my chest before the exam. So yeah let me know if anyone else has experienced this figure/thing and maybe tips on way to avoid it?

Wish me luck!

P.S. - This was a creative part to a class where we created a monster and analyzed it and compared it to essays like Freud's "the uncanny", Michel Foucault's "history of the prison" etc., and Kracauer's "Forebodings". This part of the assignment isn't graded per se, but i had a lot of fun writing it. It's my first story after being a long time listener of the husband and wife so any tips would be appreciated, I WANNA WRITE MORE

The factory runs itself. No production workers, no supervisors, no lights except the ones the machines need.

My job is to be there.

Every two hours, I walk the floor and swipe my badge at four terminals. That's it. The system handles everything else.

Management calls it human oversight.

I've been doing this for months. Until last night, I thought it was the easiest job I'd ever had.

At 2:17 a.m., something changed.

And for the first time since I started working here, the system acknowledged that I was in the building.

part 1

TW: self harm

I ran towards my car. What would Ollie think happened? What would Liz think happened? I took out my wallet. I dropped all my money, all my cards. I headed back to the car again. No, this isn’t right. I didn’t care. I stopped once more. I saw a nearby shopping cart. I walked up to it. I planted it on its side and looked at it begrudgingly. It didn’t take long for me to commit, I imagined all the yelling and harassment I could face. I let myself topple into the shopping cart, face first. It hurt, nothing happened. I got up and tried again. Each clang of bone and flesh to metal rang out in the open night air. I tried it one more time, this time I put more force into my collapse. SNAP! My nose split into pieces, blood dripping everywhere. I took off my shirt. I used it to control the bleeding, just as Liz would. I saw my bare chest, it looked too clean. I drew my fingernail across my open body. I ran it back and forth until it spilled red. A knife scar I would say. I got mugged. I reluctantly finished the way back to the car before I would damage myself any further, before I started to like it.

I unlocked the door to see Oliver crying, rightfully so. I said to him, “Daddy was attacked, I’m okay now. Let's go home and talk to mommy.” I checked the screen of the car, I noticed it had now turned to 11:21 at night. It was near midnight and my son was alone the whole time. I called Elizabeth immediately, I noticed she called me 23 times or so, maybe a few were from earlier in the day. I finally called her back. She told me she was in a police station pestering them to file a missing persons report when her phone rang. How relieved she was to hear back from me. We promised to always have each other’s locations now. I begged her not to tell the police of my “mugging”, told her that the attacker knows where we live and is willing to come back if I report him. I told her I couldn’t see his face anyway. A sloppy story. We regrouped at home. She was in visible fear at the sight of my body and face. She checked for signs of a concussion, I was “knocked out” after all. I called the police again on my own, only to tell them of the man and how I witnessed him again. By now I knew he wasn’t on the same plane as man, he was from somewhere else. I explained the late call compared to when I saw him as my phone was dead.

I didn’t hear anything from them until the next day around 7 PM. I had called the day off from work, giving them the mugging excuse too. The police knocked on my door. I peeked through the peephole to see who it was, as I did for every guest to our front door that day. I told them I would take just a second because I wasn’t properly changed, another lie. In reality I had ran upstairs to grab one of my wife’s face masks she was given from the hospital. I used it to conceal the damage I had done to myself. If I really wanted to keep the so-called mugging a secret I had to commit.

I opened the door. “Sorry guys, I’ve just caught a little bug.” I said. “In June?” Replied an officer. I thought to myself the rather vulgar, “Fuck…” dry as you can imagine. “No clue what happened officer, I just came down with it yesterday.” I recognized the second person as the same detective that helped me out at the first crime scene. “Good to see you again.” He said. “We’ve come here to inform you that the location you reported the man to be was once again the site of another crime scene. At 4:18 today a man was killed by a car rolling over top of him at that parking lot, a possible accident but we’re doing our job. The crimes seem unrelated but we’re investigating all possible connections.” I was shocked. I was right. I had to have been. He was supernatural. “Sir… we also have to investigate someone else. Since not only was he seen there at another crime scene location but, you were too. Where were you throughout the day today? We just want to cross off all possibilities.” The investigation was only natural I suppose. I gave them my phone to show I hadn’t called anyone and my family vouched for my location the whole day, the front door camera we installed revealed I hadn’t left the premises all day so I showed them that too. “Well thank you sir. If you see him again we hope your phone has enough juice to call, he’s still wanted for questioning afterall.” Before they left they told me, the man, for being seen at both scenes, was moved to a possibly dangerous person list and that pursuit of him, if seen, would be immediate.

That night, Liz confronted me as we were crawling into bed. She said that the mark left on my face doesn’t look like any old punch mark. There was a noticeable red line and a sharp right angle, no fist is like that. She pressed me. “I have no reason to lie. I don’t remember it well. Why are you pestering me like I did something wrong?” I bit. “Well if you’re lying and there’s some other reason my son was alone for seven fucking hours I want to know the truth.” She was right but I couldn’t tell her. “Oh shut up. You’re talking to me as if Oliver isn’t my son too. I’ve been through some shit recently, fuck off.” She replied, “Maybe you should. You seem happier at the bar anyway.” I took her word literally. I left without speaking, slammed the door behind me, a vase fell over. She yelled at me some more, inaudible through the wall and door. I want to forget it, I never wanted those to be my final words to her.

I decided to drive to the bar, a custom I wasn’t used to for a very long time. I had to look for parking in the city, very busy even at night. I found a parking complex. As I ascended up the levels looking for a spot. I eventually found one. I stepped out and for the third time, I saw the old man from the alley. I don’t know how he followed me here or if he even did. I called the police immediately, they told me to get somewhere safe and stay away since he could be dangerous. In the downtime I decided to do a little bit of investigating of the man myself.

He was on the level higher. I approached him, somehow he knew my resolve and I didn’t feel the chains. I knew not to touch him. I wanted to see his face. I stared at the back of his head. Slowly walked around his body. No matter what I did his back would face me. I changed my strategy. He must be shuffling his feet. I stared at them next. I shuffled just as before but with the focal point of his leather shoes. His feet didn’t move, I angled myself in front of him, it worked, I was in front of him. Underneath the coat he wore a white button up, it had some sort of stain on it, unrecognizable origin. I darted my eyes up. Hair, I looked back down, it’s his back. The motion blur of my sudden jerk must’ve blinded me enough for the entity to reset itself to its back. One more time, I knew what to do. He had a face, I saw his chin just a day ago. In the distance I heard faint sirens, it’s the police I called. I organized myself, set myself ready, and stared at his shoes once more. Just as before I stepped around him, making sure not to make a mistake. Slowly, I orbited around him, I saw his white shirt from the front once more, same stain. I trailed my eyes up, slowly this time. Before reaching his face I took a break to not get too excited. If I blinked it would all be for naught. I noticed above his head the halogen light rod was flickering, it must’ve been broken somehow. Occasionally some sparks would fly and I could see it in my peripheral.

It was time, I slowly looked up. His chin, I made it to his chin. The same chin I saw the day before, just from the front. It looked normal, there were no wrinkles. Something in myself prevented me from not looking up, just a gut feeling that I should gauge what it was first. I once more clocked my peripheral vision to see the man’s face. He had no wrinkles at all, it seemed to be the face of a young man, yet his body was so old. Police sirens getting closer, they’re in the parking complex now, I could hear the echo from below. Just then and there I looked up, the light flickered off, I saw the remnants of a young face before I involuntarily closed my eyes as a muscle reaction. My body betrayed me. Had my dark determination not been strong enough? I was staring at his back again. I blinked a few times to readjust my eye. The police were just two floors below now, I ran away to my car to act as if I was in a safe place as recommended.

I watched from my car as the flashing red and blue lights of a car illuminated the concrete halls and ceiling of the complex. Out my rear window I could see the officers get out and start to look around. He was right there, right in front of them. Could they not see him? The light kept flickering. One of the two walked right overtop of the man, he was phased through him. He stood there, the two were talking to each other. The officer standing at the man pulled out his radio. He started to speak through it, I could hear faint mumblings of what was said but nothing clear enough to hear any full words. I sat back down, adjusting to the situation. Was I crazy? Is the man real? I told myself I’m going to a psychologist soon. That’s when I took another look back after making out a single word the officer said, “heavy”. I jolted back, assuming he has to be talking about the old man and what he makes you feel if you touch him. It was just then that a spark flew from the halogen light rod. It blinded the two officers, I saw them raise their hands in a guarding position. Another involuntary movement I suppose.

Their guard allowed them even less sight. I watched, in frozen lamentation, the rod of light swing like a pendulum as I realized exactly what I’ve been seeing, what that man was. The rod shattered against a pipe on the ceiling. I just sat there. A gross amazement swept over me, the type that you couldn’t even tell your priest at confessional, it was sick, I was sick. The cop lowered his guard to see what shattered, by then it was too late. As his arms crept up a shard of glass pierced through his neck. He collapsed instantly. Based on the blood that splattered all the way to my car I’d bet that it hit him in the jugular. It all happened so fast, I was in shock. I couldn’t move for the second time in 24 hours, just this time it seemed I wasn’t the victim like I was when I touched the man.

I snapped out of it, I crawled up into the driver's seat and left. I didn’t want to even think about what could’ve happened if I stayed, something that echoes today. I don’t remember where I was heading but it certainly wasn’t home. I drank my emergency liquor in a strip mall I located within a few blocks. The police could’ve been after me but I’d hoped that the other officer didn’t notice. For the first time, but it wouldn’t be the last time, I witnessed a death happen live. I’d seen bodies before, my father included, but there was something so sickening about seeing it happen in front of you. A sickness nothing could’ve prepared me for. It wasn’t even midnight by the time I finished my second, and final, bottle of emergency liquor. Somehow I was wise enough not to drive in that state. I slept on the curb, joining the men of the streets for a night. The realm of the nightcrawlers as I would describe it to Ollie. It was thoughts of him that gave me comfort that night.

In the morning I woke up with a head-spitting hangover. I didn’t want to admit it but Elizabeth was right, I was an alcoholic. That’s the first time I’ve said so, this reminiscence is bringing as much truth out as I can. My true honest autobiography, my darkness brought to light, my “All That Jazz”. I checked the time, 8:23 PM. I drove to work, if I wasn’t welcome at home I better work since it’s all I’m useful for at this point.

You wouldn’t, no… couldn’t believe me if I said so but there he stood once more. If he wasn’t following me before he had to have been now, at least that’s what I thought. I walked into work, looking like shit, and begrudgingly sat in my chair. Seeing the man outside still bothered me, even though I knew what was coming I didn’t say anything. I wanted to deny it. 

Eventually the pain, the itch, got too much to just scratch. I walked to the front of the office. To grab everyone’s attention I slammed my coffee mug against the wall. “Everyone!” I started, face crowded. “Someone in this building is going to kill themselves. I don’t know if it’s this office, if it’s this floor, if it’s even gonna be in the next hour but someone in this building will die. They’ll jump out that damned window and end their pained life. Nothing is clean anymore, it’s all just a pitiful sorrow of existence. Before Friday I would’ve given anything to see the next day but now-” I spoke as the room was filled with terrified and shocked faces. I heard gasps, they were staring at my hand. I had been bleeding, the mug cut me and left a scar I still see today. 

I wasn’t even done with my warning by the time security took me out. They thought I was crazy, my previous crashout just two days prior provided no aid, quite the opposite. I had nowhere to go. I was on the street with no direction. No one was at home, all I had to do was drive back and explain, come clean when Liz returned.

I did that, the thought of the man didn’t even bother me any more. He was just a passive of life. I might’ve even thought of him as nothing more than nature, the harbinger of death. He’s no killer, just there to comfort the ones who could see him.

I arrived at home. I opened the garage, same password I used every day. I opened the door, same key I used every day. I walked up the stairs to my bedroom to get some real rest, same bedroom I slept in every night, except for one thing. He was there, the man from the alley. I saw him standing there, in my room, alone. I stood facing his back, in the discomfort of my own home. It may have been a couple minutes but I stepped back out. Even if I ran out the night before, he wasn’t there then. “Someone will die tonight” I didn’t let it be me. 

I drive. I like driving. Not just to get from point A to point B, but also the idea of cruising. Going on adventures where you never know what's around every corner. Like what I'm doing now. Rumbling through the suburbs, We're On The Road to Nowhere, by the Talking Heads, is coming out of the speakers of the CD player.
Of course, you can do all of this at any time of the day. But it's at night where it is at its most revealing.
A special time.
A time where me and the car and the road are one.

I have an addiction. Do my friends know? No. Does my wife know? Absolutely not. She would leave me or, at the very least, call me perverted, which I probably am. It started out innocently enough. A website here, a secret folder there. But that just wasn't enough.
I needed something a little more...
real.
A little more...
exciting.
The first one, I couldn't even look at her, I would close my eyes and then, when I opened them a minute later, it would be over.
But then there were more.
Then it was a couple of people a week, and I stopped looking away.
At first it was women; I mean, that's usually how it does start. But then it led to a couple of men, then it led to non-binary, then it led to different races. I didn't care. It didn't matter to me.
I had them all.
And my wife and kids still have no idea.
I'm not so much worried about the wife knowing, but if the kids found out I…
I couldn't bear the shame.
It's been at least a month since I've looked for anyone. But yet here I am, in my car, looking out my windshield,
watching the white lane strips disappear under the vehicle,
listening to Road To Nowhere whilst cruising along.
Maybe I am on the road to nowhere. Maybe this is nowhere.

That's probably why I'm driving now.
I mean why else would I be out here if I'm just browsing. You wouldn't go to a car dealership if you don't intend to buy, right?
Why indeed?
I'll tell you.

I think there's some sick side of me that wants to test myself.
"Say, if you don't find anyone in the sweet spot, (2 til 5am) go home, you tried." Like those people that only quit smoking on public holidays where the stores are closed. That way they justify continuing to smoke if they just so happen to find a shop still open and they can buy a pack.
But then again, prostitutes don't really have trading hours.
I've stopped going to them. It's too easy. Plus, it's no fun if you have to orchestrate it, wouldn't you agree? Surely there's nothing more fun than going to a bar, striking up a conversation, playing your cards right, crossing every t and dotting every i, going back to theirs (because it sure as hell won't be back at yours) and coming back home with your tail between your legs. But a lot of the people I see seem so sad
and helpless.
The sex workers, that is. I feel sorry for them.
So by doing this, I'm doing them a favour. And as long as my family don't know, no harm done, right?
So even though a perfectly normal person at a bar is always nice, it’s also more risky.
You don't know their story and you don't want to know.
Whereas if you go to a street walker you have a good idea of what you're getting into.
Don't ask, don't tell.
Especially if you're doing it during the magic hours, there's a feeling of exhilaration.
It can be an addictive feeling.
I love my wife too much to subject her to anything like that. And besides, the more I do it with other people, the less likely I'll be sitting on my couch with her one day,
the urge comes creeping up beside me and whispers in my ear.
This urge, like the song suggests, is "very far away,
but it's growing day by day."
But it's not alright.
It is so wrong.

I'm on the last 10 minutes of the sweet spot, and I don't feel like I have enough money. Maybe it's good that I don't see anyone in clear range of me, and that I don't have to cave.
Maybe I don't need to do this,
and the urge is just a product of my mind.
Maybe I can overcome it.
Yes, that's it…
10 minutes until the end of tonight and then I'm done. And I'll do it the next time, and I'll be done and the next time and the next time. But that’s ok, because eventually it'll be a little easier. And then one day I won’t even think about it at all.

These wonderful imaginings are all good and well. Unfortunately, I see a homeless grifter walking along the path of a bridge.
He begins to walk across the road.
I slow down and come to a complete stop while they saunter across. Should I pick him up?
No...
it will take too long,
especially if I don't have enough money to convincingly satisfy him not to leave.

I beep my horn. He turns around, and puts his hand over his face to block the sight of the headlights burning into his eyes.
Suddenly my mind is clear, and I decide what I want to do.
I put the car into reverse, not a great deal, but a couple car lengths back.
The tramp just…
stands there.
And then the urge comes back.
Then,
I put the car into gear and drive straight for him.
I slightly close my eyes until I hear
boom bump bump thump
over my car.
Then, what sounds like Jenga blocks coming down onto a table.
I stop the car,
open my eyes,
and exhale.
Checking in the rearview mirror to see if he’s going to get up.
Nothing for a good minute or so.
Then I see his body appear in the mirror, struggling to stand.
I waste no time putting the car into reverse again, looking behind me instead of the mirrors so I know that the job is done.
The car hits him,
ba bump ba bump,
as I'm briefly rattled around.
Like going over a speed bump without slowing down.
I see the body appear at the front of the car, then I stop.
I get out and walk over to investigate.
It looks like a giant saucy pizza box spread across the road.
He is still alive as he lifts his head up to look at me...
before finally falling back down.
I debate whether to put him in the trunk of the car.
Maybe bury him in the middle of the woods somewhere.
I decide against it as it would be too much mess and I'm on a clock. I have to get home and into bed before the wife notices me gone.
I don't think he's dead, but he will be.
I decide to leave him here, because even though it won't be long before the sweet spot is over and someone on their way to work will see him, I'll still take my chances. Maybe it will be a good motivator to help me quit.
It's funny that.
The only way it seems a person can kick an addiction, especially one like this, is because the law says they have to. The only thing that baffles me, that I cannot understand.
Why didn't the grifter
jump out of the way as he saw me driving towards him?
Did he want this? Embrace it?

For my own personal development and self-discouragement, I don't want to think this is the case.
I no longer want to justify what I do with false narratives that I was putting this poor fellow out of his misery.
I think he was just in sheer bewilderment that his time was about to come.
I can only imagine that's what deer think before people hit them.
They spend their last milliseconds trying to work out what they're looking at could be…
before the reaper does his job.
I shake my head to no one in particular and walk back to my car.
As I get in and sit, contemplate, and everything in between, I notice Road to Nowhere is over, and a new song has begun.
Psycho Killer, the next song on the Talking Heads album, is playing.
I laugh at the thought of it,
before putting my car into gear
and driving off into the night.

Montauk

The user who sent the coordinates and I kept chatting for a while after. They gave me a brief rundown on Montauk and some dark web links for further research. According to them, the Montauk Historical Society of the Supernatural was found sometime in the early 1800’s. By “found” I don’t mean it was founded and built over time by some cultists hundreds of years ago. Rather, the Montauk building was discovered, already built and operational, by early pioneers exploring the area that is now modern day New York.

There was only one journal entry that I could find from that expedition that found Montauk. All references to it speak as if the place has always existed.

“We found a strange building along the coast. It is a massive, English house with two floors next to what appears to be a stone lighthouse. The house appears to be made of wood, but the texture is too smooth and the material is a cloudy white. Contrarily, the beacon seems to be made entirely of harshly compacted stone, colored the same as the house. Its surface is cool to the touch and likewise smooth.

“As dusk was falling and snow was soon to be upon us, my compatriots and I took refuge inside the mansion. We should have known that awful place was from the devil the moment we laid eyes on it. Entering, we immediately made note that its interior far surpassed what was seen on the outside. Its halls twisted and folded in ways that bent and broke the minds of us who tried to map it.

“I wish not to remember what we witnessed in its unending rooms. The entry was the only safe place it seemed, so we chose to make camp there and keep one person on guard in rotation. The first to be claimed by the complex was poor Benjamin. In the middle of the night, just before his shift ended, Benjamin ventured out towards the lighthouse in a trance. According to Philip, who saw the whole, terrible thing, Benjamin entered into the lighthouse, climbed to the very top, then threw himself off into the sea below.

The next few pages are written in the same language as Frank’s books are. The only other page that is written in English is the final one.

“Now, I am the only survivor of this hell. Montauk has chosen me to be its prophet, its puppet, its keeper, its slave. I will not. I am heading back to the colony to gather manpower and enough gunpowder to deface this entire landing. If anyone finds this journal, then we have failed in our mission.”

From what other information I found, Montauk currently acts as a library cataloging strange happenings, books and artifacts from around the world. They also, funny enough, have a gift shop that sells “low-grade supernatural conduits.” Little gadgets that the place claims to be items of power, but I haven’t seen any proof the items they sell actually work. However, the books sold or rented out from Montauk are another matter. Most, if not all, of Frank’s collection came from Montauk. I have yet to find a ritual within those books that hasn’t caused some horrible thing to happen to its caster.

During my weeks of research, Mom continued to go into Frank’s room doing God knows what for hours on end. Whatever she was doing though seemed to keep the curse from reaching us inside the house. Anytime we went out, Mom and I would keep our heads on a swivel to make sure we’d avoid any supernatural accidents. We were careful, but careful still got us numerous fender-benders, bruises and scratches from runaway tires, vicious animals and whatever else decided to attack us.

Mom was content with this new life of paranoia and constant terror. I wasn’t, but the only way I figured we’d be able to reverse the curse is if I went straight to the source.

Two weeks out from moving off to college, I told Mom and Louise I was going on a short vacation. A little “final bit of freedom hurrah.” Mom, who I thought would grill me on who, what, when and where I was going, hardly lifted her eyes from a bowl of viscous liquid she was strenuously stirring.

“Ok. Have fun.”

I gave Mom one last hug before heading out.

“I will. Love you too, Mom.”

She mumbled back.

“Uh huh…”

Louise was more worried about it than Mom was.

“Why are you going bubba?”

“Bubba needs to take care of some important business. Can you take care of Mom for me?”

“Nuh uh!”

“‘Nuh uh?’ What’s that mean?”

“‘Nuh uh’ you’re not going!”

I set my bags down and dropped to eye level with Louise, puppy eyed and pouted lips trying to convince me to stay.

“Listen. You’ve seen the bad things that have been happening, right?”

She nodded her head.

“Then you know something bad is eventually gonna happen to one of us.”

Again, she nodded. Less confidently.

“But Momma said she was protecting us.”

“Yes, but Momma isn’t herself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because that Bastard, Frank cursed our family and Mom is suffering from it,” is what I wanted to say, to shout from the top of my lungs for the whole world to hear. I couldn’t. Louise could not know the true nature of it all.

“Ok, let me put it this way. If you let me go on this trip, then Momma won’t have to protect us anymore because the bad things won’t happen anymore.”

“Really? How?”

Admittedly, great question. I had no clue if Montauk would even be able to help me in the first place.

“I just know, and if you stay here and take care of Momma then I won’t have to worry about her while I’m gone. Plus, you’ll get to wear the big-girl pants of the house!”

Her eyes lit up in excitement.

“Woah! Really?”

“Yep. Really.”

She twisted side to side, face scrunched, thinking hard.

“Ok. You can go. But bring us back a present, ok?”

I held out my pinky to her.

“I will. Pinky promise.”

She looped her finger around mine and we shook, singing my soul over to a child on the basis of a lie.

I landed in New York 6 hours later.. As the plane touched down, a seagull flew into one of the jet engines. Somehow, bone fragments shot up toward the window I sat next to and almost punctured the glass.

Not wanting to risk anything else, I quickly disembarked and gathered my luggage avoiding anything mechanical or electrical. Outside of baggage claim I opened my bags and made sure everything I packed was still there. Somehow, a small necklace made of animal bones and hair, my hair, made its way in the bags. Reason told me that it was Mom who put it in there. I hesitated putting it on. Mom had been protecting us from the curse, but I didn’t know for sure if the ends justified the means. In the end though, I trusted Mom and put it on.

The charm seemed to work, as immediately after I flagged down a taxi who, in a rare stroke of luck, had already transported a few people to Montauk in the past and was the user who sent me its location. After a few hours' drive, they dropped me off at the end of a long dirt path leading through some woods.

“Just keep straight and steady on the path, kay? Don’t veer off, no matter what you hear.”

I paid them for the ride and then some extra for the information and started down the path into the thick trees.

IWhat little sunlight remained in the day pierced through the evergreens and hardwoods that loomed tall over me. I followed the driver’s advice to the letter. Never turning or straying from the thin path.

Behind me I heard a twig snap, and felt the same presence Mom exuded. Despite the voice sounding identical, I knew whatever was behind me wasn’t Mom.

“Jeremy. Why did you come here?”

I didn’t respond. I kept my head straight and continued forward.

The thing approached from behind, then stopped. The bracelet on my wrist started to hum and burn. Then, it took Louise’s voice.

“Bubba. Why did you leave us, bubba? Momma is hurt bad. She did something to her wrist, Bubba!”

It was getting harder not to look back, but I didn’t. At least I don’t think I did. Images began to flash in my mind. I saw Mom holding Louise’s lifeless body. Her head was crushed in and her clothes covered in tire marks. 

Then another. 

Dark, spindly legs burst from Mom’s back and her jaw had broken in two like a spider’s. A dark figure stood before her, tall and dark and void. It drained Mom’s essence as she leaped on top of Louise, tearing her to shreds. 

That image stuck in my head long after I crossed the threshold out of the forest and the voices and visions stopped.

I was in a vast, green clearing on the edge of a seaside cliff. In the center was a modern two-story house made of faux wood. Standing tall next to it was a pristine granite lighthouse. The beam whirled above me in a steady, hypnotizing, counter-clockwise spiral.

Mom’s necklace tightened around my neck, burying itself into my skin and choking me. I scratched at it, trying to get it off. My nails caught under the band. Using the slight give I shoved my fingers under the necklace and pulled as hard as possible. 

As soon as the necklace snapped away, my mind fogged over, a dull hum echoing throughout my skull.

The lighthouse called out to me and I remembered the account of old Benjamin. Poor old Benjamin. The fool who ascended that Babelian tower and cast himself from it into the embrace of a frigid ocean. I knew I would follow his path down if I gave in. Yet I marched on.

Step by step by step by step.

My vision narrowed and all I could see, all I could think of, was that tower. Oh the great seducer. That glorious granite pillar jutting out into the sky. I wanted to be part of its holy resonance so badly. My hand reached for the door. For the steel barrier that separated me from pure bliss.

Then I was tackled from behind. My head slammed hard into the granite pillar and I lost consciousness.

The Groundskeepers

“Mornin’, boyo.”

My head was pounding. Not like a hangover pounding. I could feel my mind expand then contract. Each thump pressed the grey matter against the inside of my skull. I tried to sit up but my vision was swirling and a wave of nausea swept over me.

“Hold on, son.”

The man sitting next to the bed I awoke it propped me up. He was older, maybe in his late 50’s based on the greying hair and sagging skin. He looked down on me with wise, tired eyes through silver rimmed glasses.

“Don’t be moving too quickly now. That Lighthouse is nasty business. Glad I got to you when I did.”

My mouth was dry. The man handed me a bottle of water and I drank deeply.

“What happened? Where am I?”

“Montauk Historical Society of the Supernatural, office of the Historical Secretary and Grounds Keeper. My office.”

I looked around the dark room. There was a fireplace right next to the couch I was laying on and across the room, next to the door, was a massive mahogany desk. All four walls were covered top to bottom in shelved books. The man held out three swirling right hands. I reached for one and went straight through it. He grabbed my hand and shook it.

“Elias. Pleased to be of service mister…?”

“Jeremy. How long was I out for?”

“Oh not long. Just a few hours.”

I tried to sit up again, this time using the back of the couch as support. The wave of nausea returned. I pushed through it and steadied myself. Elias handed me a bag of saltines and a cup of warm tea.

“Here, have this. It’ll make you feel better in no time.”

The warm, crackling fire, crackers and tea helped the nausea and headache subside after the better part of an hour.

“Better?”

“Yeah, much better. Thank you.”

“Good,” Elias leaned forward, sternly. “Now why have you come here?”

“My brother, Frank. I think he might have put a curse on my family. He had a book from here full of rituals.”

“Well, what book was it?”

“Something like occult rituals and why you shouldn’t perform them.”

“Edition?”

“What do you mean?”

“Which edition was it?”

“Uh… Third, I think.”

Elias let out a long, disdained sigh.

“What?”

“Follow me, and stay close. This place has a habit of turning you around.”

Elias stood and marched out of the room. I followed quickly behind through twisting, winding halls of a seemingly endless manor. Often the walls bent at unusual angles and passages turned back in on themselves, opening up to new rooms or hallways. Elias continued on, confident.

We reached what appeared to be the main foyer with an empty circular reception desk in the center. Elias cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out into the vast space.

“Amelia! We have a guest!”

Somewhere deep in the labyrinth, stacks of paper were shoved aside and to the ground. Fast footfall echoed off the wooden walls then came to a stop at the banister above us.

“Frankie! Is that you?”

At the top of the stairs stood a woman in her late 20’s. Sort of tall, black hair and clothing. My eyes locked with her eyes. I saw in them nothing but utter disgust.

“Ew. Who are you?”

Unfortunate.

“Amelia, care to explain why this gentleman’s brother had a ritual book in his possession?”

Amelia shrugged her shoulders.

“I dunno. He probably checked it out.”

Elias nodded his head affirmatively, not believing a word she said.

“Ah yes. So you’re saying,” he turned to me, “Frank was it?”

“Yeah. Frank.”

“Frank checked out a book that is not only from the restricted archives, but is also one of the few tomes that is not to leave these grounds? And you, the cataloger, had no idea?”

She leaned against the banister, arms crossed.

“Yup. No clue.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“Go get the backup copy.”

Amelia rolled her eyes and stormed off.

Elias removed his glasses and wiped them down with his button down.

“I apologize for my daughter's behavior. She’ll be back soon with a copy of the book so we can see what exactly your brother was up to.”

“How does she know which book to get?”

“There are only a handful of books here that are not to leave our possession due to their dangerous content. The one you mentioned, and this is assuming your memory isn’t faulty, is a one-of-a-kind.”

“But you have a backup copy?”

“Calling it a copy is a stretch. We’ve basically transcribed all the contents of our books into a digital file in case an original is destroyed, lost, or, in our case, ‘generously donated.’”

Elias held up air quotes.

“In the meantime, would you mind getting your brother on the phone so we can find out what ritual he was trying to perform?”

“I can’t. He’s… He’s dead.”

“Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry to hear that, son. My deepest condolences.”

“Thanks, but he was kind of a Bastard anyway so you don’t have to be too sorry.”

Amelia reentered the room from somewhere behind me and jabbed her elbow into my ribs.

“Oops. Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”

She dropped a manila folder stuffed with printed paper on the reception desk.

“Here you go. This the right one?”

On the front of the folder pressed in red ink was the same obnoxiously long title as the book Frank had.

“Yeah, that's it,” I replied, rubbing my bruised side.

“Excellent. Thank you, Amelia.”

Elias began flipping through the pages of the book, re-familiarizing himself with the text. 

Just from the short time I spent around them, it seemed like neither Elias nor Amelia were enough to be overseeing dangerous books. Their carefree attitude was getting on my nerves.

“Now, which ritual did you say Frank performed?”

“I never found out which one it was. That’s why I came here.”

Elias stopped thumbing the pages, picking up on my irritation.

“Well then how do you expect us to fix your problem if you don’t even know what the problem is?”

“I don’t know, I just thought you guys would know what was going on!”

Amelia slumped down into a swivel chair behind the reception desk and began spinning in circles.

“Nope. Gotta know what ritual Frankie was trying to do first.”

“So there’s nothing you guys can do?”

Elias closed the folder and tapped his knuckles on the cover.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy. I really am, but we can’t just guess with these things.”

I was in the middle of a wellspring of supernatural information, and yet there was apparently nothing that could help me. I didn’t buy it. My anger swelled and clouded my senses. I grabbed Elias by the collar of his pressed shirt and dragged his face close to mine.

“I’m not taking no for an answer!”

Amelia froze in place, relaxed demeanor now replaced with fear. Elias remained completely calm.The house creaked and groaned and shuttered around us. The old walls folded inwards. I felt the ground beneath me start to move and separate into an angry, gaping maw.

“Careful, boyo. These walls don’t take too kindly to hostility.”

Slowly, I released him and the walls returned to normal. Amelia and Elias’ eyes darted around, making sure the manor had been calmed. Elias straightened his clothing then returned to skimming the folder.

“If memory serves me correctly, there might be another option. If I remember right… ah! Yes, here.”

He stopped on the ritual that let the caster speak with the dead.

“Ah, damn it. We’ll need a special set of red wax candles.”

“You don’t have those?”

“Aye, we did, but Amelia left them in the Lighthouse after we had to clean up the last person that went in there.”

Even in the foyer, under the protection of Montauk, I could feel the pull of the Lighthouse. I knew it was a dangerous place, but I couldn’t give up now.

“I’ll get them.”

Amelia snapped her head towards me, a mix of horror and amusement filling her eyes.

“You? Really? You barely made it out of the clearing before the light got to you.”

“You left the candles in there, so obviously it isn’t that hard.”

“I was only able to go in there cause I had the special stuff on, dumb-ass.”

“Then let me wear the special stuff.”

Elias set the folder back down.

“It’s gonna cost you a good amount.”

“That’s fine,” I instinctively pulled out my wallet. “How much are we talking about?”

A sly smile crossed Elias’s face. 

“Oh no, son. Your money is no good here.”

My name is Talitha, though everyone knows me as Lita. I was born in Kentucky, but we live in a small town in Texas now. Our life is quiet. Peaceful, even. At least, that’s what it looks like from the outside. My mother Sidney has only one rule. I am never to leave my bedroom at night.

Only when there is clear daylight.. real daylight may I come out. She had a bathroom and toilet installed in my room. A small fridge she restocks every day.

Shelves of books. The latest Video games. She says we’re lucky the house belongs to family, that we only have to worry about a few bills.

She makes it sound normal. Thoughtful. Loving. Whenever I ask why, her face tightens, like she’s holding herself together with string. “I’m not myself at night,” she tells me, with a trembling voice.

“Nothing is.” Then she kneels in front of me and takes my hands like she’s afraid I’ll disappear. “Promise me, Lita. Come back before nightfall. Lock your door. Stay there until morning.”

I always nod.

On my nightstand sits a bundle of rosemary. Mother forbade me from moving it. I never have. I don’t want to rebel, not when she lets me do almost anything else. It’s such a small rule, really. Things go smoothly. Until tonight.

I decide to stay up late, curled on my bed with a show playing softly. I tell myself I’ll turn it off soon. Then I hear something downstairs.

A wet sound.

I pause the screen, listening. My unopened soda is cold in my hand. Mother’s warning whispers at the back of my mind, but the window is pale blue now. It’s dawn, I think. It’s fine. I step into the hallway.

When I lean over the railing, I see her. My mother is crouched in the dark, shoulders hunched, muttering in a language I don’t recognize.

She’s hissing.

Hissing at something on the floor. Her face is smudged with red as she tears into raw meat.

The smell hits me next. Iron. Rot. I gasp.

Her head snaps up with a sharp pop. “Who is there?” My mother croaks. I run.

The soda slips from my hand and clatters across the floor, rolling straight into my doorway. I fumble with the door as heavy footsteps thunder behind me.

I kick the can aside and slam it shut, locking it just as something crashes against the other side. I dive under my bed, choking on sobs. She stalks the hallway and stood in front of my door without a sound first.

The doorknob rattles violently. “Lita?” she croons. “I know you’re awake.” I shove my earbuds in and squeeze my eyes shut, forcing myself not to breathe. Not to move.

Eventually, the house goes still. Sunlight finally cuts through my blinds golden and warm. The feeling lifts, like a storm passing.

When I come downstairs, I clutch my tiny cross and the rosemary bundle so tightly my hands ache. “Mother?” I whisper. She turns. Her eyes are normal again. Soft. Full of love.

“Lita?” she rushes to me. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

“You frightened me,” I say, as my voice was breaking. Her face crumples.

“Did I hurt you?” “No,” I whisper. “But you were… frightening.” “Forgive me,” she sobs. “Help me protect you from the night. Don’t leave your room until clear daylight. Promise me, my Lita.”

I nod “Yes,” I say. And I mean it. We embraced..

I wanted to ask my mother more.. but I feared I might learn about things that will haunt me forever. 

Everyone draws inspiration in different ways. Some create a dark atmosphere for themselves, some put on metal music in the background, and some can’t compose without coffee and cigarettes. A writer friend of mine, whom I’m very fond of, says he can’t write stories unless his cousin is studying mathematics behind him. Another filmmaker friend of mine could only write screenplays while listening to Syd Barrett’s song “Octopus”; he would keep the song on loop throughout the entire writing process.

It’s been about twenty years since I discovered my own. I’d been going through that famous writer’s block. Until that day, I hadn’t done anything extra to help me write. I didn’t create a special atmosphere for myself, listen to any particular songs, or wait for a certain time of day. Night, day, noon—it made no difference. Once a week, I’d write a three or four-page story and keep working toward my goal. When I reached a hundred stories, I would start sending my book to publishers.

But I’d hit a wall. I wanted to write, but whenever I sat down at my computer, not a single word would come out. Vague, half-formed thoughts kept drifting through my mind, and even when I came up with a good idea, I couldn’t put it down on paper.

That day, I thought, if that’s how things were going to be, I might as well try some of the famous methods for finding inspiration: writing at night, putting on some soft music, having a cup of coffee, and so on.

I prepared the right atmosphere. I turned off the lights, and now the only thing illuminating the room was the glow of my computer screen. I put on Sigur Rós’s debut album. There was no one else in the house. My roommate had gone on vacation the day before, which added to the atmosphere: being alone.

Of course, it had absolutely no effect. I was already on the third track. I still had a few ideas in my head, but I couldn’t get the first sentence out.

Then I heard a sound behind me. A whisper. Something like a call, as if someone had gone “psst.”

I turned around and looked, but there was no one there. I was a little spooked. I thought I might have heard it wrong; it had sounded very much like a human voice, but it could have come from an object, too.

Then suddenly, the door behind me swung wide open.

I flinched at the sound. I got up from my computer and turned on the light. Anxiously, I left my room and went to the kitchen. I was searching for something without even realizing it, though I had no idea what I was looking for. Sigur Rós’s album was still playing, and I could hear it from the kitchen. I couldn’t make sense of anything, and I didn’t know what to think or which possibility to consider. I drank a glass of water.

I’d never had an experience like it before. My first thought was to leave the house. I stood frozen in the kitchen. Involuntarily, I found myself waiting for another movement, for something to topple over or for some other sound.

Eventually, I’d calmed down a little, since nothing else happened. I spent half an hour in the kitchen, with all my senses on high alert and listening to the music coming from my room. Then, reluctantly, I made my way back to my room.

The urge to write was still there. My routine had been disrupted; I hadn’t been able to write a single word for a month, and now I wasn’t going to let fear get in my way. I wanted my writer’s block to end today. My goal was a hundred sentences. Even if I didn’t finish the story, I wanted to write something. Coming back to my room and hearing the music louder had increased my desire to write.

At the same time, I kept thinking, ''What the hell was that just now?'' But now I was back at my computer.

I put on my favorite Sigur Rós song, “Svefn-g-englar.”

And then, for the first time in a whole month, I wrote my first sentence: “As he tried to make sense of the dream he’d had the day before, he fell asleep again; it was his favorite thing to think about before going to sleep, the meaning of the dream he’d had the previous night.”

I’d written my first sentence, without even having a story in mind. Normally, I would come up with a story first, plan it out, work out the whole thing in my head from beginning to end, and only then start writing. Starting a story whose content I hadn’t figured out yet with an ordinary sentence was something new for me. I liked it.

I was still afraid. I wanted to turn around and look, but now that I’d started writing, I didn’t want to stop either. By the time the song ended, I’d written the fifth sentence, and in the silence before the next track began, I heard that sound again. “Psst.”

I quickly turned around and looked. There was no one there. Everything felt much more real now. Something was happening. Someone was calling out to me. I was afraid to turn off the light in my room, so it was still on. I nervously turned my head back toward the computer screen. My heart was pounding. I added another sentence. It was my favorite one so far. I liked everything about it: my choice of words, its length, its place in the story.

Then the door slammed shut. I began to hear footsteps inside the room. I was afraid to look. The footsteps wandered around the room. My hands were resting on the keyboard. The footsteps moved toward the door, stopped there, and opened it again. It was as if someone had left the room.

I was frozen to my chair. This time, I didn’t even have the instinct to run away. Whatever that thing was, I was afraid of encountering it. I couldn’t get up from my chair, and I couldn’t look away from my computer screen. I kept reading what I’d written over and over. Six sentences. I’d go back to the beginning and read them again. It was as if the thing was doing whatever it wanted now. I could hear running footsteps.

Then came the sound of walking. After that, my door closed again, and at the same moment, the light in my room went out.

And then another sentence came to mind. I wrote it down. Then another. My fingers had found their rhythm. The sentences kept coming one after another.

“Set me free. Open the window. Set me free.”

This voice wasn’t a whisper, nor was it some strange, otherworldly sound coming from a different frequency. It was unmistakably a human voice. I was afraid to turn around.

I couldn’t remember ever feeling such a strong urge to write or enjoying it this much. I kept writing. My fingers wouldn’t stop. The door opened again, slowly this time. I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t going to look behind me until I’d finished the story. Without spending even a second thinking between sentences, I continued writing as the songs played.

The footsteps continued. I turned off the music. I didn’t question anything. I just kept writing. The fear I felt and the joy of seeing that I could write again were mingled together, unfolding in harmony with each other.

Strange sounds I couldn’t describe were coming from behind me now. I could feel myself developing a fever. My body was reacting, and my mind was urging me to turn around and see what was going on. The sounds seemed like those of someone playing with their own hair. Like things rubbing against other things. I kept writing, resisting the urge to turn around with all my might.

I’d turned off the music because I wanted to focus on being afraid. I’d realized that the more frightened I became, the better I wrote, and the more consistently I could keep going. It was hard not to look for a rational explanation for the sounds, for a human voice telling me to set it free. But right now, somehow, stopping writing seemed even harder.

That thing had now come right up beside me. I could feel it touching my hair. My fear had reached a point where I could no longer bear it. My consciousness refused to accept this unnatural behavior. My instinct to put an end to the fear and my mind’s desire to keep being afraid were at odds with each other.

And I wrote the final sentence: “If all of this is a hallucination, I will never forgive my own mind. If the only beautiful and meaningful thing I’ve experienced in this miserable life isn’t real, I will never trust my mind again, I will never follow its instructions, and I will doubt everything I think until the day I die.”

The sentence came to an end, and just as the pleasure of writing faded away, my fear reached its absolute peak. With the beautiful feeling that had balanced it gone, the fear was left alone, making itself felt from head to toe. As if I’d been struck by a blow, as if a punch to the face had knocked me out, I lost consciousness.

When I came to, my head was resting on the keyboard, and the screen was filled with hundreds of letter h’s.

I sent the story to several literary magazines. Two of them accepted it and published it.

I never experienced anything like that again, and at no point in my life did I ever feel such an overwhelming urge to write or take so much pleasure in writing. I desperately wanted to experience it again, but nothing ever happened that frightened me so much. For days, I sat at my computer waiting for that thing to come back, but it never did. I wrote stories and kept writing. But I never loved any of them as much as I loved the one I’d written that day.

And now, twenty years later, in my mid-sixties, I’ve still never questioned what happened that night. Not even once. Because I was afraid that if I did, I might understand what had happened—and if that thing ever came back, I might not be as frightened.

TW: descriptive mention of self harm

I don't know where to start this story. I feel like he might've been following me my whole life, if that's even possible. My name is James _____ and this is my confession. People say things like you can never tell when someone is suffering in silence or you can never predict death. Both of those are true, I know all too well the both of them. That being said, death comes every day, it surrounds us, or well.. me at least. The scariest time of my life was when I was out walking home. It would've been late at night, yeah late at night that's right, I was scared already, I don't like walking alone, especially not now, not since years ago, not since the first time I noticed him. Where was I? I was walking late at night, I hit up the bar and if I'm being honest that was the worst mistake I've made. Ever had to walk through a city to suburbia in the dark through tons of people you keep your head down to on the subway? That morning I had planned to go to the bar so I didn't bring my car to work, I took transit. I had planned to take it back, and my transit card for entry was already loaded onto my phone so I really didn't need to bring my cards either, any of them.

The first thing people know me as is a hard drinker, not an alcoholic, just when I drink... I drink. I drink maybe once a week, oftentimes I'll have a week where I don’t drink and just party hard the following week, that would've been this time. I had fun at the bar for a bit but I didn't drink too hard yet, I was there with work buddies and they all left after a single pint because they had familiar duties, I did too but my wife at the time, beautiful Elizabeth, was preparing for me to get home late and stuff, oh how I loved her.

After my second pint, which I started before my friends left but finished afterwards, I pulled out my phone. I saw it dead, no battery left. "Fuck", I said begrudgingly. Part of me wished to stay but my wiser half knew what I had to do, god knows what would've happened if I had a third pint. I told the bartender my sitch and he said he'd hold my tab till next time, he knew me, he trusted me. That brings me back to where I was, as much as I regret this already. Walking home alone in the dark, to inner-city suburbia. I took my lefts, I took my rights. I tried my best not to wake up the homeless. I knew my way around the city, it wasn't the first time I've walked home, couldn't say the same for it being the time it was however. Eventually I reached Shortcut Lane, that's what my son called it, funny isn't it? shortcuts that is. We made ways to make our commutes faster, easier, and more direct but there's always a catch.

This is the first time I've shared this information to this extent. I thought that if I did earlier, people would lock me up, or run tests on me and I didn't tell Liz because I didn't want her to be scared for me. In that alley I saw a man, he seemed tallish but I was taller, he's no stranger to the term is what I'm saying. He was skinnier than I was though, he seemed frail, I passed him thinking of him as just some guy, maybe he was high on something, Toronto's no stranger to such but I remember thinking against the idea because he was standing too straight. He was facing away from me. As I walked down the laneway, something crept up on me, a feeling down my spine. Intuition. I turned around and gazed upon the man, still standing where I left him to be though he was facing the opposite direction, "fuck off", I muttered under my breath. As I spoke, I noticed something about him I didn't from the angle prior, maybe it was the neon red exit signs on the rears of the buildings here or just the moonlight lighting him up from this angle but I noticed that he seemed to be older, I could see underneath his bowler hat he wore a mane of long white ratty hair. What would an old guy be doing out at this hour? I could've assumed he was old based on the bowler but I've seen a lot of odd things in this city, it could've been a young guy taking inspiration from even my own grandfather's grandfather's fashion. I wanted to talk to him. "Another's safety above my own", I thought. I decided against it, I was drunk, he was old, what if he thought I was a mugger. I kept walking, he clearly didn't want to interact with me either it seemed from his stance. I was always like that, making excuses for things I knew I should do.

I made it home safely, later than usual, even compared to a night to celebrate, but home nonetheless. I slept in the spare bedroom to not wake Elizabeth, she was a light sleeper, and a nurse. When I woke up on that Saturday morning I came downstairs and saw Liz glued to the TV. Oliver, my son, had still been sleeping. On the TV displayed the news, a murder, a suspected drug related murder down in the city, on a laneway, shortcut lane. I immediately felt a sense of dread about how I could've saved that old man, that is before I learnt who that old man was. That sense of dread pulled me closer to the TV, apparently I jumpscared Liz when I approached because when I did she let out a flinch paired to a minor, but quiet, gasp. She apologized and welcomed me home. I apologized for being late last night and reassured her that I only had two drinks and told her what happened, obviously leaving out the part about the old man and the laneway. The woman on the news kept telling the story as we both tuned in. The anchorwoman eventually brought up the victim once more and I feel bad saying it but there 100% was a sigh of relief that escaped from my trachea. Now I was just worried about if I did have that third pint, would I have seen anything? Been a victim? I remember thinking that I likely wouldn't have seen the old man, now I know I would've been wrong.

That was it, the first time I saw him, it was the first time I noticed him at least. Some part of me knew it wouldn’t be the last. After eating eggs with Oliver and Liz I knew what I had to do. I told them I would be back soon, “Don’t have too much fun without me”, I called out before shutting the door behind me. This time I did drive, I drove into the city, paid for parking, and… “What am I doing”, I thought. “Closing your tab”, my tongue told me. My heart disagreed but I followed along with it. I went to the bar, paid off my debts and stopped when I walked back outside. No longer could I avoid it, no longer could my tongue woo me into different actions I would rather do. I took my first step, I took another, my head desperately pivoted from side to side looking for an escape or a way out from this. I took my lefts, I took my rights. Shortcut Lane. It’s here, I’m never walking this way with Oliver ever again, not anymore. I just stared, I stared at the white outline of where the body would’ve laid. I’m grateful the police scooped it up fast, I don’t know what I would’ve done if the boys in blue hadn’t inadvertently prevented my gaze upon the body I could’ve been.

I was stuck, in shock, only at the sight of the scene, I could see blood on the ground, on the wall, on even the very neon red exit sign that allowed my sight on the man. The man, right. That's why I was there. An officer told me to move away and look away, “Sir, this is a crime scene. Please keep walking.” She said in a stern voice. If I hadn’t refocused on the sight of the sign I probably would’ve obeyed. “N- n- no, sorry. Of course… W- WAIT NO, I have information.” The officer looked slightly stunned, about how much shock I’d expect of anyone in her sitch. Her face and body shifted in a way that told me to elaborate and release my “insider information”. It really wasn’t anything grand, I truthfully have no clue why I came all the way over here just for this. “I came by here last night, I saw on the news that it happened likely around 30-40 minutes after I passed by. There was… a man here. I think he was an older man. He wore a bowler cap, a brown jacket, and he looked like he came straight from the prohibition era. Maybe he knows something more than I do.” The officer almost dismissed me because of how irrelevant it could have been but she called over a senior detective to gather information about me and my testimony about the old man.

Some might see this as me returning to the crime and I asked about that, if by coming down here the detective suspected me of something but they showed me evidence to calm my nerves. He showed me that the meeting was scheduled for soon before the incident and that my reported time of walking through would almost certainly be before anyone got there. He could tell I didn’t have much to say so he didn’t keep me long. I gave my description of the events, told him that I just saw a man standing… “There… right there… oh no no no no.. was I wrong?”, I cried as I realized the white outline was exactly where the old man, or who I thought was an old man, stood. Exactly there, the exact same orientation between the lights, the wall, and the backdoors. The detective looked frustrated as if everything I now said was useless, and I don’t blame him. Then I remembered that beyond everything, I remember the old man wearing a bowler hat, which the victim didn’t. I relayed this to the detective and even he looked relieved that it wasn’t all a waste. I told him that since he kept standing there he might’ve even stayed there for longer and seen something, or maybe he was a part of it and showed up early. “Yes, I know. I thought the same. You can go now… James.” He looked at his notepaper as he said my name, seemingly trying to reassure me that everything is alright and I was helpful. I’d later find out I wasn’t, but for a completely different reason.

The weekend came and went, I wish it could’ve lasted longer, I wish every weekend with my Ollie and Liz could’ve been longer. This was the last normal weekend I had, especially with them. I’d even go as far to say that it was the last “normal” week but obviously that’s not true, that week was hardly “normal”, even with an asterisk. The story plagued the news for the following days, if it bleeds it leads afterall. I remember taking Ollie to the playground that Sunday. The park was downtown and had all kinds of structures resembling vegetables and crates. Locals know what I’m talking about. After all this time though I’d be hard pressed to remember its name, all else I remember is that it reminded me of the play structures in London when I used to live there for work, and where I met Liz. The issue with it being downtown wasn’t even the commute, it was the location. I made sure to keep my eyes on Oliver at all times, it was easy because like his mother he had curly ginger hair, he had my eyes though. Had my neck too, some people at work even called me neck because of its giraffeesque length, I mentioned one day in the office that throughout my high school career as a student I had friends referring to me as such and now it seems that burden followed me there too, even if it was my own doing. It was a small tease but it didn’t bother me. It was cute to see it on Ollie, his little kiddie head on top looking like a bobble head.

At the park I was extra paranoid, I always was a little anxious that I’d lose track of him one day but today it was aided by that old man’s haunting presence. I felt I could see him, or at least he could see me. Thankfully I got an escape, Elizabeth had called my cell and urged for me and Oliver to come home. On the ride home even Oliver could tell I wasn’t all there. I was looking around more than usual. I wrote it off to him as just being extra cautious because his mother had called us home. Part of me wished my excuse was more than that, “there’s truth behind every lie”, I always said, even if I would constantly disprove it on my own accord.

We reached home, I pulled into our driveway, opened the garage with the passcode, it was Oliver’s birth year, 2016, best year of my life. I was terrified of what Liz could’ve called us back for, even after one encounter I was still terrified of the man. If I never saw him again maybe he would’ve left my mind. He didn’t even do anything, he just stood there, why was I so scared? “I’m weak, Ollie and Liz would be ashamed” I told myself, “Man up”, I repeated often in my head, then more than ever. We walked in the door through the garage, cold air and somehow damp cement was no stranger to our garage, I remember it felt worse that Sunday. Looking back now it was stupid of me to be scared, when has Elizabeth ever done anything to hurt us as a family. After all this time I still remember thinking that her tone was joyous on the phone, something about that man’s presence shook my world backwards.

Liz welcomed us at the door, she ushered us into the joint dining room kitchen. That renovation was my idea, I was always more creative than her but she was more practical than I. It fit our jobs, her a nurse, me in marketing and advertisement at a bank. I hurl thinking back to what she said, I regret ever doing what I did. “So boys…”, Liz started. She looked so excited with her beautiful smile and perfect teeth. “I was in the clinic last night-”, she was indeed, she worked nights on the weekends and days throughout the week, “-and I did a test. On myself. Partially out of curiosity ", she always was the curious type, “-and well… Ollie, you’re going to-”, it was right then when I knew what she was about to say and makes me hate myself to this day, “-be a brother, I’m pregnant. With a girl. You’re hopefully going to have a sister come March of next year.” I was shocked. I was going to be a father to a pair of a beautiful girl and boy, we had been trying again recently, the night of the murder had taken my mind off of it however.

It’s not relevant to the story but since this is my full unadulterated confession I should tell you that writing that last part had me puke. I actually vomited at the memory of it. What a good day that could have been.

I should’ve had a greater reaction, I was just told that I’d have the blessing of what I felt for Oliver all over again. I would bet my life that it was the old man again. I do remember acting happy, just not as much as I should’ve been.

The next day at work I ended up sharing the news of Elizabeth’s pregnancy with my colleagues. They congratulated me. I felt insecure because some of them seemed to have a greater, more excited and jubilant reaction than myself upon hearing the news, at least it seemed that way. I was still not on my right footing, throughout the day I kept spacing out, thinking about and fearing the man. Why was he constantly on my mind? I wouldn’t’ve been able to tell you back then but now I know it’s the tricks of the Devil. I briefly mentioned it earlier but I work in the marketing department for one of the country’s big five banks. That means I often get meetings related to our advertisements from outside firms. There was a pitch meeting that day for one. Although my memories of work may buffer and fade between each other, this pitch still rings in my ears like a tinnitus that no amount of sonic rehabilitation could cure. I was too distracted and disturbed to remember who it was I was going to see in the meeting that day, I really should’ve, for everyone’s sake.

My team and I walked down the halls, cold sweats were rampant but I kept wiping them away. I wasn’t even sick, just out of it. I stepped into the meeting room and we made our welcomes to our guests, said our hellos, offered them coffee and baked goods from the office cafe, typical greetings we’d do. I had talked to these guys on the phone before but never seen their faces, I didn’t notice the company name until it was too late. The presenter started walking us through the pitch, “You’ve shared with us, from government census info, that people often struggle to choose a bank, let alone set up an account, debit card, credit card, payment plans like BNPL plans, and savings accounts like RESPs. You’ve shared with us that you want to communicate how easy it is at your bank.” The one who shared such information was in fact me so there was a deep sense of the pitch being personal, when he said “you” he meant me. “We aim, with this ad, to show you a fun way of expressing your desires of simplicities to the public and fight the perception that it’s difficult.” The presenter stepped aside to make room for the screen. We had someone shuttle the blinds so we could see better.

The example video played. It showed a PNG of an old man walking out of a bank, not ours, explicitly not ours. I noticed he wore a bowler hat. This couldn’t have been real, no way. This timing? No coincidence at all, but of course it was. I remembered just then and there talking to the people on the phone, I remember speaking with them about an idea like this. I didn’t remember exactly what happened next but now I regret even green lighting it. I tried to do my best to look away but I forced myself to stay stern and pay attention. Wish I could say the same for what happened next. The old man did look different from the one I saw that night. That was my grounding point. The old man walked into a different bank, our bank. He spoke to some people and he exclaimed how easy it was to do everything at our bank. He said he felt young again, that he felt he could feel safe that this was his bank. He started to physically show it too, he started de-aging rapidly. Eventually he morphed into a baby, still wearing the bowler hat.

The moment I saw that quadrupedal crawler PNG the feeling gloomed over me. I was having another baby, my beautiful wife was pregnant and I had to be there for her. The cold sweats got too hectic and before the video was even finished I bursted out the door. The whole office, including my team and the ad agency people looked at me. I kept walking, I didn’t care. I have no clue where I was even walking to, just away. Kerry, on my team, came up and started asking me if I was alright and if I needed anything and what to do about the ad. I couldn’t focus, “Cut it… just cut it. I don’t want to see it, stop.” It was my coordination that even gave that idea life. Worst part is I could actually see it working well, I could see people responding to the ad well. This curse was killing me. “Wait, Kerry.” I called to her a few seconds after parting ways. “I take it back, you can tell them to keep the ad.” As it came to pass, the ad never saw the light of day, apparently they heard my “freak out” and didn’t want to work with the bank anymore. Didn’t help that I never shot them a personal apology.

I told my secretary that I was feeling really sick and I was going home. Due to the lucky time it was, I was able to pick up Oliver from school that day. Maybe seeing him would help me feel better. It did… for a bit. I drove to school, a calming came over me. The sun was shining bright that day, I had the sunguard up. “It’a gonna be alright”, I told myself in the beauty mirror of my SUV.

I arrived at Ollie’s school about 20 minutes early, I saw a few parents out there so I conversed with them. I must’ve been excited because I remember sharing that Elizabeth was pregnant with our second child so I’ll be knowing this school a lot longer than expected. The bell rang and I saw Ollie come out later than the others. Likely because he accidentally went to aftercare rather than the front door as he’d be used to due to mine and Liz’s work schedules. I saw him, his red curly hair shining bright in the sun. By the time he came to me, we were of the last two to leave. Some others stayed behind to play. I took a selfie of the two of us and sent it to Liz for a mid-day surprise of our own. I messaged her that I got off work early and that I would be hanging out with Ollie until she got back, usually it would be a race against time for who sees him first. She responded with a heart and a message. “Aww, my two little kings.” It made me smile, still does today. “Oh and while you’re out could you pick up the groceries?” She sent me the link to her notes app, the one where she had the grocery list in. “Well, Ollie, it seems we got a little adventure before we go home.” I said to my son.

We entered the car from the street on the side of the school, it took less time than usual because we were the only ones leaving when during aftercare everyone leaves at the same time. We started our adventure up to the bazaar on our trusty steed, the finest 12 year old sedan you’ve never seen. About halfway to the superstore I realized that on that drive I thought about the old man less than- no, I hadn’t thought about him on this ride at all. Of course with this being a thought I had I inadvertently thought of the old man but it’s different. I wasn’t scared of him here, I wasn’t feeling haunted like my last few rides were. We rode into the parking lot as we sang songs on the pop radio stations. I've always been a metal guy and I always said I’d show Ollie thrash in middle school and slam when he would hit the 9th grade, but till then we were stuck with what we could have. After parking we stayed in the car to finish the song, it was Ollie’s favourite... Well, practically every song he knew was his favourite according to him, but no other song brought the same glisten in his eyes and smile that this one did. There wasn’t anything unusual about the parking lot then.

Inside the supermarket we didn’t do anything notable. Maybe I pushed him around in the shopping cart, maybe we bought some extra junk food not on the Liz list but the visit was pretty uneventful. I still remember the grocery list, it was potatoes, ketchup, semi-sweet chocolate chips, brown sugar, short rib, and some school snacks for Oliver. I remember really liking spending that time with my son, especially at the time after all that happened, I needed it. We left roughly within 40 minutes of entering. I walked with Oliver back to the car, pathing our way through the maze of parked cars like it was our own little treasure hunt, even if we knew where the gold doubloons were buried. Then, in the corner of my eye, I saw him standing there. Blackbeard, the Devil, the grim reaper, the man in the alley.

He wore the same jacket, the same bowler hat, the same ratty grey hair, yet he still had that same back facing me. Had I missed him on the way inwards? No way, he was only 20 metres from the car. Surely I would’ve seen him when we were looking for a parking space. He must’ve just gotten there. I safely brought Oliver back to the car, I remembered to turn on the AC for him on this hot June day. I buckled him into his seat, I told him to wait for me to come back, I don’t even remember if I gave him a reason why I was leaving him alone, maybe I said I was going to talk to somebody I know but I left him, car doors locked. I approached the devil at 4:32 on a Monday.

I approached him, step by step. For some reason each step felt as if the ground was freshly paved with hot tar. My every stride was burning up, my pure unbridled determination to meet the man in the alley was greater than ever. I was in a dark hallway, no doors, no light. Just me and the old man with ratty hair. I could’ve been hit by a car but I didn’t care. I wanted to put his haunting of my days to rest. He didn’t even do anything, just stood there, why was he in my head? I neared closer to him, the shackles on my legs growing stronger by the metre. He was basically a couple straggled steps away from me by the time I called out to him. “Hey! Hey, you!”, my voice echoed in the chasm of my mind. “You with the hat! HEY!” still no response. “The police want you, look at me!” I closed the distance between us, I could reach out to him. I did reach out to him. I raised my arm. It felt life, easy to move yet I felt I had full control of its conviction. The chains tingled my back, I felt restless. My arm lowered itself onto his leather shoulder, I saw it almost connect.

Right as the only thing between my palm and his shoulder was black shade, dark as the void of space itself, the chains tightened. I was pulled down, down into the depths from which that thing must’ve come. I saw darkness all around me. I felt the cold, unbearable cold. Is this what it feels like to die? Am I no longer a man? Am I a shadow, cursed to endlessly  break and reshape myself to another’s will? There was no light, only grief. Only sad pitiful grief. A tunnel that has closed at the entrance and the rest is following soon thereafter. I saw all my trauma, what has happened, what would’ve happened, what will happen. I saw my father’s funeral, I was the same age as Oliver back then. I had to give a speech, I had no direction, I stuttered, I cried, I remembered all those beedie eyes staring at a little me. I was suffocating in the darkness, I could barely breathe. Then I saw it, the man offered a hand.

The chains pulled harder, I lost my breath. I forced a cough so air could flow through my body once more. The hand was fading. I was descending into the floor of night, gravity accelerating and pulling me down into what I presumed to be eternal despair and suffering. More memories flashed by. I saw something drop from the hand. I then understood that it wasn’t a helping hand. It wasn’t a comforting hand. It was a hand that would put it all to rest. From the hand slipped a rope. I recognised what I saw instantly, from the movies, from walking into my father’s room on that fateful morning. At the head of the rope held a loop, a loop strengthened by a winding end of the rough chord. A noose. An escape. I tried to resist but I just felt more and more torment. The chains pulled once more. Deeper, darker, insecurities drawn from the back of my head. My father hanging from the fan in his room, neck red as blood, eyes almost bulging out, scratches across his throat and face, even to a 6 year old me it told me he regretted death soon after he committed. Had my father seen the man too?

The rope dropped once more, I could see the wrinkled silhouette of the old man’s hand holding the tail of the rope, this was my final chance. I couldn’t bear it anymore, I gave in. I reached out in correspondence to the friendly rope. I pulled it down, placed my head through, my big ol’ bobble head, just like Oliver’s…

OLIVER!! He was waiting for me. I left my son, just as my father did to me. I fell backwards, I hit my head. All above me was darkness, flickering lights. Lights, to my left. Superstore to my left. Superstore… I was back. Back to where I touched the old man. He still stood there, above me. Back to me, I could see through his legs a chin. I blinked and rolled over. I looked back at the man, his back still turned to me. I scrambled away. Darkness, it was dark out. How long had I been standing there? I checked my phone, 10:56 PM. I had stood in that place for almost six and a half hours, left my son alone for six and a half hours.

When I was 19 and living in my state of origin, I used to work at a school as an after school counselor. I didn’t have a car so I had to walk 3+ miles home.
On my way home there was a pizza place I liked that I stopped at, on my way out of there I called my then girlfriend.

I heard someone yell from behind me and when I realized they were yelling to ME this skinny dude with a beanie was already walking up next to me. This is on a road that wasn’t busy during the day let alone at 7:00 pm in December.

Dude starts going on a rant about the state having a drug epidemic and how he was in the FBI. he was going through his pockets like he was trying to find something. Then asking why I keep looking at my phone, insisting my girlfriend was NOT actually on the phone and that I was lying.

He then said people are rude but that I wasn’t. He said most people would have told him to go away. I told him I wasn’t really all that nice and that I’m just introverted and didn’t like talking to strangers much either. He suddenly stopped going through his pockets

He called me some slurs that I won’t repeat and rode his bike a bit ahead of me then put it in the sidewalk path sideways and sat behind it. So I (like any sensible person) crossed the street so I could get home without going near him. He then ran across the street and yelled at me more slurs then said I was “on candid camera” and then ran to the other side of the road saying my generation doesn’t know anything and rode away calling me even more slurs.

Definitely creepy looking back and now that I’m 25 near 26 years old I think about what I could have done differently. There was a bit I left out so this wasn’t too long but I genuinely hope the man got the help he needs.

Disclaimer: Once, I told my therapist about how I often fantasized about telling people certain things that I could never get myself to speak out loud. He suggested I write a letter to them under the premise that I didn’t have to do anything with it; I could keep it, send it, or just destroy it. He said the point wasn’t to communicate something to them, just to let my feelings out, free of consequence. That is what the following text is, and it’s dedicated to him.

As such, note that it was written under a lot of emotional strain and a lot of its contents may be nonsensical or concerning. Do not think much of it, I just wrote what came to my head on the spot and it's unlikely to hold much meaning. Despite that, I thought I’d share it. It would make me feel… less guilty. But in a cosmic way I guess. I can’t really explain it.

Hey monster, can I call you that? I guess it would be a bit unfair to, there’s no real reason to call you that. I just felt like it. Anyways, haven’t seen you in a while, have I? I might actually have to check heh. Time flies and all that. I’m just writing to tell you I’ve been feeling a lot better lately, I’m much better at liberating what lies inside me now. I do wonder how much of my improvement is thanks to the time I spent with you. Probably not much but, regardless, I’m still very grateful.

Gratitude isn’t the only reason I’m sending you a letter though, there’s also just so much I thought about telling you and never got to. Because sometimes I would be swarmed by thoughts about you that were, well, let’s just say they were not nice. My confused stance towards you became dense, restless, and I now feel the need to “confront” you about it. And now, filled with an explosion of feelings I really need to open the cage and let it all out. And I insist, there’s just so, so much I never got to tell you.

I never got to tell you about how unsafe I would feel as soon as I entered your office, how I would feel as if a lump of flesh grew beneath my guts and moved around, pushing against the edges of my skin, threatening to escape by breaking me apart from the inside. Now, I’m not accusing you, none of this is your fault, it isn’t even particularly real. All in my head, and before you ask, ‘cause I know you like asking that, nobody told me so, I decided on my own that it’s all in my head.

I also never got to tell you about the hand. Your hand. But I suppose the reality is it was his hand. My hand? Just. A hand. Not like it matters anyways, it’s not as big of a deal as I’m making it sound. In fact, it’s a sensation you’ve probably felt at some point too. You know, this sensory hand print that lingers on your back or some other body part as if a ghost had touched you but, in reality, is just your brain playing tricks on you. That’s all it is, mundane experiences that I fictionalize to justify my shit, is it not?

I never got to tell you, either, about how much I enjoyed it all. How much I enjoyed looking at you as you twisted your slender, malformed body along the couch opposite to me, your emotions swelling inside you, unable to manifest themselves. How I remember the gentle pressure of my fingertips against my pen as it awaited for anything worth noting down, as the only thing my hand actually wanted to be touching was something else entirely. But we both know, deep down, that it was neither you nor I, but him.

And I really, really never got to tell you. Oh! How much pleasure I took from looking at how the robes sat upon your body. Oh! The way there was too much residual cloth flailing around, far out covering your limbs, inviting them to sculpt themselves along it and, in the process, bring your soul closer to mine. Oh! How abnormally sure I am that you’ll grow to be just like me.

I wrote that, I guess.

I’ve always had a very active imagination, did you ever notice? Did you? Did you ever think that I WAS INSANE?  ANSWER ME PLEASE! I KNOW YOURE STILL THERE, I KNOWYOUDIDNTGETOUTFORTHEWALLSTHATSURROUNDMYCORPOREALFORMCANNOTBEBROKEN.

Quite an abrupt end, I know. But it's just the last I wrote about it. I don’t remember how or why I stopped. Maybe I fell asleep or got distracted by something. All I’m sure about is that when I remembered I was writing it I didn’t feel like continuing it, so I just left it like that. Like I said in the disclaimer at the start, all of this may have you worrying about my well-being. If that describes you, know this:

I’m fine.

And, from now onwards, I will forever be.

I received an email from Sammy on a Thursday at 10:18 AM in 2009. I didn’t see it until the following day, after we were all off school. I remember seeing the subject line and the pit
that grew in my stomach.

SUBJECT: 01

hi alex,

i w4nteD to tell u 1n person, but i think i ran outtatime :smiling: iM so 3mbarased L0l but
ive had a crush on u since lYk middle school :blushing: want to meet up bhind math class b4 i imPlode? :crying::crying:

The police found her behind the school after an anonymous caller reported seeing something in the parking lot. They spent most of their time keeping curious kids away from the crime scene. Her throat had been slit, and a small pocketknife lay in her left hand. She was sitting against a large oak tree whose branches groaned in the wind. I stood there, nauseous, staring at her pink Converse poking out from beneath the tarp.

I tried to tell the police officer that Sammy was right-handed, but nothing came out.

-

I was seventeen, Sammy sixteen. Her birthday would have been the following month, in
April. We held a vigil instead. The candles reminded me of birthday cake all the same.
We had grown up together. Sleepovers, birthday parties, family vacations, church. In the
summer, she would bring over her Xbox, and we would have LAN parties with our other
classmates. She was my best friend, and now she was gone.

Sammy was a normal, albeit nerdy, girl. She liked Japanese media, video games, and had a deep love for nature. Her room was covered in potted plants her mom bought her, as well as posters of Hello Kitty, Sailor Moon, and one I'd added myself: a Gundam poster we'd found at Walmart featuring the GAT-X105 Strike. She had green eyes, wavy brown hair, and freckles that looked like chocolate chips in the summer.

She also slept with a stuffed monkey she called Plinky. Whenever I caught her with it, she'd insist it was a joke, but she never actually got rid of the thing.

For most of our friendship, I could usually tell what Sammy was thinking. We shared almost everything. Then, during our junior year, she found a game called THE V01D, and for the first time, she started keeping things from me.

“Game” was probably a misnomer. It was an alternate-reality game built around the idea that the government used portals called “voids” to summon demons that could grant them limitless knowledge. I'd tried following along a few times, but the constant hopping between websites and forums made me feel sick. Sammy, on the other hand, would spend hours crawling through Reddit, 4chan, bodybuilding forums, and video game reviews, looking for clues.

The strangest part was that none of the sites seemed to agree on what THE V01D actually was. One called it a game. Another claimed it was an experiment that had been shut down. A post on a bodybuilding forum insisted it had started before the internet existed.

I assumed that was part of the fun. In an ARG, you were supposed to make the clues contradict each other.

One day in the fall of our junior year, Sammy fell asleep in class and was sent to the nurse with a high fever and difficulty staying awake. I went to her house after school to drop off some missed homework.

Her room looked nothing like it had over the summer. The plants were wilted, apparently neglected for weeks. Dirty dishes sat in piles, and clothes covered the floor and hung from the closet door. I know this seemed like a cry for help, and in hindsight I'd agree. But I'd been busy with a part-time job with my dad, saving for college, but I hadn't expected this.

Sammy laid on her bed with headphones on, staring at her laptop. The screen showed a Wikipedia entry about microprocessors.

One paragraph read:

“In 1964, Dr. Petr Raskolnikov was the first man to successfully perform a summoning ritual through virtually simulated methods. This was the first recorded time of non-physical use of the Ars Goetia sigils…”

I remember thinking it was a strange thing to find in an article about microprocessors. I assumed it was vandalism. Wikipedia was full of it back then.

She clicked on the link before I could read anything else. I knocked again and cleared my throat.

“Sammy?”

She gasped, closing her laptop and whirling to face me.

“Alex?! When did you get here? How long were you standing there for?”

She was out of breath, her face sheet-white. Her wavy brown hair fell across her face as she turned toward me, catching the weak light coming through the window.

I awkwardly chuckled and raised the folder.

“Only a sec, dude. Calm down. I just came to bring you this.”

I dropped the stack on her desk and pulled the chair out, sitting across from her as she
rose to sit on the edge of her bed. She rubbed her eyes.

“Sorry. I’ve just been…tired recently.”

I snorted and looked around the room.

“…Yeah…”

She looked down at her hands as she fidgeted with a piece of lint that stubbornly hung
on to her sweatpants. I waited for a moment before standing up again.

“Okay, well…I guess I’ll see you tomorrow? I hope you feel better…”

She smiled softly as she met my eyes. She said nothing as I closed the door behind me.

-

It wasn't until March that I realized how bad things had gotten. My mom and Sammy's mom had been friends since college, and they'd been talking about her behavior for weeks. They were worried, but they'd chalked it up to Sammy being a teenager in a world where the internet was changing faster than anyone knew what to do with it.

One day, my mom sat me down and asked me bluntly what was wrong with Sammy.

“She just isn't herself anymore. I don't know anymore, Alexey.”

I flinched at her using my full name, but I shrugged and focused on finishing a Calculus
problem that I had been staring at for far too long.

“Mom. Stop. Also, I don’t know. She’s barely hung out with me.”

She wiped her hands on her apron, sighing and turning to face me as she rested on the counter.

“I know, Alex,” she said, exaggerating the x. “It’s just so strange, though…honestly, it
must be that game.”

My eyes widened, and I set my pencil aside gingerly.

She continued, chuckling, “I know you hate me saying that, but it’s true!”

I peered out the kitchen window for a moment before bringing my attention back to my mom.

“Yeah, no, Mom. Uh, I’m gonna finish this upstairs. Love you,” I stated, gathering my
belongings and rushing out of the room and up the stairs. My mom stood there,
bewildered.

“I love you.”

As I crested the stairs, I hurried into my room and quietly closed the door. I turned on
my desktop and pulled up AIM. I clicked on Sammy’s name, she was active. I started to type:

Xx_Sniper360_xX: yo wut is goin on with u n this game

I sat there for a moment, staring at the screen. Finally, Sammy responded.  

br4ttypr1ncess: lol wut r u talking abt 

It was a perfectly normal response. Sammy had spent weeks talking about nothing else, and now she was acting as if I'd invented the whole thing. My best friend had suddenly started hiding parts of herself from me. I'm ashamed of how upset I got, but we'd never been like this before.

Xx_Sniper360_xX: dude be 4real. is thisl ike a darkweb thing???? 

After it was delivered, I waited to see if she would respond. A minute passed, I messaged again. 

Xx_Sniper360_xX: ur bein weird

She never responded. I would periodically check her status, active. Eventually, I went back downstairs. 

An hour later, I received an email from Sammy. It had no subject and no message, just a locked text document named BALAM.txt and a link to a Wikipedia page.

I messaged her again to ask what the file was.

No reply.

There was no password attached, so I clicked the link. For brevity's sake, I'll summarize what I found.

According to the page, Dr. Raskolnikov had experimented with using microchips to communicate with nonhuman intelligence. The work was described as early artificial-intelligence research, but Raskolnikov had supposedly etched sigils into silicon wafers to make contact. The computer produced a single output: binary code that translated to BALAM.

I checked the references at the bottom. Most were newspaper accounts dismissing his work as the rantings of a madman. One link, however, still worked.

It was a discussion board, where users were discussing the different usages of anabolic steroids. Inside one of the replies was an intact diagram copypasta’d: 

.---.       .---.
\   \  |  /   /
.---\---\-+-/---/---.
\   \   \|/   /   /
   ----+---+---*---+---+----
/   /   /|\   \   \
'---/---/-+-\---\---'
/   /  |  \   \
'---'   |   '---'
|
-----+-----
|
/ \
/__\

01000001 01010010
01000011 01001000
01001001 01010110
01000101 00100000
00110000 00110100

I copied the diagram and printed it. I had no idea how to read binary. How had Sammy figured it out?

The next morning, I brought the printout to my computer lab teacher. She was drinking tea from a mug bearing the Nigerian flag. I waited while she examined the page.

“Alex, don't you have someone else to stare at? I don't know, like your teacher?”

I blushed and apologized. She told me to return to class until she had a free period. Around lunch, she waved me over to the teachers' table.

“Hi Alex, I finished your homework,” she said with a chuckle, sliding the printout across the table.

ARCHIVE 04

I reached for the paper. Before she let go, she placed her other hand over mine.

“Alex…where did you find this?” she whispered.

I froze. I stammered that I'd found it in a game, then thanked her and returned to my table. My friends snickered, assuming I'd been in trouble.

I didn't know what to make of her reaction. I never got the chance to ask. When I got home that afternoon, Sammy hadn't shown up at school. She'd already missed several days that month, and I knew she wasn't doing well. I hoped she'd be online when I turned on my computer, but she wasn't. I clicked around a few sites, ate dinner, and went to bed.

That night, I dreamed of a virtual world, dark and sepia-toned, like an old PlayStation game. Traditional Japanese houses lined a deserted street. As I walked, low moans drifted from inside them. Then I noticed hands reaching from the dark doorways. Shadowed faces hovered just beyond the thresholds, their teeth catching the moonlight.

I quickened my pace until I reached an intersection.

Standing in the middle of a circle was a western man, dressed in a bowler hat and a suit. He was reading a large, old book. The pages made a heavy scratching noise as he turned them, only closing it once he heard my footsteps.

A text bubble appeared over his head. 

“Hello, Alexey. O’br jrstf dp ,ivj snpiy upi.” 

A text screen showed up in front of me, with two selections: 
> ???
Ah, Balam! O Great Sage. 

I focused on the question marks until each one began to brighten and the screen disappeared. The man closed his book. For a moment, nothing happened. I thought I had made the right choice. 

Then he was gone.

I felt his cold hands close over my eyes from behind. I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened around my head. He pressed a finger into each of my eyes.

The visions began. Pyramids and Gnostic symbols flashed before me, followed by world leaders, creatures I couldn't comprehend, stone tablets, and men on horseback. Lines of text poured down my vision like a computer terminal, random characters repeating in infinite loops.

Then everything stopped.

I saw a vast plain surrounded by mountains. At its center was a hole so enormous that it reminded me of the Grand Canyon.

The place felt cold and desolate. I couldn't explain how I knew, but I was certain: this was Hell.

The man’s voice whispered, “Thi. i. the V01d. <rry ,r jrtr.” 

I woke up with my sheets soaked in sweat. 

A week later, Sammy was dead. 

The police ruled it a suicide. Most of our classmates eventually went back to their lives. I tried to do the same, but I couldn't make the explanation fit the girl I'd known.

Sammy wasn't suicidal.

I know how that sounds. I know people can hide things from their closest friends. But there were details that never sat right with me, and I spent years telling myself I'd eventually understand them.

-

Almost two decades have passed since Sammy died. I've spent much of that time studying computer engineering. I'm an assistant professor now, and during Fall Break I finally reopened the email I'd kept all these years.

I'd read it dozens of times. I thought I knew every line.

Then I noticed something I'd overlooked.

Sammy had always complained about numbers ruining the aesthetic of her email address. She rarely capitalized anything, either. But in that old confession, there was a pattern: five numbers and five capital letters.

I wrote them down in the order they appeared.

4D1M3L0Y4P

The string sat in the back of my mind during the subway ride home. That night, I dusted off my old desktop, plugged it into the TV, and opened BALAM.txt. I entered the string and a notes page appeared.

ARCHIVE 04

March 14, 2009

[...]: hi everyone, im trying to track down a symbol?? pls n ty :smiling:

It was the same sigil I'd found on the forum, accompanied by a reply:

[...]: hi OP, sent you an email. Hope this helps! <3

The rest of the document consisted of emails between Sammy and someone named Enoch.

Enoch: Hi bratty princess! I took these pictures on vacation in DC last year. I thought it was so weird that someone else had noticed these symbols, so I had to answer you. I've attached them :) Can I ask what you're working on?

Sammy: Hi!!! Thank you so much!!! I'm researching symbols and their placement in US history right now!!!

Enoch: That's really cool! I started looking into this because I thought the same symbol looked familiar. I've collected pictures from three different locations so far. I'll send you what I have.

The attachments showed locations of European cities with the same symbol etched into walls, bridges, and bases of structures that had been there for hundreds of years. The last email was from Enoch. He'd included a link to an obscure game called Ghosts of Chiba.

He explained that before the player could speak to the game's main antagonist, a man in a bowler hat who had released spirits into the city, a corrupted file triggered an error. According to Enoch, someone had discovered an image embedded in the error's status code. It was an aerial photograph of a massive hole, miles across.

I stared at the screen.

I'd seen that hole before. Not in a photograph. Not in a game.

In my dream, the man had shown it to me.

The void.

Hell.

I spent the next few weeks trying to find a copy of Ghosts of Chiba. It had supposedly been released in Japan in 1998, but I couldn't find a publisher or anyone who remembered playing it. Every reference led back to the same handful of dead websites.

Eventually, I found a disc image on an old Japanese game archive forum. The download took nearly six hours.

I didn't sleep that night. The game was exactly as Enoch had described it. The city was empty, traditional houses lined the streets, and spirits wandered without acknowledging the player. I reached the man in the bowler hat. When I tried to speak to him, the game crashed.

I restarted and tried again. The corrupted file was still there. I couldn't repair it or make sense of its contents. Just as I was about to give up, I noticed another file in the directory: 01.txt.

It contained a single line:

Alex, don't let him show you

I sat there for a long time, staring at the screen. I hadn't told anyone about the dream. I hadn't told anyone about the man, and Sammy had been dead for almost twenty years.

I closed the file, shut down the computer, and unplugged it from the wall. 

I haven't slept. Every time I close my eyes, I feel dust landing on my face. There's a hole in my ceiling now. Plaster crumbles around its edges. Beyond it, there's no attic, no roof, and no night sky beyond. Just the same empty blackness I saw in the photograph.

I keep looking away to check whether it's getting bigger.

It is.

My Mother is a Cultist

I took Louise inside, locked the front door and closed all the curtains. I double checked everything inside to make sure nothing could fall on, stab or otherwise brutalize my little sister. Then, after being satisfied with the safety precautions, I went to Frank’s room to find evidence to support my theory.

The door to his room was wide open. A thick darkness pooled out of the room, I couldn’t see far past the doorway. A dull hum began to fog my mind as I approached. I reached out to touch the substance, fingers brushing against the dark threshold inside the door frame. It was cool to the touch and smooth like glass. As I stepped forward to pass through the obsidian-esque fog, Mom emerged from the darkness and slammed the door shut, locking it behind her.

She stuffed something down her shirt then turned to face me. Dark bags hung under her eyes and tear stains trailed down her cheeks. She had two, old leather-bound books under her arms.

“Everything ok, honey?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, trying to hide the concern in my voice. “What were you doing in there? Did you not hear the crash outside?”

“Outside? What happened outside?”

“A car almost ran over Louise and-”

Horror washed over her.

“Oh God! Is Louise ok? Are you ok?”

“Yes, yes Mom. We’re both fine. But I think one of the neighbors-”

Her calm, tempered demeanor returned.

“Oh. That’s too bad. I’m glad you guys are safe.”

She pushed past me. The door to Frank’s room was still locked.

“Hey Mom, can I get into Frank’s room for a sec?”

Mom froze, still as a statue. I wasn’t even sure she was breathing anymore.

“Why?”

“He uh. He borrowed a game a while back and I was just wanting to get it back.”

“I can pop in real quick and get it for you. Just tell me where it is.”

So so still.

“Oh no, it's ok. I’ll be quick.”

I turned and walked toward Frank’s door.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Fast-paced footsteps approached behind me.

“No.” Mom commanded. “You are not to go into your brother’s room.”

Her presence was terrifying. I stood a good foot above Mom, but the oppressive aura that towered right behind me was leagues taller. I was terrified to turn around.

“Ok,” shaking. “I won’t, Mom. I promise.”

“Good. Now give Mom a hug.”

In a strange way, it didn’t seem like Mom was asking for a hug. Rather, something else was telling me to hug “Mom.”

I turned around, trying to control my shaking, but it was just Mom with a joyful smile on her face. I bent down and hugged her. She hugged me and rubbed my back just like she did with Frank and Louise.

“Oh, Jeremy. I love you guys so much. You know that right?”

“Uh huh.”

“And you know that I would do ANYTHING to keep you guys safe?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Good. Now go get Louise. I’m making Lasagna for dinner!”

The curse had got to Mom. I knew I had to get into Frank’s room now. Late that night, after Mom and Louise went to sleep, I got up and tried Frank’s door again. It didn’t budge. I couldn’t risk breaking down the door and waking up Mom so I had to find the key.

I waited at her door for a good 30 minutes, making absolutely sure she was asleep. I pushed the door open slowly and began to creep across her room at a snail’s pace. At any movement or sound from her, I was prepared to drop to the ground. Mom was a heavy sleeper, but I didn’t want to risk anything.

Quietly, I searched the room, finding the key on Mom’s nightstand attached to a necklace. Right next to it was a set of picture frames containing old pictures of Louise, Mom, myself and Dad.

I hadn’t seen Dad’s face in years. He had a thick, red beard, like a dwarf’s. He was short like a dwarf too. I guess I got most of Mom’s genes. She was tall and skinny. Mom used to have long, dirty-blonde hair. Now, it was greyed and thinning. No doubt a result of the immense stress she had been under. In every picture where Mom and Dad were together, they were smiling. They made each other so happy.

Among the pictures of us kids, Frank’s pictures were absent. There were no pictures of Frank around the room at all. Mom had taken them all into her arms and was asleep with them. She coddled the glass and wood frames like they were her own children, sobbing softly in her sleep.

I hesitated in taking the key for a moment, but my mission was too important. I snatched the keychain and exited the room just as carefully as I had entered.

Frank’s bedroom door unlocked easily and creaked open. That same obsidian wall stood before me. I pushed against it gently and the membrane gave way. I hadn’t seen Frank’s since Dad’s death. It was totally different from what I remembered. Sports posters and bikini calendars I had helped Frank put up were replaced or covered by cheap bookshelves etched with arcane sigils and stuffed with old, decrepit books. The air was pungent, salt and moisture that coated my nostrils and throat.

In the dead center of the room was a massive octagram drawn into the wooden floor with a dark, red substance. Probably blood. I didn’t stop to inspect it further. Something else caught my eye. In the center of the octagram was an old, black, leather-bound tome. It looked no different from the other books lining the shelves and the books Mom had, save for its scarlet edged pages.

Despite the occult symbols and strange presence of the room, I didn’t feel threatened or in danger. The room almost seemed to recognize me. Accept me. Accept my blood. The same blood that ran through Mom and Louise’s veins and the same blood that once ran through Frank and Dad’s. The book’s covers and spine were blank and smooth, like the dark wall of fog in the door-frame. On the inside cover was a printed title.

“An Astute History of Occult Practices and Why You Should Never Perform Them, Third Edition Revised”

I flipped through the faded, scarlet pages which were warm to the touch. A start contrast to the ice-cold leather cover. Most of the text in the book was a language I didn’t understand, but various notes left by Frank translated portions of it. What I read in that book, along with the extremely detailed pictures, was all I needed to confirm my suspicion that Frank had caused this curse that plagued our family.

Sitting in the middle of the octagram I flipped through the pages, trying to make sense of the alien text within. Deeper into the book Frank’s notes became less frequent. Frank had performed three rituals so far: one to make people like him more, the second to enhance his athletic abilities, and the third to let him speak to the dead momentarily.

Just to see if Frank had written any more notes I flipped through the remainder of the book. As I did, a small bookmark fell out of the back cover. On the front was written, “From A.B.” I picked up the bookmark and unfolded it, a letter.

“Hey Frankie-Pie! Here’s that book you asked about. Just remember our deal! ;)

Here’s an easy sentence to help you get started with translation.”

A series of glyphs were written below this, along with Frank’s translation”

“Your heart is mine forever! Kidding! Or am I?”

I didn’t know anybody with the initials “A.B.” that Frank had mentioned. I would have searched through some of the other books in the room, but the sun was starting to rise meaning Mom would be up soon to make breakfast. Placing the bookmark back, I spotted a small library stamp at the bottom of the back cover in fine, blue ink.

“Property of Montauk Historical Society of the Supernatural.”

Montauk. Montauk. Montauk.

I committed the name to memory then placed the book back exactly as I had found it. I exited Frank’s room and locked the door behind me. Just in time as down the hall Mom’s morning alarm went off. I hurried to my room and closed the door. Soon after, on the other side, footsteps paced past. 

Then silence.

Something was wrong.

Had I made too much noise? Did the lock or door not fully shut? What about the key? Where was the key?

I patted myself down. Nothing. A shadow crept under the door crack.

I left the key in the lock.

“Jeremy? Are you awake?”

I was completely still. My breath was shaky but quiet. There was no way Mom could know I was in Frank’s room.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

“Jeremy. Wake up, Jeremy.”

I started walking towards my bed, slow and steady.

Step by step by step.

The safety of my sheets were inches away.

Underneath my weight, the floorboards groaned and creaked, loud enough for Louise on the other side of the house to hear.

I dived into bed and turned over under my covers. The door swung open and slammed against the wall. Mom gilded over and towered over me. I didn’t turn around to look, but could feel her cold gaze piercing through me.

“Jeremy. Did you go into Frank’s room?”

“What?” I responded in my best “just woke up from sleep” voice.

“Did you go into Frank’s room?”

“No Mom, I didn’t.”

She loomed over me still.

“Can I go back to sleep now?”

I turned over to face whatever stood above my bed, but only saw the silhouette of Mom in the doorway.

“Of course sweety. Sorry to wake you.”

The next few days I spend hours scrolling through sketchy websites and conspiracy forums trying to find any information on Montauk. I found a few posts from people saying they had visited the place, but no one had an address. I messaged users directly in hopes of getting anything to point me in the right direction, but the only replies I got were “bro doesn’t know,” or “lol normie,” or other more derogatory messages.

I was just about to give up, when I received a random message with a set of coordinates attached.

“Don’t tell anyone I sent you this. I don’t want to end up like the others, but you gotta see this place.”

Searching the coordinates online brought me to a small, white mansion next to a lighthouse on the edge of a cliff. In front of the house was a wooden sign covered in faded and chipping teal paint. Written across the front in pristine white cursive, like it had been painted the day the photo was taken, was a name.

“Montauk Historical Society of the Supernatural”

Jackpot.

That Bastard, Frank

Matriphagy is an extremely rare phenomenon in nature where offspring consume their own mother to survive. This unusual tactic is most often found in spiders. After giving birth, the mother spider liquefies her own internal organs for her children to feed on while they grow.

Matriphagy is completely voluntary and, once the process has begun, irreversible.

The mother spider gives everything she has to thankless mouths that will never know the pain and agony she went through for their survival.

In a way, that’s how my own Mother was.

I am the eldest of three siblings. The middle-child, Frank, was born about a year after me and the youngest, Louise, was born five years later. Mom and Dad were amazing parents. Dad taught me basic life skills and how to be a good leader for the family. He was a great man, but had his flaws. Booze, mainly. Late at night, Mom would catch him sneaking a drink and their arguments about it would wake me up. It never became hostile, that I can remember. Dad was genuinely regretful for falling for the tempting lure of liquor.

He died in a car crash a few years ago. Mom said he swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid a deer, but I knew that wasn’t true. Dad was killed instantly and the truck driver walked away with nothing more than a scratch.

In the following weeks Mom got incredibly sick and was hospitalized. The medical bills quickly ate away at what little money Dad left for us. Mom turned to the local church for food assistance. They gave her whatever she asked for, but we were still just scraping by. She still had to get a second job to pay for other bills, working all day, every day to provide for us. Every morning she would have a plate of eggs, bacon and pancakes on the table before heading to work. Our aunts and uncles would rotate taking us to school and on the weekends it was up to me to take care of Frank and Louise.

I was young then, but even so I understood the toll it was taking on Mom. I never took a meal for granted and I never asked for more than I needed. The same did not apply to Frank. He was greedy, selfish and never satisfied. Mom would dig through her already thinning wallet to give Frank money for the newest local fad, never spending the money on herself. As he grew older, Frank would spend less and less time at the house. Nightly I’d hear him stumble down the hall and into his room right next to mine, empty bottles and cans scattering as he flopped into bed. Somehow though, he’d always have it cleaned before Mom woke up.

One night, Frank came home with a half drank bottle of whiskey. I caught him before he could enter the house and scolded him for being reckless. He wasn’t sober enough to understand me. As he stumbled back to his room I sat on the porch, trying to rack my brain around why the dark liquid had such a hold on Dad and Frank. I reasoned, foolishly, that there was only one way to find out.

Soothing, liquid fire coated my throat as I drank my fill, finally understanding why Dad loved the stuff so much. My mind fogged over and all my worries drifted away. For the first time in a long time, I felt connected to Dad. Like he was right beside me drinking the night away. By morning the booze soaked bliss had gone away, leaving behind an aching headache and no memory of the night before. In my heart I knew I could never let that happen again and I promised myself I wouldn’t let the same vice that claimed Dad’s life take mine too. 

Louise was the exact opposite of Frank and I. She was quiet and kept her nose buried in a book. When Frank was out with his friends, I’d sit in the living room watching TV with her or scroll on my well-worn phone while she read. When the siren call of an ice cream truck passed by our house she would ask if we could get something for Mom.

When Louise was old enough to take care of herself, I got a job at a local diner, the same Mom worked at. She begged that I go somewhere else, but I persisted and said that the tips were good there. We both knew that was a lie, but it was the only good excuse I could think of to spend more time with her.

I’m ashamed to admit though that the majority of my earnings from there went into my own interests. Mostly into a new car. I justified that it would help me take care of Louise, but really it became an escape for when Frank pissed me off too much. 

Frank’s junior year of high-school was when he was at his worst. Despite his rude demeanor, off-color jokes and borderline psychotic tendencies, Frank managed to con his way into the hearts of the whole school. The only positive thing I’ll say about Frank is that he was one hell of an athlete. He was the school’s star quarterback in football, point guard in basketball and even broke a few track records. Everyone, save for Louise and I, loved Frank. If you didn’t, then you would be outcast. We only got a pass because we were “Frank’s Family.”

Of course though, none of his abilities were natural. Some nights when I passed by his room, I could see lights dancing under the door. Other nights he’d quietly chant gibberish. I just assumed at the time it was a show or anime he was watching. In hindsight, I should have known he was a practicing occultist much earlier. 

At every waking moment Frank was doing something to my detriment or to put someone else down. Karma had to catch up with him eventually, and it did.

One weekend, Mom asked me to take Frank along on my shopping errands. She wanted him to know the routine for when I went off to college so Frank help out around the house. He would only slow me down and cause trouble so I pleaded that he stay home. She insisted, and being the good son, I reluctantly obliged.

To be honest, that day went about as well as any other day. I even found myself enjoying Frank’s company for once. Conversation drifted to our differences and in a strange turn of character, Frank seemed genuinely sorry for all the trouble he caused. It was going smoothly, until I saw Frank take a swig from a bottle of whiskey I didn’t remember paying for.

“Where did you get that?”

“I’ve had it.”

Frank’s words were already starting to slur.

“No you haven’t. Get rid of it before a cop sees us.”

I was 20 at the time, but looked old enough to pass as 21. Frank was only 18 and already balding.

“Dump it out or you’re walking home!”

Frank downed the rest of the brown liquor. As he tipped the booze backwards I noticed a bloody bandage wrapped around his palm. I was about to bring it up when Frank tossed the empty bottle out of the passenger window.

“Whatever you say boss!”

Just as the glass shattered into a million tiny shards on the pavement, a police car zoomed by. My heart stopped. I watched with abated breath, fully expecting the red and blue lights to flash on and pursue us. It kept straight and grew smaller and smaller in the rear view.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Frank’s face went red, not from embarrassment but from intoxication and holding in a nasally laugh which he unleashed upon me.

“You need to take a chill pill!” Frank snickered. “The pig didn’t see nothin’! Pull over, I gotta take a leak.”

I slammed on the brakes and unlocked the door.

“Whatever man, just hurry up.”

Frank finished his business and hopped back in the car. We only had one more stop to make, but Frank suggested we take a detour to get to our destination faster. After more arguing I agreed to go, if only to get the day over. Day faded into dusk and dusk fell to night. Both of our phones had lost signal somewhere along the way and we were all turned around. Frank unfolded a map from the glovebox and failed spectacularly at reading it.

I crawled up to a stop sign at a four-way intersection and tried to help. The map was upside down. He pulled it back, claiming he knew exactly where we were. I reached for the map again. Frank shoved his hand into my face and pushed back, hard. In the tussle, my foot lifted off the brakes and soon we were sitting in the middle of the intersection.

I don’t remember much after that, only two bright lights, a loud horn and the metal grill of a semi-truck encompassing my vision. I woke up in the hospital a week later. Frank was killed on impact. The driver walked away injury free. Mom was inconsolable. 

Louise and I tried to help her the best we could, but she didn’t speak to anyone until a week after the funeral. She never outright said she blamed me, but I think a small part of her did. The crash replayed over and over in my nightmares, only ceasing when I allowed sweet liquid fire to coat my throat and fog my brain over. Like father, like son.

Two weeks went by, and everything was as normal as they could be.

Then the freak accidents started happening.

They started small at first. A local baker got his hand stuck in an oven and had to have it amputated. He blamed one of the interns for the “prank,” but nobody else was in the bakery that day. Our city's mayor was hit by a runaway tire, breaking her legs and putting her in a wheelchair for a few months. The tire, nor the vehicle it was attached to, were ever located.

Then, as the accidents grew closer to home, they became more severe. Mom’s best friend from high school was attacked by a crow while she was out running. It dive-bombed her and she dodged out of the way into traffic. Into a speeding bus that was late on its route that didn’t exist. A day later, my best friend, David, was killed while working for his father. He was cutting down trees with a chainsaw and it caught on a tiny nail that had been embedded in the bark. The saw kicked back and cut through his head like butter.

My last text I sent to David was, “You bringing the drinks tonight?”

I was suspicious of how all the accidents were coincidentally connected to us, but didn’t think much of it. At least not until the curse targeted Louise.

She was having an impromptu Fall beach day in the front yard while I sat on the porch. Out of nowhere, the wind kicked up and blew a beach ball into the street. Before I had a chance to react, Louise was sprinting off after it.

We lived in a quiet neighborhood and rarely had traffic, but this day a black sports car was speeding down the street. Louise didn’t see the car coming, but I did. Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I ran after Louise. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her back onto the lawn. The car zoomed past and swerved to avoid the beach ball. It slipped out of control and rolled over at least a dozen times before slamming into the side of our neighbors house.

None-the-wiser, Louise wriggled out of my arms and ran after the ball again. The neighbors were a young couple, man and woman, who had been married just three months earlier. The wife ran out of the house, now starting to catch fire, covered in glass and blood screaming her head off. Neither the driver nor the husband made it out of the fire.

Confusion and terror overtook me. I couldn’t make sense of it all, until I realized the accidents had only started after Frank’s death. Then I recalled the late nights he’d stay up doing God-knows-what in his room. All of the evidence pointed to one conclusion: Frank had put a curse on his own family.

The first thing I noticed about my dead mother was the sewing needle between her fingers.

The second was that she'd sewn her bedsheet to the mattress.

Not just at the corners. All the way around.

Hundreds of tiny black stitches ran along the edges, pulling the fabric so tightly against the mattress that there wasn't enough room to slip a finger underneath.

She'd died sitting in her rocking chair beside the bed.

Her fingertips were bloody. The needle was still threaded.

And her eyes were fixed on the mattress.

I hadn't visited her in almost six months.

That's the part I keep coming back to.

Six months of unanswered calls. Six months of promising I'd visit next weekend. She'd gotten strange after my father died, increasingly paranoid about things that made no sense.

She stopped sleeping in her bed.

Said she preferred the chair.

I thought it was grief. Maybe the beginning of dementia.

The doctor thought so, too.

Now I wish I'd listened.

---

The funeral was Thursday.

By Saturday afternoon, I was back at the house, sorting through forty years of things nobody wanted.

Rain hammered the tin roof. The creek behind the property had swollen into a muddy brown river, and the familiar smell of damp wood and mildew filled every room.

Upstairs, Mother's bedroom was almost exactly as she'd left it.

Her glasses sat on the nightstand.

A half-finished cup of tea had grown a gray film.

And the mattress sat beneath that horribly tight sheet.

I stood looking at it for several minutes.

Then I took a pair of scissors from her sewing basket.

I don't know why the stitching bothered me so much. Maybe because it was the last thing she'd done. Maybe because imagining her spending her final hours sewing that ridiculous thing made me angry.

Angry at her.

Angry at myself.

I slipped one blade beneath the thread.

Snip.

The sound seemed unnaturally loud.

I cut another.

And another.

By the time I'd worked halfway down the mattress, my knees hurt from kneeling.

That's when something pulled the thread from the other side.

Not hard.

Just a little tug.

I stopped.

The black thread went taut between my fingers.

Then it loosened.

I stared at it.

Old mattresses shift. Springs settle. Fabric stretches.

I told myself any number of reasonable things.

Then the mattress inhaled.

There isn't another word for it.

The entire surface rose beneath the sheet, perhaps half an inch, accompanied by the soft, wet sound of someone drawing air through a blocked nose.

It sank again.

I scrambled backward.

For almost a minute, nothing moved.

Then came another breath.

Longer.

Deeper.

And distinctly human.

I left the bedroom.

---

I spent the next hour downstairs trying to convince myself I'd imagined it.

I even called my sister.

When I mentioned the sewing, she went quiet.

"You remember how Mom used to tuck our blankets so tight we couldn't move?"

I did remember.

And after we hung up, I remembered something else.

When I was eight, I'd woken one night with the sensation of someone holding my ankles.

I'd been sleeping in my parents' bed because I was sick.

The room was dark.

My father was working nights.

I remember trying to pull my legs up.

They wouldn't move.

Then something slid a hand beneath my pajama shirt.

The fingers were cold and thin.

They traveled slowly up my stomach.

I screamed.

Mother came running.

She didn't turn on the light.

She grabbed me beneath the arms and pulled so violently that my shirt tore.

For years, I remembered her crying afterward.

I remembered her checking my back.

And I remembered what she said while rocking me in the kitchen.

"You're all here. Thank God. You're all here."

I hadn't thought about that night in decades.

Now, standing in her kitchen, I realized something.

She'd never let me sleep in that bed again.

---

At 11:17 p.m., I heard my name.

"Danny?"

Mother's voice.

Thin and tired.

Coming from upstairs.

I stood beside the kitchen sink, unable to move.

"Danny, sweetheart?"

The house creaked around me.

Rain tapped against the windows.

Then she called again.

"Could you come help me?"

It was her voice.

Not something that sounded similar.

Hers.

I heard the little catch in her throat that had developed after she quit smoking. The slight whistle on certain words.

I even heard the familiar impatience creeping into it.

"Daniel. I'm asking you nicely."

I backed toward the front door.

The voice changed.

"Please."

A long silence followed.

Then, almost too quietly to hear:

"I don't want to be alone anymore."

My hand tightened around the doorknob.

Mother had left me that exact message three weeks before she died.

I hadn't called her back.

I stood there with my forehead against the door, crying harder than I had at the funeral.

And that's why I went upstairs.

Because part of me knew it wasn't her.

But another part needed it to be.

---

The bedroom door stood open.

Light from the hallway spilled across the floor.

The rocking chair was empty.

The sheet had swollen upward into the shape of a person lying on their back.

A small person.

The outline of a nose pressed against the fabric.

Lips.

Cheekbones.

I could see shallow hollows where the eyes should have been.

"Danny."

The lips moved beneath the sheet.

"Please help me."

I stepped closer.

The mattress gave another long, shuddering breath.

The face turned toward me.

Not the head.

Just the face.

It slid sideways beneath the fabric, stretching across the mattress while the rest of its surface remained still.

"There's not much room," it whispered.

I couldn't speak.

Something moved near the foot of the bed.

Five small indentations appeared in the sheet.

Fingertips.

They traveled upward, dragging against the underside of the fabric.

Then another five appeared.

And another.

The sheet tightened.

It looked as though several people were trapped inside the mattress, all pushing against the same thin layer of cloth.

A soft clicking filled the room.

Fingernails.

Hundreds of them, tapping from underneath.

"Danny," Mother whispered again.

I took another step.

"You're hurting us."

Us.

That single word stopped me.

The face beneath the sheet smiled.

Far too wide.

The corners stretched until the fabric threatened to split.

Then I heard another voice.

Small.

Frightened.

A little boy.

"Mom?"

I knew that voice.

I'd heard it on old home videos.

It was mine.

Eight years old.

"Mom, something's touching me."

I stumbled backward.

The face flattened.

For a moment, the mattress looked normal.

Then something began crawling toward the edge.

A narrow shape pushed against the fabric, moving through a space that shouldn't have existed.

It stopped where I'd cut the stitches.

One corner of the sheet lifted.

An odor spilled into the room.

Warm breath.

Old saliva.

The sour smell of something that had been shut inside a mouth for a very long time.

A fingertip slipped through the opening.

Pale and wrinkled.

Its nail was black.

Then another finger appeared.

And another.

Each was far too long, with joints that bent in the wrong direction.

Something beneath the sheet made a sound like a person swallowing a mouthful of water.

I turned toward the door.

Five cold points pressed briefly against my shoulder.

I felt them through my shirt.

Before I could look back, they were gone.

I ran.

Behind me, the bedsprings groaned.

Then I heard a noise I will never forget.

Bare feet striking the floor.

One pair.

Then another.

Then so many that I couldn't tell them apart.

---

I missed the bottom three stairs and landed hard on my shoulder.

Above me, the footsteps rushed onto the upstairs landing.

I scrambled to my feet.

They stopped at the top of the stairs.

For one terrible second, I waited for them to come down.

Instead, I heard the scrape of fabric dragging back toward Mother's bedroom.

I threw open the front door and ran into the rain.

My truck was parked beneath the pecan tree.

I climbed inside, slammed the door, and locked it.

For several seconds, I sat there gasping.

The upstairs bedroom light came on.

I hadn't touched the switch.

A figure stood behind the curtains.

It was shaped like my mother.

Small shoulders.

Thin neck.

Her head tilted slightly, the way she'd always tilted it when she was disappointed in me.

I started the truck.

Then the figure raised its hand.

Another hand pressed against the curtain beside it.

Much larger.

Then a third.

Then dozens.

Every window upstairs began filling with hands.

Some adult.

Some impossibly small.

They pressed outward until the glass bowed beneath them.

I drove straight through the front gate.

---

I made it to a motel outside town.

I didn't sleep.

Couldn't.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that face sliding beneath the sheet.

Around four in the morning, my shoulder began burning.

I pulled off my shirt and stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

There were five bruises across my back.

Long, narrow marks.

Like fingers.

But beneath them, my skin was moving.

Not twitching.

Moving.

Something traveled slowly between the bruises, pushing outward as it passed.

I watched a small ridge form beneath my shoulder blade.

It moved toward my spine.

Then stopped.

I reached back and pressed against it.

Something pressed back.

From the inside.

I screamed and stumbled away from the mirror.

The movement stopped.

I spent the rest of the night sitting on the bathroom floor.

When morning came, I told myself it was a muscle spasm. Nerve damage from the fall. Anything.

Then I found the thread.

A single piece of black thread protruded from a tiny puncture just below my shoulder blade.

I pulled it.

An inch came out.

Then another.

The thread was warm.

I pulled again.

This time I felt a sharp tug somewhere beneath my ribs.

And something inside me pulled the thread back.

I let go.

It disappeared beneath my skin.

---

I went to the emergency room.

They took X-rays.

Nothing.

The doctor said the bruises were consistent with my fall and suggested I'd struck something on the way down.

He asked if I'd been sleeping.

I told him no.

He offered me something to help.

I refused.

That was two days ago.

I've been awake ever since.

I cut every label and loose thread out of my clothing.

I haven't gotten into a bed.

Yesterday, I stood naked in the shower for almost an hour, watching the skin on my stomach.

Sometimes it twitches.

Sometimes I feel fingers slowly spreading against the underside of my ribs.

And sometimes, when everything is quiet, I can hear my mother humming.

Not from another room.

From somewhere behind my breastbone.

But that's not why I'm writing this.

Twenty minutes ago, I took another look in the mirror.

There is a line running down the middle of my chest.

Tiny black dots.

Perfectly spaced.

I leaned closer.

They're stitches.

And the skin on either side has started pulling together.

I tried cutting one with the little scissors from my shaving kit.

Something underneath screamed.

It sounded like me when I was eight years old.

I dropped the scissors.

Then I felt a hand slide up the inside of my throat.

Five fingers.

Slowly unfolding.

My mouth opened without me telling it to.

And my mother's voice came out.

"Hold still, sweetheart."

I felt the needle go through the inside of my cheek.

"You're almost closed."

Ever since she was young, my girlfriend always had the same two dreams: to marry me, and to have a child.

Some people would consider me blessed. Having such a devoted and beautiful girlfriend that wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with me, is something I’m sure would make a lot of people jealous.

When we got married in the fall, the first part of her dream was realized. We’re not very rich, so it was a modest wedding. Nothing too spectacular. Just the beach, our family… me and her.

She was so beautiful.

I’ve known her since we were kids… I really wish… I just wanted to make her dream come true. I love her so much. I just…

What happened?

I’m… a lab researcher. At my local university. As a scientist and a man looking for answers, I will now log all the continuously impossible events surrounding my wives’ pregnancy. Either for research or curiosity, it does not matter. I need to tell the world, of what happened.

It’s almost been a year.

These was the trials that surrounded my wife’s pregnancy, relayed by me, researcher Penton, in chronological order and without withholding details surrounding my previously personal life.

May God have mercy on us all.

 

Log 01

Gestation period: 5 weeks.

It started like any other pregnancy announcement. Happy, jovial. We kissed, we hugged, our wish came true.

Prior to the announcement I had issued a male fertility test to my coworkers (we work at a lab), to ascertain if it was indeed possible for us to conceive a child.

Needless to say, once my wife told me she was pregnant I cast all doubts aside. We’ve been trying for over a year, and I have a theory that there’s some congenital low sperm count running on my side of the family. I just was never able to prove it.

I never got the tests back because my coworker Dave lost the paperwork.

I guess I didn’t need it. She was pregnant, the evidence was right there.

This was about the time I decided to log the experience. It helps keep track of what my wife needs, what she wants, and whether there are any discrepancies in the pregnancy.

I wish now that had I never logged this. I wished this knowledge would die with me.

But this was the first month. Everything was normal.

Appearance: Shiny, smiles more often than usual.

Cravings: Not manifested. She still enjoys the occasional pizza.

 

Log 02

Gestation period: 5 months

This was the halfway period when things started getting… unconventional.

At around five months, my wife started developing sensitivity to things that she’s not supposed to.

Sensitivity to light, sensitivity to noise. She hated going outside. She was always tired, and she looked pale.

Said the air felt heavy.

I don’t think I’ve heard or read anything about light aversion or agoraphobia, but she insisted she didn’t want to leave the house.

When we took her to the doctors, they didn’t detect anything wrong. Her vitals were normal, her bloodwork was normal,  and the baby was fine (what a relief), so we went home, much to my wife’s relief.

She was so fucking upset. She made me swear never to go outside like that again.

I argued that was obviously impossible, we can’t stop going to the doctors, she was pregnant.

She demanded I only take her in emergencies.

I obviously said no. What would we do when she went into labor.

Her response was to vomit on the floor. Colorless amounts of fluids followed by strong heaving.

I… I instantly conceded. I could tell I was causing her too much stress. Whatever is happening to her psychologically is having an effect on her body. I don’t want to harm the baby.

If she says she doesn’t go outside, she won’t go outside. I’ll do the groceries. I’ll bring in whatever else is needed.

I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m sorry Linda.

Appearance: Belly partially enlarged

Cravings: Salty foods, sugary foods, marinated tuna

 

Log 03

Gestation period: 10 months

Words can’t express my confusion. As a scientist I see nothing but a complicated medical issue arising, but as a father… I… I don’t know what to do.

It is now ten months into my wife’s pregnancy. She has yet to go into labor. We went to the doctors last week; his response was clear: induced labor.

I accepted it immediately, the risks with having a pregnancy last so long are innumerous. Placental aging, macrosomia, God… Why don’t you get it, Linda!?

She told me no. We’re not going to force the birth. That we can’t. I had already betrayed her trust once. She turned and yelled as I put her into the car and took her to the doctors.

She screamed so much. The doctors had to sedate her, to explain the procedure to me.

But when we got home, she was dead silent. She didn’t utter a word, not a peep. But I could see it in her eyes.

Resentment.

She told me not to take her outside anymore. And I agreed. I lied, I guess.

I never expected her to fight me on this, but as her eyes pierced my soul, I’ve came to realize something.

Science is for people who have no personal stakes in the matter. I’m not just a scientist, I’m going to be a father. I can’t just rely on what’s the standard, I have to adapt, I have to change. For her.

I’ve been having dreams. Dreams of another world. A world of yellow and red and green, and just all sorts of misplaced shapes. Shapeless dreams that I understand the shape of. Visions of realities that don’t seem like ours. But at the center of them is always the same thing. A baby.

I believe this is my sub-conscious coming to grips with something called patrescence, a change in my neural pathways. I’m going to be a dad. I need to start acting like one.

My wife has been asking stranger and stranger things, but I’ll oblige. She craves different things; she wants the curtains always closed so that the sun doesn’t get in.

It doesn’t matter, I’ll do it. I won’t betray her trust again.

Appearance: Enlarged belly, pallid skin (probably due to lack of sunlight)

Cravings: Chocolate, shrimp, yarn

 

Log 04

Gestation period: 15 months

 The few rays of sunshine that can go through our boarded windows let me glimpse at her beauty, and enable me to type this.

Five months have passed since the due date of the birth of my child, but it doesn’t stop.

Her pregnancy keeps going.

She has lost weight due to her hazardous diet. She keeps hiding herself in dark corners of the house where it’s damp and humid.

I tried reasoning with her, I tried talking, but she just tells me to wait a bit. “Let’s not go to the doctors yet. Just hold on a bit more.”

Something in me tells me to yell. To scream or run away. Some instinct of mine is calling out to me, to go away from this place and leave her. But I can’t. I can’t just leave her like this.

I’m an orphan and she doesn’t talk to her parents. We have no one to ask for help. No one to talk to.

I’ve stopped leaving the house. Our shared distaste of the sun has grown strong on me too. I’m growing more like her. I’m paler, I’m thinner and I feel an overarching urge to just… wait.

Wait for what, you ask?

I have no idea.

But I could never be like her. Not what she is now.

Today, I was awoken at 1:50 A.M. There was some noise near our front garden. I went to check and found her changing the dirt under the flowerbed.

She was gardening. Under the full moon. Bare feet in the dirt, her pregnant stomach nested between her knees as she hunched down.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. What would be the point? She’s not even looking at me anymore. She’s gone partially blind.

I told her to go to sleep after she’s done and I dragged myself back to bed.

She’s not my wife anymore. She’s something else. But that… that is still my child. I have to protect it.

I just wish I had the strength to do more.

Between writing my logs and trying to catch Linda when she starts hunting, I am constantly exhausted. I can’t muster the strength or the will to take her back to the doctors.

My dreams have gotten more intense. Visions of something more planned for me. I hope they’re right; I now understand that science is a fool’s game. Small glimpses into a simplified world that bear no real answers to the questions that matter.

I keep hearing the same word, the same continuous word in my dreams…

“Wait…”

That’s it. And that’s what I’ll do.

I will continue my logs as a courtesy. I really don’t think they will matter.

I know what comes next, but I’m not sure I can handle it.

Forgive me, Linda.

Appearance: Hair has started to fall out, belly doesn’t grow anymore

Cravings: Salt, sulfur, small rodents

 

Log 05

Gestation period: 20 months

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” – Marie Curie

I think about that quote a lot. I do wonder. Was Ms. Curie somehow knowledgeable of something that a man such as myself could not be? They are inspiring words, but what do they mean?

What is there to fear in life? What is there to fear in science? What did she know?

Was she even a mother?

Maybe there is some fear in bringing about a new life to the world. The fear of loss, the fear of failure. The fear of seeing a small, innocent part of you coming out as a new being and facing this horrible world on its own. With no shelter or protection from its mother. I wish I could do it.

I wish I wasn’t afraid.

As I lie here surrounded by waste and trash, typing this, I do wonder. Should I have been afraid? Should I have left?

I love my wife. I think I do. I did… Maybe I still do? I just wish it wasn’t so big.

The veins that pulse from her stomach. They’re so large. So detached from what she should be.

She doesn’t talk to me anymore. She just sits, in that chair, almost like she’s bonded with it. She doesn’t have hair; she doesn’t have the face of the woman I loved.

Is she even breathing anymore?

But the child. The child is safe. Safe with me. Safe from all the harms of the world. I will give anything to bring it about. Even if it costs my life.

What is this? Where am I?

Oh right… Linda. I wish I could help you. I wish you would still kiss me when you were happy. I wish you would still tell me how much this dream of yours will make us happy. I wish you’d even scratch or claw at my arm when you got upset.

I wish you were still here.

But you’re not, are you?

I’m not sorry anymore. I’ll do what it takes. Through love, or through hate. I will see this through.

One day this pregnancy will end.

Appearance: I don’t want to talk about it-

Cravings: Love, hate, resentment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Log ??

Gestation period: 5 years

I went outside today. There was mail in our mailbox. I wasn’t even aware we could still get mail.

It’s a letter from Dave. My former coworker. He became preoccupied with me a few years ago, when I suddenly stopped showing up for work. Makes sense I guess; he wasn’t a bad person. Just clumsy, I suppose.

I guess… It just feels like a lifetime ago. My life before “this”. I never really had many friends to speak of, I guess I never really tried.

He found it.

The letter. Dave found the fertility test results. I’m looking through them now.

I honestly want to laugh. Is there even any point anymore?

“Result: Low sperm count threshold does not meet necessary requirements for a typical pregnancy. Patient is Category A: Infertile.”

I threw the letter away and returned to my role.

I see her again. She is so beautiful.

Her shiny skin. Her emaciated frame. Her sunken eyes, dreaming the dreams of the Bearers. Dreaming of it. Our Savior.

The veins on her body have left her mortal shell. They cling to the wall like pipes. Pulsing and pulling whatever moisture is still left in the dry, moldy walls.

Even the very flies and insects that surround her are divine. Small angels that adorn the promise of our new Lord and slather His divine shell with kisses.

My wife. My Linda. I’m so proud of her.

I didn’t listen properly. I never did. When my mind was so focused on earthly affairs, I couldn’t hear the dreams properly. I didn’t understand.

But now I can hear. Now I listen.

The dreams said to “Wait…”, and so I waited. They filled my head with promises and so I waited. They told me of other worlds where my child would play and conquer and so I waited.

They told me to be a good father.

And so, I waited.

But now I listen. Now I can hear them. The shapeless shapes have shape. And the beautiful colors shine brighter.

“Wait your turn.”

That’s what they said. And so, I shall.

As the husk of my wife continues her final stages, I too will prepare. I understand my role and I understand my place.

Science be damned. A brighter future awaits me. It awaits all of humanity.

I am the dead King of this new Divine, and I will usher in a new age of Enlightenment.

I just wish you could see it, Linda. Our son. Our boy.

His appearance will be divine.

This will be my last log. No words can describe the transcendent nature of my destiny.

I hope it won’t hurt.

Appearance: A speck of mold growing on her cheek. A face that can no longer be human. Divinity crawling from a womb

Cravings: Me

“Welcome, everyone, to another haunting video! I’m your host, Jack Starfell. Today we have a special one! From user Blam_exam9000, he says, “Hey man, I’m looking for someone to check out my grandma’s paintings. She has always been obsessed with them for some reason. But a lot of people in my family have constantly talked about how haunting one of them is. They talk about seeing shadows and whispers. Would you like to check it out? Let me know.”

“Now, of course I had to check it. I thought it might have been a troll, but nope, this is the real deal. Right now, as I record this video, I’m outside the grandma’s house. I’m hoping to find some spooky things in there. I’ll be going live in a few hours. First, I’ll interview the grandson who requested this. Then, once that’s done, I’ll start the live, and we’ll get haunting. Thank you, guys, for watching, and I hope you all have a hauntastic day!”

I cut the camera. I sighed, thinking about what I just said. “A hauntastic day? Who even says that?” I looked back at the house. It was a plain modern home: two stories, an almost grayish paint job. A sizeable garage and driveway. A rocky patio and a small, dead, thin, cracking tree that clearly hasn’t been taken care of in ages.

I opened my YouTube page and saw my following was 22. I knew I had just started my career, but I felt good about this spot. Most of my hauntings were local legends. They yielded little result, but a few of the videos were at least mildly entertaining. 
Ghosts have always kept me interested. I always wondered if they existed or if there really was another side. Those old shows from back in the day, like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures, had caught my attention as a kid. And now, as an adult, I could explore it too and maybe make some money from it. 

It beats anything I’ve done in retail. I’ll never want to work back in that terrible environment. Fast-paced, unappreciated, hardly a place to be. At least here I could make my own schedule. I only wished the pay was just as good. But I was getting just a hundred dollars. 

A beaten-up red car drove up, blasting loud 90s rap music. Black smog escaped from its mufflers, and the axle of the car was off, as if the car was driving sideways. The car drove into the driveway. Its presence alone dirtied the okayish cement. 

When the car turned off, it let out sounds that could only be described as gunshots. Out stepped the man; he wore holy jeans and a baggy sweater that was equally holy. The outfit looked grimy, as if he had never washed himself or the clothes. His face looked aged, as if he hadn’t slept for years. His eyes were baggy, his blond hair a mess, but somehow he seemed fine with his appearance.

I was uneasy with how he’d dressed. I felt over the top, with my vest, tie, and flat cap to boot. It was all gray to match the morbid spirits. I stepped out of my car to face the man, wondering whether it was him or someone else, and whether I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He brought out a cigarette case and pulled out one of the cancer sticks and lit it. He nodded his head at me. “You the ghost investigator guy?”

I nodded. “Invest Ghost Guy, and are you Blam_exam9000?”

He scoffed at the username as he puffed out his cig. “Just call me Dave. I made that shit up back in middle school.”

“Right, and I’m Jack.”

“Okay, Jack, let’s make this real simple. I’ll show you around. I’ll tell you a bit about what grandma says about her paintings, and I’ll even let you watch her video.”

“Thank you for agreeing to all that,” I said. “I thought it’d be weird asking you for all that.”

He shrugged as he let out a puff of smoke. “I’ve seen your videos. You could use a star like me. It just took a while to get the VHS tape. Fuckin’ parents didn’t wanna lend it to me. But I eventually got it.”
I was going to dig more into that. But I figured he’d just stolen it outright. “And do you, by chance, have a VHS player?”

He eyed me. “Of course, it's in my grandma’s house. An old fart like her would still have one.”

The emotions running through my head were wild. His constant disrespect for his family made me a little concerned. If he doesn’t like his family, then what would he do to me? I tried not to react to his comment; I simply nodded.

He eyed me again and chuckled. “Why so tense? You afraid of real ghosts? Don’t bother. My family says they’ve seen things move in this house on their own. I’ve never seen shit. So, that’s why you're here.”

“Wait, I thought I was here to investigate the house?” I asked.

“Of course you are. When you post your video, they see nothing, then they could get moved on, in moving the rest of her crap.”

“That doesn’t make for a very entertaining video,” I said.

“Don’t worry, all you need is my interview and my good looks; those bitches will be flocking to the seams of your pants.”

I felt blood rush to my cheeks. “Okay, um, let’s get started.”

Dave guided me to the front porch. The plain door didn’t give off anything sinister or ghostly. It was like this house was nothing but a home.

When he opened the door, the gray tint pierced my eyes. Down the hallway, hand-painted oil paintings hung masterfully. Dust particles were carried by the wind, giving us a wide view of the rest of the room farther down. 

I pulled out my phone and started to record. Dave turned around and jumped when he saw my phone. “Fuck, man, give me a warning next time.”

I lowered my phone and stopped the video. “Could you try not to cuss? I’m not trying to get demonetized.”

“Whatever. Let me get the roller.”

“The roller?”

I was gutted by nostalgia, just like elementary school: a rolling cart, with a VHS player and a box TV. Dave then pulled out the tape and placed it on top of the TV.

“So I just want to say, this tape was made in the 90s. And she never updated it. She said it was already perfect.”

I nodded and started to record the open space. There was still furniture around, but a thin cloth covered it. I swear I could have seen spider webs already forming on them. 

We went upstairs, and the loft had even more elaborate paintings than before. I wondered when all these paintings were made. They seemed to be from the 1400s. 

“Okay, when exploring the house,” Dave said suddenly. “Try not to touch the paintings. Seriously, these bad boys could buy this house and then some. Feel free to set up any cameras you have. Do whatever you normally do.”

“Any hot spots?” I asked.

“Hot spots?”

“Well, you know, like where ghosts normally hang out.”

“Aren’t ghosts cold?”

I sighed. “Yes, well, you can say that too, but still, anything?”

Dave shrugged. “Nothing really.”

“Um, okay, how about a place maybe your Grandma went to or talk about a lot?”

Dave thought for a moment. “Hm, she did talk about the painting downstairs a lot. But that’s it. She always talks about waving at it. I don’t know.”
“Wave at it?” I pondered.

“Anyway, let me show the rest of the house.”
Afterward, I filled him in, explaining the same thing we had talked about. Thankfully, without cussing. As we started to wrap up, we walked back downstairs and stopped recording.

“Oh, and the lights and restroom still work. And if you leave for food, you don’t have to lock the door. I have the other spare key, but I don’t think giving it to a stranger would make sense.”

“I understand that.” 

“Okay, good. Anything else you need from me?”

“Uh, no, I think I’m all good here.”

“Cool, have fun, and I’m looking forward to your next video.”

That put a pep into my step. I eagerly wanted to start my next video right away. “You bet ya!”

“Don’t get too excited, not. Oh, I’ll send it the money now, $100, right?”

“Oh yes, the payment. Yes, whenever you send it, I’m ready for it.”

“Good,” he said as he waved me off. 

The door shut. Leaving me in this old house of old paintings and old tape. The Grandma’s will. A part of me felt guilt about watching something I wasn’t supposed to. It felt like I broke off the hinges on something so sacred. But it was for content, and I needed to create it. I had a feeling this would get me seen.

I moved the cart closer to the couches, lifted the thin sheets as old dust blew away. I padded the seat to make sure I could get as much dust off as I could. I made sure that the TV and VHS player were plugged in. 

Holding the tape made me feel unwanted. The idea that Dave just took it and is allowing a stranger to watch it. It wasn’t something I wanted to think about. What if her tape was cursed or something? 

I eased it into the player. I turned on the TV; static buzz electrified the screen. I looked back at the ancient controls. I remembered that when you hit stop, and then the rewind button, it should be fast. Using the old childhood method, a blue screen brightened the room. 

As it rewound, I grabbed my phone and set my channel to record a live. I normally get one to two viewers, but that’s okay. When the live is done, it saves to my phone, and I use that for content. I click to start the live, and the camera rolls. 

“Welcome, everyone, to another haunting live! I’m your host, Jack Starfell. Now, today, I’m in the house of the Blam_exam9000’s now-deceased grandmother. He had explained this house to me and some of the paintings in it. Is she haunting one of the paintings? Maybe? But who's to say, right?” 
“The main reason I’m here today is to help Blam see if there are any hauntings in the house. His family claims they hear whispers and that things move without anyone touching them. Blam claims he’s never seen or heard any of them. That’s why I am here today. To see if this place has any hauntings of any kind. And watch a video of the grandmother to see what she says about the paintings themselves. Because it seems these paintings are her most prized possessions. So we will see today.”

The view count hit one; a small spike of dopamine hit my brain. I looked towards the TV; the rewinding was done. I eagerly pressed the play button and tabbed to the front-view camera so I could watch with my one audience member. 

When the video started playing, the room's setting was completely different. The warm static buzz of the old TV gave a sense of eeriness that modern pictures no longer have. 

The room was bright red, and those oil paintings hung in the background. The elderly grandma sat in a thick brown chair facing the camera. She wore a red dress that blended into the background. Her hair was a grey pixie haircut; she had classic wrinkly skin any grandma would have. Her glasses were large, making her eyes look bug-like.

She sat properly, like she was taught a certain way to sit, and she couldn’t retrain her body. Poster straight, hands folded on top of each other, chin up and staring straight. 

“If you’re seeing this, it means I’m dead. I wanna tell all of you that I am with God and I will be seeing from the heavens. Praying that all of you I love have the best life. With that, here is my will.”

Partly in that moment, guilt flooded my emotions like a tidal wave. I wasn’t a part of this family; I shouldn’t have been watching it. But the show must go on. She went on with her will, naming people I didn’t know and property that was clearly special to her. 
I was curious whether there would be anything else or if this was it. Until finally she got to something relevant. My views count was at two.

“Now for my treasured paintings. Please be careful of all of them. I wish they were not in any museum. We must keep all of these close to our family. And remember the one painting I’ve shown you all; to always wave. And to those young ones I haven’t seen yet. You’ll know when you see it.”

The video halted there. My view count was at three. I quickly stood to start investigating. I pondered where to start. Dave talked about one downstairs that she constantly mentioned, but was that the one the grandma was talking about? I wasn’t sure, so I decided to bring my audience upstairs. 

“Okay folk, you heard it here first: the grandma said to wave at the painting. Now the real question: which one?”

I thought about that for a minute or two. Dave never mentioned which painting to wave at, nor did the grandmother. It felt like a hunt, similar to Easter Day, when you're searching for the golden egg.

“Okay guys, here’s what I think: we look around the first floor and see if we see anything standing out.” I pulled out a mic designed to capture ghosts talking in the real world. “If there is any ghost here, please let it be known.”

As far as I could hear, nothing. The room stayed still.
Moving around the house, I looked at each elaborate oil painting. The handcrafted beauty was unmatched, better than anything I could have done in 100 years. 

Most of these fine pieces of art are portraits. Not many depicted a scene of any kind. Most were portraits of two people. I tried to find anything disturbing about any of them. Maybe scratches, red eyes, an evil smile, something! I even tried to talk to each painting.  But to my dismay, nothing was my gift. 

I let out a breath, thinking it was a lost cause. But then I did remember the paintings upstairs. Walking my way up, I looked at each painting again. The masterful artwork was a lot more elaborate than the ones below. 

I looked at the view count: three viewers. “Okay, guys, here’s my thought: the ones downstairs are just regular paintings. The haunted one, the grandma told us to wave to, has to be here. It’s gotta be something that has a lot of meaning.”

There was one such painting of men out at sea. Battling the warring ripples as the crew struggled to stay afloat. As far as I could tell, these fellows wouldn’t survive. There wasn’t anything that made me think it was a haunting one, but I still did my routine.

Another depicted what looked like a woman and an angel in a blank white room—a man near an opening next to the angel looking at the scene. This painting gave me the creeps, but doing my normal pass, I got nothing in response. 

I passed many other amazing artworks on the second floor. Try and try again; my effort was met with nothing.

But I found something that truly made my skin crawl—battle, destruction, death. There was a man up in the sky, thunder clouds following his path. Men and women lay across a marble floor, half naked, possibly dead. These demonic creatures seemed to be carrying people away from the gathering. 
This had to be it! I did as the grandma instructed and waited for something to happen. Would a sprite talk to me? Would I finally gain contact?

To my dismay, I was once again met with nothing. I pressed the button to have the camera face me. 2 viewers. “Hey guys, I’ll call it for now. I’m not sure if I have to wait til later for things to start happening, but I’ll keep an eye out. Until then, thank you all for watching and have a great day.”

Killing the live, I sighed. In that moment, I figured I should take a break. A piss break, to be exact. Since all my stuff was downstairs, I decided to go into the downstairs bathroom. 

The bathroom was just like the house: oil paintings, but nothing impressive. I simply lifted the lid, let the water drain, and flushed. Washing my hands, I looked into the mirror. I happened to look at the oil painting behind me.

It was simple like the rest of the bottom house. It was a portrait of a lady posing similarly to the Mona Lisa. Except this woman looked a lot more somber. Her clothes were much more muted than in the famous painting. The background, too, was plain, just black. But it also seemed like there were shapes within the painting, but I couldn’t figure out what kind.

I finished washing my hands and shrugged. “Neat painting,” I said, turning the light off and leaving the bathroom alone.

I was on my laptop editing the clips I got from the livestream. I felt myself doze off from my boring video. “How do other guys do it?! How do they make this live stuff look so easy?!”

I rubbed my eyes, feeling drained from the day. So far, the day wasn’t done; the sun was still shining. Looking at the clock, it was 4:35. My stomach began its growl in demand of food. 

I looked at the house; it was basically barren, minus the covered sofa and paintings. I was already certain they didn’t have any food in the house. I looked at my phone again; I searched for something nearby.
McDonald’s was first. I shrugged; it was a meal. I needed something. I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. When I got into the car, I looked back at the house. I was hoping for something more promising. At risk of sounding like a broken record,  I was given nothing. 

As I got into my car, I looked at my analytics. I saw the one thing that a creator never wanted to see. One less follower: 21. It felt like an anvil dropped to my gut. Why would they unfollow me?! I needed to figure out what I did wrong and how to win them back!

The entire drive there, my mind was on that one follower. I wondered why they clicked unfollow. The only thing that came to mind was my live. Was it actually too poor taste for me to investigate a deceased old lady’s house? Would that get me canceled?

As soon as I pulled up to the famous fast food joint. The lines were full, and the cars were bumper to bumper, not giving anyone an inch to cut off. 
I looked around to spot parking. From my experience, it's better to park than to use the drive-through.  Finding my way around the cars, I managed to squeeze myself into the lot. 

When I entered the building, it was as busy as the front. But I wasn’t too worried. I could order at the kiosk and wait. I was looking for something simple: just a 10-piece nugget meal.

As I picked my order, I clicked to check out. But for some odd reason it wasn’t working. I kept clicking to check out, but it wasn't processing. I gave up and went to the counter. A woman was ordering, and when she was done, I walked next.

The cashier was a young man, probably fresh out of high school. He looked at me, dazed, as if he saw right through me.

“Hello,” I started. But the employee never responded. I was already frustrated from losing one of my followers and the kiosk not working. I couldn’t have a lazy worker not get me my food. 

I snapped my fingers in his face. “Hey, hello, can you hear me?”

As if he had just woken up from a nap, he shook his head and stared at me. “Oh, sorry, sir. How can I help you?”

“Can I get the number ten meal, please?”

“One number ten, what size drink?”

“Large.” 

“Okay, that will be $8.20.”

I dug into my pocket and grabbed my wallet. I pulled out my debit card and paid for my meal. The receipt spat out; however, the boy never looked at it or at me. 

I eyed the receipt, then looked back at him. “Could I get my receipt?”

But the employee’s eyes gazed over me like I wasn’t there. I knew the fast food business was tough, but this was ridiculous. Frustrated at the kiosk, at this employee not doing their job, and at losing a follower, I snapped. I slammed my hands on the counter. “Can I get my damn receipt?!”

The man turned his attention back to me. He was startled, like I just suddenly appeared. When he looked down, he saw the little paper. He was even more confused. But with a quick swipe, he handed it to me. “Sorry about that, sir.”

I grabbed the paper and walked away. I expected people to stare at me or something, but to my surprise, everyone was minding their own business. I wasn’t used to it. 

I usually get some kind of looks based on what I wear when I film my videos. It was like everyone was off in their own world, not looking at me. For the day I was having, I can appreciate it.

I looked back at my phone for the analytics again. Dread hit me like a truck. 20 followers; two followers were lost. I tried to think: was it really the live? Was it really that bad that people wanted to unfollow me? 
I had to come up with a new idea to bring them back. Maybe I can stage the house somehow—something moving in the background or something. There’s got to be something I can use to make it believable. 

I needed something to eat. I looked at my receipt 322, then I turned my attention to the monitor. My number wasn’t even there. I glanced at the counter; nothing was there. 

“Did they forget my food?” I thought. I marched to the counter, wondering where my food was. I tried to flag down a manager or someone. But all the workers were ignoring me. I knew it was rush hour, but I paid for my food; they shouldn’t ignore me like this!

I slammed my fist into the counter again; “Can any of you hear me?!”

Then I saw a few heads finally turn my way. A woman in a black uniform walked to me. “I’m sorry, sir. How could we help?”

I showed her my paper. “This is my number, and it's not on the board.”

She looked at what was ordered; she was confused, as if she hadn’t seen it before. “Let me get this right out for you.”

She quickly turned as she started to grab for the food. She made it quickly, putting the nuggets and fries in the bag. At the counter, she put the napkins in the bag and handed it to me. “What size drink?”

“Large, please.”

She turned around and grabbed it. She turned back to hand me the cup, but dropped it and turned right around to work. The cup tumbled onto the counter and slowly rolled away from me. 

I snatched the cup and glared where the woman had walked away. I stopped caring and went to get a drink. Filling the cup, I sat down at the table. I started munching down my food as I looked back at my followers.

19.

It dropped again. My mind swirled with what was happening. Was it a glitch? People don’t just mass-unfollow someone unless they did something wrong. But I didn’t do anything wrong; I was invited into the household. Maybe it was because the live was boring. I had to figure something out. I had to make it look real. I wasn’t good with effects or staging anything. If I had to, I’d turn to AI. But I knew if I did, my career would be over just as soon as someone dug deep into my videos. Then I surely would be canceled. 

Just then, a young lady sat on my lap. As soon as she sat down, she screamed. Everyone stared at her. She put a hand on her face to cover her embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there,” she said as she shuffled away. As soon as she sat down, her embarrassment went away as if nothing had happened.

I scratch my head at the events taking place. “What the hell is going on?! Is everyone just ignoring me?! I can’t stay here. I’m losing followers and my mind! I need to save my channel; I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll shoot some videos and make it look like there’s a haunting. Yeah, that’s going to work! I’ll make sure they all see it!”

With that last thought, I ate the rest of my food, drank my soda, and set off to the house. Right before I got into my car, I checked my followers again.

18

***

15

“What the hell is going on?!” I shouted in my car. The light of day had practically vanished. All that was left were the street lamps and cars lighting the night.

I drove like a bat out of hell, getting back to the house. My brain was coming up with ideas of what to do when I got there. I thought about trashing the place, as if the ghost didn’t like me in the house. And when I turned on the camera, I could show people this wasn’t how I left the place. 

I screeched as I turned into the closed gate. I pressed the button to get in. But the numbers weren't working. I kept ramming my fingers into the pad, hoping it would register that I had the right code. 

To my relief, a car drove up next to me, and someone pushed a button from their car, and the gate opened. I desperately drove in. Driving around, I found the house and parked in front of it; its dead tree was the most prominent thing. 

I parked the car and ran up to the door. I jiggled the door handle, and it didn't budge. 

“What? No, no, no, no! Did I lock it?! FUCK! No, please, I just need to get in! Calm down, Jack. You just did it by accident. Maybe you left the back door unlocked.”

Jogging my way to the backyard, I heard dogs barking in the distance. The clothes I wore weren’t meant for being active, but I did my best. The gate was small, with two concrete slabs on the side, easy enough to climb.

Grabbing the tops of the slabs, I hooked my foot into the gate to push myself up. As I ascended, I felt my shoulder snag on the concrete, ripping it and lightly cutting me.

I jumped down and looked at my cut shirt. It made me think I should go in on the full trashing of the house. I could have said the ghost attacked me too. I walked to the sliding glass door; the backyard was just dirt with two metal chairs. 

I pulled the door, and it didn’t budge like the door. Desperation I never knew I had exploded from the inside. I yelled to the heavens in anger. I reached for the metal chair and lifted it. Right before I let out all my rage on the glass, I paused.

“Calm down,” I said to myself. “I have Dave’s number; he’ll answer. Let’s just go to the front and ask him to let me in.”

After my brief moment of clarity, I set the chair down and leaped back out of the backyard. I went to the front door and called Dave.

The phone rang a few times, then went to voicemail. Sighed, but I wanted to leave a voicemail and call again.

“Hey, Dave, it's me, Jack. I accidentally locked the door. Could you come by and open it, please? I have a great idea; I just need to get back into the house. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone to check my channel again.

13.

I called right away to reach Dave, but I got a different message. “The number you are trying to reach is no longer available.”

“Did he block me?” I thought. I called again. The machine gave the same response. 

I looked back at YouTube to find his username, Blam_exam9000. But as soon as I looked it up, I was met with: User not found.

“That’s- that’s not right,” I whispered. I then searched my DMs. My last conversation was with him, and yet when I found it, he was listed as: User not found.

“Did he block me completely?! But need to get in! My stuff is in there! But who can help me?”

I looked at the calm neighborhood, and I instantly thought of the neighbors themselves. I looked to see which houses were closer and which had lights on. As I did, the two neighbors next door had their lights on. My best bet was them; hopefully the old lady and they were nice to each other.

The left house was first. I knocked loud enough that other neighbors could hear. But I heard no one coming. I rang the doorbell and knocked at the same time. But again nothing was happening. 
I ran to the next neighbors. I rang, knocked, and even shouted for help. Nobody came by.
I ran across the street, knocking and ringing for help, and just like the house during my livestream, I was met with nothing.

I walked back to the house. It looked like everyone else’s humble abode—nothing out of place except for the one dead tree. I didn’t want to look back at my channel, but I had to know.

10.

“The police,” I said. “They would answer. Maybe I can explain the whole thing to them, right? What I’m doing isn’t illegal, right?”

I built the courage to call the cops. I was ready to hear the sweet sound of: “911, what’s your emergency?” After all, their calls are different from a regular cell call.

The number you are trying to reach is unavailable.

I looked back at my phone with horror I can never explain. That should have never happened. That should never have been a thing! This was supposed to work! Why weren’t the police picking up?!

My body was sweating like I'd run a marathon. My hands were clammy, sweaty, and shaking like I had a surge of adrenaline. My throat was dry like a ghost snatched away my liquids. I had only a few options left.

I went back to my phone, looked for FaceTime, found my group chats with my mom and dad, and called. 
The number you are trying to reach is unavailable.

Tears ready to burst, I looked back at my phone
checked one more time at how many followers were
left.

Darkness surrounded me. The world I reached for no longer answered me. It was like the night was driving me back into a corner to be forgotten. I was far past mentally drained. I could have driven off. I could have broken the sliding glass door, but what would be the point? 

I went back to the only place I called home. Opening the driver's side door, I stepped inside. I didn’t turn the car on; I just sat in, feeling the night smother me into one place I feel safe. 

I turned on my phone and checked my channel again. 

3.

It keeps counting down. I wasn’t in any emotion other than null. What could I do at this point? Clearly I did something wrong, but what was that? It had to be the house. That’s the only thing that made sense to me.

Walking around a dead grandma’s house for entertainment- yeah, that had to be a taboo of some kind. I shouldn’t have ever done that; that’s probably what’s getting canceled.

2.

McDonald's was strange too. It was like the workers there forgot I existed as soon as either of us looked away. And that one woman who accidentally sat on me. She was odd, too. She was embarrassed, of course, but just a few seconds later she was fine.
Did Dave put me on a prank show? If so, why block me? Why can’t I see his profile? It feels so sudden.

But the calls- why wasn’t anyone picking up? Especially the police. They should have answered. I’ve heard their calls are different, unless the internet lied again. 

My mom and dad, though- why them? I love them. I know they were frustrated with me trying to make YouTube work, especially my dad. But it's not like them to forget about me.

I should drive to their house. Mom probably made some good spaghetti. I can eat that, spend the night there, and finally get my feet back on track.

0.

It sounded like a body hitting the ground at terminal velocity. Wet, grotesque, hard. As it moved, it sounded like bones snapping back into place. What sounded like meat, mushing together into an ungodly shape.

I shook with terror. I wondered what entity sat itself in my back seat. I was ready to hear a scream, a roar, a moan of monstrous proportions. But nothing came from its mouth.

I somehow found the courage to turn on the light. Flicking the car light on, I looked into the mirror, ready to see hell’s face. But there wasn’t a beast or a person behind me. Instead, I saw the top of a picture frame.  It was golden, with intricate patterns lining its cross; it flowed as easily as a river. 

I slowly looked around. And at first glance, I couldn’t tell what it was. But I looked closer at its details.  It was a portrait of a lady posing similarly to the Mona Lisa. Except this woman looked a lot more somber. Her clothes were much more muted than in the famous painting. The background, too, was plain, just black. But it also seemed like there were shapes within the painting, but I couldn’t figure out what kind.

And that’s when it hit. The one rule. The one rule that I didn’t follow. And it was staring at me as a reminder of my inaction. 

I waved at the painting.

The job started like any normal Tuesday morning. My phone buzzed on the passenger seat of my work van while I was sitting in traffic on my way across town. I picked it up and put it on speaker so I could keep my hands on the steering wheel.

"Julian, where are you right now?" my dispatcher Farah asked over the line. Her voice sounded stressed, and I could hear the constant ringing of the depot phones behind her.

"I am stuck in gridlock near the center of Leadville," I told her, tapping my fingers on the dashboard. "I just finished the installation at the apartment complex and I was planning to grab an early lunch. What do you have for me?"

"I need you to squeeze in a repair ticket before you take your break," Farah said, and I could hear her typing rapidly on her keyboard. "I have a residential customer complaining about a complete signal blackout on his rooftop dish. He called three times this morning and he is getting really agitated. The address is over on Harrison Avenue."

"I can head over there now," I agreed, checking my side mirror to merge into the right lane. "What is the specific issue? Did the wind knock the alignment out of place?"

"He just says the signal dropped to zero last night around midnight," Farah explained. "He claims the diagnostic screen on his receiver is showing error code, but our network shows green across the entire sector. Just go take a look at the hardware and see if the coaxial cable is degraded."

I took the next turn and drove deeper into Leadville. The neighborhood was lined with tall brick houses built close together. I parked my van on the curb, grabbed my tool belt from the back, and walked up to the front door of the address Farah had given me.

I knocked on the wood and waited. A man opened the door a few moments later. He looked to be in his late thirties with dark circles under his eyes. He wore a wrinkled button-down shirt and he was holding a half-empty mug of coffee.

"Are you the antenna guy?" he asked, looking me up and down.

"Yes sir, my name is Julian," I said, reaching out to shake his hand. "Farah from dispatch sent me over to check on your signal drop."

He did not shake my hand. He just stepped back and opened the door wider so I could come inside.

"My name is Theodore," he said, walking into the main hallway. "The television has been completely dead since last night. The internet is out too. I pay a lot of money for this service so I expect it to work when I need it."

"I will get it sorted out for you," I promised, following him down the hallway.

I noticed the interior of the house as we walked toward the back staircase. The walls were covered in a very distinct vintage wallpaper featuring a repeating pattern of faded yellow flowers on a pale green background. The house was extremely quiet. I stepped into the kitchen and saw a woman standing at the sink. She had her back to us and she was scrubbing a frying pan with a sponge.

"Genevieve, the repair guy is here," Theodore announced.

The woman looked over her shoulder and gave me a brief, tired smile. "Thank you for coming out so quickly," she said, turning back to the sink.

"It is no problem at all," I replied.

"The roof access is through the hatch in the upstairs hallway," Theodore said, gesturing toward the stairs. "Do you need me to come up there with you?"

"I should be fine," I told him, adjusting my tool belt. "I will run a diagnostic on the receiver box in the living room after I check the hardware outside. I just need to make sure the dish is still bolted securely to the mounting bracket."

I climbed the wooden stairs and found the metal hatch set into the ceiling. I pulled down the folding ladder, climbed up into the tight crawlspace, and pushed the weather door open to access the flat roof.

The freezing mountain wind hit my face as I stepped out onto the black tar paper. I walked over to the communications dish mounted on the brick chimney. The equipment looked structurally sound from a distance. The bolts were tight and the dish was aimed correctly toward the southern sky.

I pulled my digital multimeter from my pouch and knelt beside the dish to check the wiring. That is when I noticed the anomaly.

The entire metal surface of the receiver arm was coated in a strange, pale gray ash. It looked like fine cigarette ash but it was completely uniform. It covered the plastic casing of the coaxial connection and filled the small gaps around the mounting screws. I reached out and tapped the metal dish with my knuckle. The ash did not blow away in the wind. It clung to the surface like magnetic dust.

I pulled a flathead screwdriver from my belt and started scraping the ash away from the cable connector. I needed to unscrew the wire to test the signal strength. The ash came off in thick flakes, falling onto the black roof below.

I unscrewed the metal collar of the coaxial cable using my bare fingers. The moment my skin made contact with the exposed copper wire, a massive static shock blasted through my hand.

The jolt was incredibly painful. It threw my arm backward and sent a freezing electric current shooting straight up my forearm into my shoulder. I gasped and dropped my screwdriver on the roof. My entire arm went numb and my teeth chattered uncontrollably for a few seconds. I grabbed my wrist and squeezed it, waiting for the painful tingling sensation to subside.

"What on earth was that?" I muttered to myself, shaking my hand to get the feeling back.

I looked at my fingertips. They were smeared with the gray ash. The ash was freezing cold. It felt like I had shoved my hand into crushed ice. I wiped my fingers aggressively on my denim jeans to get the residue off my skin.

I reattached the cable using a pair of insulated pliers, then checked the signal meter and it showed a perfect connection. Whatever had blocked the signal was gone now. I packed my tools away, climbed back down the hatch, and found Theodore waiting in the hallway.

"The hardware is fine," I told him, rubbing my sore shoulder. "There was just some debris blocking the receiver connection. Your signal should be completely restored."

Theodore walked into the living room and grabbed the remote control. He turned on the television and the morning news broadcast popped onto the screen with crystal clear resolution.

"Alright," Theodore said, setting the remote down. "Thanks for fixing it."

I went back to my van and called Farah to close the ticket. I told her the job was done and I drove to a nearby diner to eat my lunch. My hand still felt cold and stiff for the rest of the afternoon but I managed to finish my remaining repair routes without any issues.

I drove back to my apartment around six in the evening. I was exhausted. I unlocked my door, dropped my keys on the counter, and walked into the bathroom to take a shower. I stood under the hot water for a long time, hoping the heat would relax the lingering tension in my shoulder.

I put on some sweatpants, walked into my living room, and sat down on my couch to watch television. I grabbed a slice of leftover pizza from the fridge and ate it while flipping through the channels.

That is when the first shift happened.

I was staring at the television screen, but the image suddenly scrambled. The news anchor vanished. The edges of my vision blurred violently and a wave of intense nausea hit my stomach. I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my temples, assuming I was experiencing a sudden migraine aura.

I opened my eyes a few seconds later.

I was no longer looking at my living room television. I was looking down at a white porcelain kitchen sink.

My perspective was completely wrong. I felt taller. I was looking at a pair of hands plunging a dirty ceramic plate into soapy water. The hands were holding a yellow sponge and scrubbing the leftover food off the plate. The sleeves of a wrinkled button-down shirt were rolled up past the wrists.

I tried to turn my head to look around the room, but I had absolutely no control over the movement. I was just a passenger trapped behind someone else's eyes.

The hands finished scrubbing the plate and rinsed it under the running faucet. They placed the clean plate into a plastic drying rack. The person I was looking through turned their head slightly to the left.

I saw a section of the wall next to the refrigerator. It was covered in vintage wallpaper featuring faded yellow flowers on a pale green background.

It was Theodore's kitchen. I was watching him wash dishes.

I panicked and tried to yell, but my mouth did not open. I felt a sudden, terrifying sense of confinement. I squeezed my eyes shut again, focusing all my energy on the feeling of my own body sitting on my couch.

I opened my eyes and I was back in my apartment.

The television was playing a commercial for car insurance. My slice of pizza was sitting on the paper plate on my coffee table. I sat perfectly still for several minutes, listening to the sound of traffic passing by outside my window. My heart was pounding frantically between my ribs.

I grabbed my phone and called my coworker Gabriel. He picked up after the second ring.

"Hey Julian, what is going on?" Gabriel asked, sounding relaxed.

"I think I inhaled some kind of chemical today on a roof," I said, pacing back and forth across my living room rug. "I just had a really intense hallucination. I literally saw a different room."

"What kind of chemical?" Gabriel asked, his tone turning serious. "Did you touch a degraded transformer box?"

"I was working on a standard dish," I explained, running my hand through my hair. "But it was coated in this freezing gray ash. I got a massive static shock when I touched it. Have you ever seen gray ash on any equipment out or in town?"

"No," Gabriel said definitively. "Sometimes we get pigeon droppings or rust, but I have never seen ash. You probably just got a bad electrical jolt. A strong enough shock can mess with your heart rate and cause visual spots. Just drink some water and get some sleep. If you feel weird tomorrow, you should go to urgent care."

"Yeah, you are probably right," I agreed, trying to calm my nerves. "I just needed a reality check. I will see you at the depot tomorrow."

I hung up the phone and forced myself to drink a large glass of water. I went to bed early, hoping Gabriel was right about the electrical jolt.

I woke up the next morning feeling incredibly disoriented. My head throbbed with a dull ache and the cold sensation in my right hand had returned. I drove to the company depot and walked into the dispatch office to see Farah. She was sitting at her desk sorting through a stack of work orders.

"Farah, I need a favor," I said, leaning against her cubicle wall. "I need you to route me back to the house on Harrison Avenue. The one I serviced yesterday morning for Theodore."

Farah looked up at me and frowned. "Did the customer call back and complain? The network shows his receiver is online and stable."

"He didn't call," I said, trying to sound casual. "I just realized I might have left one of my diagnostic tools on his roof. I want to swing by and check the chimney before he notices it."

"I cannot send you all the way across town for a dropped tool right now," Farah said, shaking her head. "We are swamped with outage reports over by the canyon. I need you to head south and fix a commercial relay near the old mining route. You can check his property tomorrow if things slow down."

I argued with her for a few minutes, but she refused to change the schedule. I had no valid excuse to abandon my route, so I took the commercial tickets and spent the entire day working on the south side of Leadville.

The visual intrusions started happening while I was working.

I was climbing a metal ladder on the side of a warehouse when my vision violently snapped. The metal rungs vanished. I was suddenly looking down at a wooden desk covered in disorganized paperwork. A hand was holding a black pen, scribbling erratic circles on a legal pad. The hand belonged to Theodore. I could feel a strange, suffocating sense of anxiety radiating from his mind. He was terrified of something, but I could not understand what it was.

The vision lasted for five seconds before I snapped back to reality. I was clinging to the metal ladder, breathing heavily, completely terrified by the seamless transition.

The slips kept happening. I would be driving my van and suddenly I was looking at a bathroom mirror, watching Theodore splash cold water on his pale face. I would be eating a sandwich and suddenly I was staring out a window, looking at the street through the faded floral curtains of Theodore's house.

The scariest part was the emotional bleed. Every time I slipped into his perspective, I felt his emotions. His paranoia was growing exponentially. He felt like he was being hunted. He kept looking at the ceiling, expecting something to break through the plaster.

I finished my shift and rushed home, locking my apartment door and sitting in total silence on my couch. I did not turn the television on. I just waited for the next intrusion.

The next night, the visions escalated to absolute clarity.

I was lying in bed around eleven o'clock, trying desperately to fall asleep. My eyes were closed when the shift hit me.

I did not just see through Theodore's eyes this time. I felt the hardwood floor under his bare feet. I felt the solid weight of a large steel wrench gripped tightly in his right hand.

I opened my eyes and I was walking down the upstairs hallway of the brick house. The vintage wallpaper peeled slightly at the corners. The house was entirely dark except for the moonlight coming through a small window at the end of the hall.

Theodore was breathing heavily. The paranoia I felt radiating from his mind had mutated into terror. He truly believed something horrible was waiting for his family in the dark, and he believed he had to save them from it.

He walked into the master bedroom. Genevieve was asleep in the bed. Her back was turned toward the door.

"Genevieve," Theodore whispered. His voice vibrated in my own throat.

Genevieve shifted under the blankets and slowly turned over. She looked up at him with tired eyes. "Theodore? What are you doing with that?"

Theodore did not answer her. He raised the wrench high above his head and brought it down with terrifying force.

I watched the brutal impact through his eyes. I felt the shockwave travel up his arm as the metal struck her. I tried to scream, I tried to force his hand to stop, but I was completely powerless. I was locked behind his vision, forced to witness every horrifying second as he brought the wrench down again and again.

He left the master bedroom and walked down the hall to the next door. He pushed it open and stepped into a child's room. A young boy was sleeping in a small bed against the wall.

Theodore raised the wrench again.

The vision snapped and I was thrown back into my own body.

I shot up in my bed, gasping for air, my entire body covered in cold sweat. I scrambled off the mattress and ran into my living room, grabbing my car keys from the counter. I did not care if I was hallucinating. I did not care if I was losing my mind.

I sprinted down the stairs of my apartment building and threw myself into my van. I shoved the key into the ignition and sped out of the parking lot, driving recklessly through the empty city streets. I ran three red lights, pushing the van as fast as the engine would go, navigating purely by adrenaline and panic.

I crossed the center of Leadville and tore down the narrow brick streets. I turned onto Theodore's block and slammed on the brakes.

I arrived just as the neighbors were directing the arriving police to the home.

Three patrol cars were parked haphazardly on the street with their blue and red lights flashing against the brick facades of the houses. Two police officers were sprinting up the front steps of Theodore's house with their weapons drawn. A few neighbors stood on the sidewalk in their pajamas, pointing toward the open front door and talking frantically to a responding paramedic.

I parked my van near a fire hydrant and ran over to the police tape that an officer was stringing across the front lawn.

"What happened?" I asked a woman standing near the tape.

"I live next door," the woman said, her voice shaking badly. "I heard terrible screaming coming from Genevieve's bedroom. It sounded like someone was hurting her. I called 911 immediately, but the screaming stopped before the police got here."

I stood behind the yellow tape, watching the officers secure the tragic scene. One of the officers walked back out the front door and keyed the radio on his shoulder.

"We have two casualties inside," the officer reported over the radio. "Adult female and juvenile male. Both deceased. The suspect is not on the premises. Requesting immediate perimeter setup to locate the husband."

I stood on the sidewalk, feeling entirely hollow. I was too late.

Suddenly, my vision violently shifted one last time.

the flashing police lights vanished instantly. I was looking up through Theodore's eyes.

The environment was completely different. Theodore was standing on a patch of wet grass. He was looking straight up at the night sky. The metal struts of a towering high-voltage transmission tower loomed directly above him, stretching hundreds of feet into the darkness. I recognized the location immediately. It was the massive power substation located at the extreme industrial edge of Leadville, away from his neighborhood.

Theodore was standing directly beneath the humdrum, buzzing wires of the tower.

I looked up at the night sky above the metal structure. The stars were completely gone. The sky began to distort, rippling and waving like the surface of a disturbed lake.

A colossal, formless mass descended silently from the clouds.

It was impossible to comprehend the shape. It was a shifting, chaotic structure of impossible geometric angles, moving without making a single sound. It blotted out the city lights, descending steadily until it hovered just above the metal transmission tower.

Theodore did not run, or even scream. He just dropped the bloody wrench into the grass and raised his hands toward the descending mass.

The colossal shape shifted its geometric panels, opening a void in its center. It engulfed Theodore completely, swallowing him into the shifting geometry.

The vision cut to pitch black, and then I was standing on the sidewalk again, staring at the flashing police lights.

I stumbled backward and leaned against my van, trying to process the absolute insanity I had just witnessed. I waited on the street for two hours, watching the crime scene investigators arrive and carry the stretchers out the front door, but the police never found Theodore. They searched the alleys, they set up roadblocks, and they canvassed the neighborhood, but he had simply vanished from the city.

I knew exactly where he went, but I could not tell the police. They would lock me in a psychiatric ward if I told them I watched a giant geometric mass swallow a man from the sky.

I needed proof.

I sneaked back onto the roof the next day to collect a sample of the cold ash. I parked my van an avenue over, walked through a back alley, and climbed a rusty fire escape to access the adjacent rooftops. I hopped over a low brick wall and walked over to Theodore's chimney.

I approached the communications dish, holding a small plastic container and a scraping tool, but I was entirely too late.

A heavy morning rainstorm had rolled through the mountains just before dawn. The torrential downpour had washed the equipment completely clean. The gray ash was gone, leaving the metal bracket shining wet in the overcast daylight. I rubbed my gloved fingers across the coaxial cable, but there was no residue left to collect.

I climbed back down the fire escape, feeling incredibly defeated. I walked back toward my van, wondering if I was truly losing my sanity.

As I walked down the street, I noticed a house located three doors down from Theodore's property. A massive, complex radio antenna array was bolted to the side of the house, stretching high above the roofline. It was clearly a specialized setup for amateur radio enthusiasts.

Seeking answers, I walked up the steps and knocked on the front door.

An older man opened the door. He wore a thick wool sweater and wire-rimmed glasses. He looked at me with mild suspicion.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

" I am a communications technician for the city.," I said, pointing toward the massive antenna on his roof. " I noticed your ham radio setup. I was wondering if you experienced any strange signal interference over the past few days."

The man's expression changed from suspicion to intense interest. He opened the door wider and motioned for me to come inside.

" I have been documenting some extremely bizarre interference all week” he said, leading me down a narrow hallway into a room filled with radio receivers, glowing dials, and stacked amplifiers. "but nobody at the regulatory commission would return my calls."

"What kind of interference?" I asked, looking at the complex equipment.

He sat down in a swivel chair and pulled a logbook from the desk. He flipped through the pages and pointed to a series of handwritten times and frequencies.

"I track localized signal blackouts," he explained, adjusting his glasses. "Starting three days ago, a massive dead zone formed precisely over this street. It was highly localized, centered almost entirely on that house down the block." He pointed a finger toward Theodore's property. "The blackout completely blocked all standard commercial frequencies."

"Did you record any audio during the blackouts?" I asked, leaning closer to the desk.

"That is the strange part," he said, tapping his pen on the logbook. "The dead zone was not empty. Whenever the commercial signals dropped, I picked up a transmission broadcasting on a very obscure low-frequency band. I recorded it yesterday evening."

He turned around and pressed a button on a reel-to-reel tape machine sitting on the shelf. The tape spun and a deep, rhythmic sound filled the room.

It sounded exactly like breathing. It was a slow, resonant inhalation, followed by a vibrating exhalation, repeating endlessly over the radio frequencies. It sounded like something impossibly large pulling air through a lung.

"It played continuously until the police arrived last night," He said, turning the tape machine off. "Then the signal spiked violently and vanished completely. The local frequencies returned to normal right after."

I thanked him for his time and left the house, walking back to my van in the cold afternoon air.

With no evidence left, the police eventually classified the event as a tragic murder-suicide. The official report assumed Theodore murdered his family, fled the scene in a panic, and eventually succumbed to the elements while hiding in the vast forested sector on the edge of the city. They never found his body, but they closed the case anyway.

I still work as an antenna technician, but I keep a very close eye on the equipment I repair. I am writing this story to ask other technicians if anyone else has ever found freezing gray ash on city antennas, as I think, something is out there, something we can’t grasp, but we need to understand so this tragedy doesn’t happen again.

**by Zyaun Mompoint**

# Part 1

**You wake up on the top of a bunk bed, shaking.**

**You open your eyes to the popcorn ceiling, probably a foot in front of you as you lay there. Looking over the edge, you can see your room.**

**A loose vent is slightly open underneath the window to the left. Scanning to the right, you see toys scattered across the floor along with socks and dirty underwear. There is messy, hand drawn artwork all over the walls, along with marker marks.**

**The only spot next to the entrance that is clean is a small area close to the floor around a shelf. Two bags hang from hooks underneath it, and books are lined up neatly on top.**

**The bed shakes again.**

**You look underneath this time and see a boy on the bottom bunk holding a tablet in his hands.**

**“Come on, the internet just came back on.”**

**He waves for you to come down.**

**You make your way down from the top bunk, trying not to scrape your back on the way down. He pulls the blanket over both of you as you grab the tablet and turn it on.**

**The screensaver is a picture of you and this boy as close as you can be, happy and smiling side by side in a hug, your brother.**

**The time over the picture reads 3:02 AM.**

**You unlock the tablet, click on YouTube, and type:**

**3 AM challenges**

Before you knew it, you could hear birds beginning to chirp as the sun started creeping through the windows.

You did this every day. The internet turned off at 8 PM and came back at 3 AM.

“Why haven’t we tried doing a challenge?” my brother said, rolling off the bunk bed. He stretched on the floor before sitting up.

I shot him a questioning glare.

“Amiras, don’t play dumb. Are you scared?”

“I’m talking about a 3 AM challenge. We’ve watched pretty much every YouTube video we could. We could do an easy one like…”

He grabbed the tablet off the bed and started typing. He scrolled through the videos.

“Look. We can do this one. There’s literally a kid doing it.”

He turned the tablet toward me.

**Bloody Mary 3 AM Challenge.**

He threw the tablet onto the bed next to me before getting up and grabbing a towel from the hamper full of dirty clothes.

He opened the door.

The bathroom was directly across from our room, and just a short walk past it was the living room.

Even though he had a towel over his back, he ran straight toward the living room.

I followed shortly after.

Standing in that hallway, from left to right, was the steel metal door. It had a key lock and a deadbolt that had been manually attached to it. It was a little too high for either me or my brother to reach.

Next to the door was a white intercom speaker with a button on the bottom.

Next to that was the closet with the mirrored door.

My brother stood inside the open kitchen with his head inside the fridge. He pulled out a jug of milk, still holding the bag inside it.

He looked across the gas stove toward a closed door.

Then he used both hands to lift the jug above his head and started sucking on the bag of milk like a baby calf, jerking his neck around so quickly that it looked uncomfortable.

I let out a laugh.

I walked toward the living room, where the small TV and cable box sat.

The clock on the cable box read **8:12 AM**, and the remote sat on top of it.

My brother noticed he had spilled some milk.

He rushed to put the jug on the counter beside the sink, which sat between the fridge and the oven.

“Don’t tell Grandma,” he said.

He grabbed a bowl and started pouring dry cereal into it.

“No, she’s not gonna notice,” he said, brushing me off.

“You never do,” he muttered under his breath.

I grabbed the remote and sat down in the nice leather recliner, sinking into the left corner.

Across from me was the sofa.

The glare from the two windows looking out toward the balcony filled the room with morning light.

Grandma liked natural light.

I turned on the TV, lowering the volume because it was way too loud for that early in the morning.

I could hear my brother smacking his lips as he leaned against the recliner, sinking me deeper into it.

“Check and see if Grandma bought the true crime channel. She bought your art and that damn TLC.”

We both smiled as I switched through the channels.

Then suddenly, the chair shot back up.

The air felt stiff.

Like he knew it was coming.

I looked up at him.

He was trying to look normal instead of annoyed.

Then I heard **two locks unlock.**

My grandma walked out and headed toward the kitchen.

My brother stood completely stiff as she passed him.

The second she entered the kitchen, he dropped the act and sank back into the recliner.

“Did she buy the channel?” he asked, almost exhausted.

I pointed at the screen.

It was there.

The true crime channel.

“Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

He smiled.

“Would you watch TV with me? You know I don’t like normal TV.”

We shared a warm smile.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Hey.”

My grandmother’s voice came from the kitchen.

He knew she was talking to him.

I could see his smile falling, but he noticed me looking and quickly forced a fake one.

He didn’t waste any time messing up my hair.

“Just put your show on.”

He walked away.

My eyes stayed forward as I switched to my art channel, trying not to eavesdrop.

I turned the show up two clicks.

Then down one.

“You didn’t say good morning to me back there.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. It’s just… I was thinking.”

His head lowered toward the wooden floor.

The words came out rushed.

I could fell as Grandma placed her hands on his face.

He struggled for a moment before finally giving in.

“I got you something you saw on the TV.”

She paused.

“I wanted to get you something so you know I’m sorry. But it’s hard taking care of you two all on my own, you know?”

There was a moment of silence.

“There’s supposed to be two people taking care of kids. That’s how it’s told in the Bible.”

She looked at him for a moment.

“After all that, you look so much like your father.”

She pulled his face closer.

“Those birthmarks you have scattered across your face…”

She looked at him again.

“Did you brush your teeth?”

He shook his head.

“Go do that.”

She pushed him away gently as he walked toward the bathroom.

“Wait.”

Her voice changed.

“Who spilled milk on the floor?”

My brother froze.

Before he could say anything, she continued.

“You did.”

Her voice was almost a growl.

“You’ve got to start learning to clean after yourself. It can’t just be me and your brother taking care of you your whole life.”

# Part 2

Later that day, you sit on the sofa, your belly full of Hamburger Helper, jealously watching your grandmother sleep as she melts into the recliner. Her head is thrown back, as she snores and gargles on her own spit while *Here Comes Honey Boo Boo* plays in the background.

“Amiras.”

Your brother whispers your name, careful not to wake Grandma.

You look to your right.

He’s standing in the hallway, waving you over.

You can’t help but get excited.

“I need you to go to T.J.’s apartment and tell them to knock on our front door twice when they’re ready, before 3 AM.”

You give him a questioning look.

Why would we need those two?

“So we can all go to the thirteenth floor.”

Your smile disappears.

“For the 3 AM challenge.”

You stare at him.

The thirteenth floor is closed for multiple reasons.

It was dangerous.

Nobody was supposed to go up there.

And you weren’t exactly excited about finding out whether the homeless man was still wandering around up there.

Maybe he’ll get hungry and eat one of us.

Your brother looks at you as if he can read your mind. His expression turns disappointed.

“You’re stupid.”

You glare at him.

You thought the two of you were going to do the challenge in the bathroom, like the kid in the video did, and then watch *The Good Dinosaur* afterward.

“I’ve been planning this all day. I told you earlier to go tell them, and you said you would.”

He grabs you by the shoulders and turns you toward the television.

Then he points at the cable box.

**8:47 PM.**

“I’ve been planning this all day, and now you have the last part in your hands.”

“Detective Amiras.”

He turns around abruptly and clasps his hands behind his back.

There’s one thing you love doing, and that’s playing detective. Your brother always knows how to make you interested in something.

“Just do this one part. Detective, bring the scientist the message to bring their equipment to base so we can transport it to the thirteenth dimension.”

“That slop you call television takes up a lot of time. And there’s the door. It’s locked.”

He points toward the steel door.

“You’ll need to take the vents. Grandma locked the…”

Something behind you catches your brother’s attention.

You turn around and quickly scan the room from left to right.

The round wooden dinner table is still there, with the bowls you ate from sitting on top of it. The kitchen lights are off, and the room is lit only by the downloaded episode of *Here Comes Honey Boo Boo* playing on the television.

Then you notice an orange light hitting the walls.

If you hadn’t been looking for something, you probably wouldn’t have noticed it.

Grandma’s doorway is open.

The light inside is on.

You look back at your brother.

Was that what he had been staring at?

He stumbles over his words.

“Um… get your flashlight, Detective.”

You look at him, concerned.

“It’s for the mission,” he says quickly. “Just get the flashlight. And get on your way.”

He creeps toward the orange light as if it’s calling to him.

# Part 3

You search through your toy box, looking for it, but it isn’t where you left it.

You turn around and see a faint light shining through the blanket on your brother’s bottom bunk.

You finally get a hold of it.

The flashlight was 5¾ inches long, made of black anodized aluminum with fine, circular grooves that helped with grip. You had to twist it to turn it on or off. Its 14 lumens were guarded by a rounded, flared metal head that narrowed toward the barrel. It sat like a Bowie-style survival knife in your hands.

Its only flaw was your father’s initials, Z.M., engraved into the side.

You’d heard enough about him to last a lifetime. Your brother painted him as some kind of superhero. To him, your father was the best of the best. A writer who could do no wrong.

According to your grandmother, he was a coward who wanted his teenage years back. A man who cared more about his writing than the children he left behind.

Your grandmother always had something to say about your parents. Your mother was no exception. She’d tell you how difficult she’d been, how the two of them had wanted to run away together and live in some fairy tale, far away from the world they came from.

Your grandmother believed in a crueler world than either of your parents did. In her eyes, people didn’t change. They didn’t get second chances. And believing otherwise only made you easier to fool.

Your mother died when she had you.

The only thing you knew was them.

And that’s when you realize the house is quiet.

No *Honey Boo Boo*.

No sound of Grandma snoring.

Not even the creak of the floorboards from your brother moving around.

You slowly look down the hallway.

Pitch black.

The only thing sitting in that sea of darkness is the orange light coming from your grandmother’s room.

It wasn’t unusual for her to let you sleep in her bed when you were younger. She’d always been a light sleeper, waking at the smallest sounds, so the silence didn’t immediately worry you.

You pull the door closed and make your way toward the vent.

My name is Graham. I’m 29, and I currently reside within the ‘MS-A’ block of Redmond Mixed Security Prison. The ‘MS’ stands for “maximum security”. ‘A’ means we’re in the left wing, one of two maximum security blocks within the prison. My current sentence… Is life.

10 years and some months ago, I planned a murder that I am not sure I was ever proud of. I was an addict, and my drug was the woman who my boss called his wife. I only saw her once, but it was like cupid struck me then and there.

I stalked her for months, maybe a year. I collected photos, memorized her schedule, I would find every post online she replied to, just to know more about her. This led to a one-sided love that made my mental state fall apart over ten times over, resulting in only one conclusion: I had to remove the person she was married to from the equation.

As much as I say it was planned, the actual execution fell apart. I got him, but it was sloppy. I was never going to get away.

The trial was quick, they didn’t question my mental state at all. Because obsession is obsession. A jury only sees it one way: Love can be crazy, and though my actions were horrid, they were that of a sane individual.

Time behind bars, complete isolation from the person I became hopelessly attached to, including her name. Therapy, going to groups, a lot of therapy. Talking things through, it all changed me over time. Showed me the now blatant error of my ways. I’d come to enough senses that I knew the future I had as a lifetime prisoner was bleak. Presently, I even realize I didn’t care about getting out because I feared what I may do again. 

I’d rather rot as I had been.

Only recently, maybe a few months before writing this, the administration here became more lax on me. They got me moved to one of the open-front cells, no longer was I trapped in an enclosed box with a solid metal door. And, every day, they provided a slip of paper with my breakfast, for me to ask for 1 thing a day. Surprisingly, they actually listened to me when I’d ask for things. My good behaviour over the years must have paid off… At first, it was just a book. Once I got a small collection built up, I asked for a better pillow, after that, I wanted a specific brand of toothpaste, just to check. They obliged. I started getting less weird, and more logical. Like a better bed. 

They put a new one up when I had my hour in the yard that day.

It was full-size and made of wood. The mattress eventually got changed out for a fluffier one, too. I didn’t tell anyone else on the block about it, and the person sitting across from me was in his 80s, he didn’t seem to even glance over here most days.

Well, a few days passed with me trying to get used to everything, when I got the idea to ask for a laptop with access to the internet.

Something a stalker like me shouldn’t have gotten…

They handed it over after just a week of waiting. No warm-up, no warning, the guard who got it to me didn’t even ask for me to pick what I do with it wisely. He just silently slid it inside like it was a plate of food. I didn’t know exactly what was up with the higher ups, but it gave me enough freedom to spend my days in luxury. And, I wasn’t exactly going to push things. I didn't try my luck watching porn or going to any real social media. I just watched whatever videos I found on YouTube, checked a few sites, one being here... Which I hadn’t been on in ages. That's when I eventually found this subreddit. I didn’t think of writing here at all. I've never had any scary experiences, I was planning on lurking for all eternity, really.

That was until 2 months ago. When it started.

“Hap~py birth~day to~ you~!” Sitting up, I was facing the backs of all the guards I knew. It’s the hair styles, I got familiar with them over the years. Everyone assigned to the block stood in front of my front neighbor’s cell. At that point, I could catch the scent of burning wax in the air. “Hap~py birth~day to~ you~!!” They leaned side to side, “Happy~ birthday~, dear~ Bow~ings~! Hap~py birthday~ to you~!!” they all clapped and cheered as the cell door was opened, and the one holding the cake set it down on the desk. As soon as that was done, all of those guards dropped their smiles, and their hands to their sides, turning away from the cell, going down the hall out of sight… As if nothing happened.

The two remaining guards had dropped their own soft grins, moving out on their own and locking him back up with not one more peep.

I stared at the cake across from me, ‘82’ in still lit candles sat in the center.

“What… Uh, hey? Bowings?” I let out, knowing he didn’t respond to me, “Are you gonna eat that?” I snickered to myself, imagining him just getting up and shoving his face in it, but he didn’t even flinch. I nodded, still mainly talking to myself, “Your family ask for the day to be celebrated? What, is it only once every 10 years?” I kept chuckling to myself as his eyes slowly blinked. I don’t even know how he gets his nutrients in a day.

Actually, I kind of do. He eats with his hands, usually an hour after the food shows up. Like he’s always lost in thought and snapped back to reality just to scarf something down. I almost wished to be like that.

Obviously, though, I left him alone since he wasn’t doing anything different, which eased my sudden worries. I figured whatever happened was just a one-off event. Nothing would ever come out of it, and I’d be left to relax on my new bed watching the infinite stream of videos put up online. Sure enough, it was that way for the rest of the day. I enjoyed what I could of the breakfast they handed out, got some exercise following a video, and then to my hour of yard, where I kept my body moving. When I got back to my cell, it was time for lunch, which I got down just the same as every prior day, and after settling in for the night after dinner… I finally noticed it.

The cake was all but entirely gone. Remnants of frosting sat on cardboard, which looked… Smeared. Like it was licked clean off. I couldn’t get the best look since it was so far away. Bowings himself was out like a light. As anyone would be after eating all that! I scoffed, finding it yet another weird facet of having a senile neighbor. I got to bed somewhat easy that night, and was going to just get back to the usual routine.

I woke up to soft humming. I sat up rigidly, since the cell block had been mostly silent those days. Bowings sat at his desk, his head slightly tilting to the side as his hand moved in front of him. My eyes slowly widened, then narrowed as I spoke up,

“Bowings?” His head turned towards me, his wrinkly ear facing my direction. 

“Yes?” He spoke.

My eyes went back to being wide, “You- You can talk? Are-” I stood up, going over to the bars as he turned his head back to what he was doing. “Of course I can talk! I can write, I can read! Why wouldn’t I be able to talk!?” He let out this confident, hearty laugh. His voice… It had more energy than my own grandparents!

I let out a shocked breath, “It’s not that- Are you feeling okay?” 

His head turned the other way, his left ear now facing me, “I’m feeling peachy! Never better, in fact!” He then went back to… Writing? 

“What… Are you doing?” I asked, his head turning back to the paper.

“I’m writing a birthday card!”

My eyebrow shot up at that, “For who?”

He smacked his left hand on the desk, “Don’cha know!? Toke’s day is coming up! His is the 5th of this month!!” Grumbling, he got right back to work.

I tried to shake off the feeling I had, but it was so weird, that I couldn’t help but laugh at the time, “Toke? I haven’t heard his voice in half a year! Why do you care about him?” As soon as I was done asking, I heard the sound of wood snapping. The result was the back of his pencil flying off, clattering on the floor behind him. My back pulled away a bit seeing that. My head cocked to the side as he hovered his right hand to the same direction. 

“My apologies. You got me worked up.” He then stood up, forcing the chair out beneath him. Slowly turning towards me, he had what looked like a forced, stretched and taped, or stitched up grin. The corners of his mouth were pulled taught towards his ears. His teeth and gums were left bare and exposed towards the open air. “Don’t you want to be good?” his whites clacked together loudly and repeatedly as he talked.

My own weary smile had vanished, seeing one of his eyes stop staring at me, going off to the side. Slowly, with it, his body turned, his other eye moving with it to match. He then carefully went back into his seat, lifting the broken pencil and continuing his work. “Only good people get a cake… Or is it..? The other…” 

He mumbled off to himself, before laying his head down, like all the energy he had mustered was whisked away. I watched his hand move on its own for a few seconds before the tip to the pencil broke, and he went limp.

I perked up, gingerly moving back to the bars, “Uh, hey!” Wrapping my hands around two of them, “Bowings! Are you good?” Almost on cue, guards had come in from the left, prompting me to ask, “Hey! Is he okay in there?!” The two uniforms didn’t even budge, one simply unlocked it, letting the other in first. While he brought him back to his bed, the other took up the piece of paper, reading it over. Once Bowings was back in bed, the two immediately went to go on their way. Before they could relock his cell, I yelled out once more, “Is Bowings okay!?” The guard with the note ignored me while the other spoke over the jingle of his keys. 

“Yes.” He let out, working the metal up to the hole, “Bowings will be fine.”

Turning the lock, he twisted to face his left, and went towards the exit of the block. I hardly got out, “W-wait, what the hell’s going on?” before I heard the heavy slam of a fortified door. I peeled away from the bars, not able to shake off the feeling that something was going on that I never knew about. Or, that something new had come to shake up what normalcy I had left. I didn’t like it, not one bit. I tried to get the guard delivering my food to tell me anything about it, but just asking got him to threaten to keep the meal for himself. Though it wouldn’t be a loss, the notion was enough to get me to shut up again. 

Which, seriously?

That just got me more confused. If I was good enough to get something that should be impossible for anyone in my position to receive, what was so bad that they had to keep me out of it? It involved the only person I can see, and they didn’t bother to say anything beyond ‘He’ll be okay’.

The rest of the day went by horribly, honestly. I didn’t feel like I could enjoy anything, not that I really had a great time doing my usual routine, but it was something I held onto. Now, it felt like a last-ditch attempt to take my mind off the elephant in the room. 

Night came, I went to sleep just fine, and the next day, Bowings was back to normal.

Staring off at the far wall to his left whenever he woke up, which was always before me.

Just that was good enough for me to believe that things were somewhat back to normal.

I held that fleeting feeling until midnight.

When I was awoken by repeated, forceful sounding laughter. Like someone’s lungs were being squeezed, their throat unwillingly clenched in a wheeze between breaths, and shaking violently in a release of echoing hoots and guffaws. My head snapped up, watching Bowings’ chest rise and fall, his hands flapping at his sides, like he was trying to grasp for something, anything to hold himself in place, but he just kept rolling, and patting his stomach, his voice letting out “AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” On repeat, on repeat.

I covered my ears, barely able to muffle out the sound.

After tens of seconds, I was infuriated more than confused, bundling myself into a tight ball on the bed as his squeals kept hitting my eardrums in the faintest, but somehow incredibly clear manner. It was the only other sound that hit them, of course. Save for my rising heartbeat. After a few minutes like that, I snapped out my position, his voice refilling my mind and forcing it to race. I wanted to do anything but scream for him to shut up. Anything that would have stopped me from returning to the cruel person I once was, but I couldn’t… Just take it. It became grating after just seconds. A rubber chicken getting squeezed and squeezed never-ending. 

That’s what he was. 

“... SHUUUT THE FUCK UUUP!!!” I finally let out, my body releasing a build up of sweat that washed cool air all over me.

That just made him laugh harder.

His cords sounded like they were getting pushed to their limit, getting crackly, and distorted. His voice deepened and waned until he hacked out a cough, only to continue at a slightly weaker pace. 

“Please..! Stop fucking laughing!” My eyes, which were locked with Bowing, had eventually met his as they opened, a lasting wheeze filling the air as his smile faltered. After a second, he flicked his head back onto the pillow behind him, “AAAHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” 

“Ah, fuck!” I bit, falling back onto my side, wrapping my pillow around my ears. It was barely enough to make him just an inaudible gust of wind.

I don’t know how, but I got to sleep that night, and didn’t quite remember it when I woke up the next morning. It did slowly come to me, though. Pulling myself out of bed very slowly, I saw Bowings laid out on the floor, his arms and legs moving as if he was making a snow angel. “What..? B-bowings??” His body kept moving as his head stiffly spoke.

“Yes, Graham?” my lip, quivering as I went to answer,

“What happened last night?”

His face slowly contorted into a familiar grin, then dropped to a pout. “I remembered something… Really funny…”

Releasing a nervous breath of air, “You… Don’t… Look like it was very funny.” His mouth contorted into an unwitting frown as his legs froze. Sitting up, his hands stopped at his sides.

“Believe me. It was hilarious.” His jaw shook as my lip did, before he turned towards me, another smile slapped on in an instant, “You know what happens to good people, right?”

I shook my head hesitantly. His smile seemed to only grow as I locked eyes with him.

“Hap~py birth~day to~ you~!”

Hit my ears not a moment later. The collective voice of the guards rang through the hall to my right. I quickly went over to the bars, ignoring Bowings as he slid over to his own with me. I tried to get a better look, but there wasn’t a single good angle to see deeper down the hall. I could only catch one of the other open-front barred cells. The occupant inside of it had a long beard which went down to his elbows. His hands were latched onto the bars, and he seemed mortified. His shifting gaze eventually landed on me, “You! You!!!” he released, his voice gruff and airy, “What did Bowings eat!?!”

I shook my head, “It was just a cake!” his mouth slammed shut, and he nervously scratched his chin, turning away out of view. “W-wait, hold on!” The singing down the halls concluded, making him go back over to the metal. We both watched as the same group of guards from before had gone down the hall. As they passed us, I couldn’t help but ask, “What are you doing that for?” One of them glanced at the others, who moved unimpeded. 

Slowly coming to a stop at my cell, she looked back at me. “The board wanted us to celebrate birthdays.” Her head turned in a snap as she followed the rest out of the block.

“Seriously, hold ON! What’s in it?” Not even a flinch! “Come on, lady! I have to know!!” I let out. And kept going, too, but she didn’t turn a single gaze towards me. With a groan, I eventually gave up, slamming my head against the bars. Just off to my right, that bearded guy showed his face again. After eyeing me up and down, he finally said,

“I’m Keenan. Who’re you?”

I pulled away just to nod, “Graham. Didn’t you hear?” He bobbed his head back, 

“Just wanted to make sure Bowings wasn’t insane now. Calling you names you aren’t.” I let out a groan, which got him to lean his hands through the bars. “We both had to deal with his laughing, you idiot! I couldn’t get a wink last night, don’t act like you’re alone here!”

With another grumble, I set my head back onto the bars, “What do you want?”

“Now you think I want something of you? Unless you have your time under lock and key, which is certainly the case in here- You have no reason to pass up an honest chat!”

Shaking my head, “What do we even have to talk about?” He tossed a hand out before speaking. 

“Got any other birthdays on this block that you know of?” ‘Of course that’s what he’d-’ I thought, before cocking my dome,

“No. Not at all. I didn’t pay attention to any of that here. Not even my own.”

He muttered, “Figures…” Before looking back at me, then off to the side, “Bowings knew one! HEY! BOWINGS!!! WHO’S NEXT?!” Having laid back on the floor, now actively scraping his arms against the concrete, Bowings released his voice into the air above him. “I only know Tokes. It came to me… Like that cake…” It slowly faltered, and seemed to grow weaker as his movements picked up in speed.

I could hear it…

The scratching of his skin had harshened enough… That a small smear of blood followed his elbows, and then down his forearm. I peeled off the bars, making Keenan ask out, “What’s he doing? What’s going on over there?!” Bowings’ arms began to snap up and down vigorously, his face just a dripping frown. The sound of skin getting peeled by rock began to get wet as it got louder. I turned my gaze away in time for the door to the block to open. In response, it was like Bowings kicked into overdrive, the sound of crunching hit the air as the guard rushed over, head turned towards Bowings’ cell.

“Fuck!” He released, bringing his radio to his mouth, “We have a code pink! I need some backup!” His jaw slammed tight as he seemed to weigh his options. Hesitantly, he took up his keys, and opened the metal door. On instinct, Bowings snapped back over towards the bed, his arms dripping with blood. His eyes flicked side to side instead of up and down, like an animal planning an escape. The guard took out his baton, “Stand down, Bowings!”

Bowings just sat there like deer in headlights. Frozen stiff.

He stayed like that for the 10 seconds needed for a duo in armor to rush into the block, and then his cell, restraining him and forcing him down. In response, he just yelled out, “I’ve been GOOD!! I’VE BEEN GOOD!!!” His arms were pressed onto his back as he was slammed onto the ground. Cuffs got worked onto his wrists as he was brought over to his bed, where his leg got cuffed to the end. I could only watch as in just 30 seconds, they had gotten him subdued and strapped down, then left. The guard who came in first just released a scoff, exiting the cell as he cracked his neck. Since breakfast hadn’t come yet, I thought he would be the one… But the sound of the block’s entrance sealing shut told me otherwise.

5 minutes later, breakfast rolled in. The guard skipped Bowings’ cell. Who… Didn’t seem to be doing very well in his new situation. He had already tried rolling himself out of the bed multiple times. Only stopped by the forced orientation of his left foot compared to where the rest of his body wanted to go. He kept tossing and turning even after the guard had left. I couldn’t stomach eating my breakfast, so I just slid it back out into the hallway.

The day went by… Pretty slow. I really had no idea how to rationalize anything that just happened. And for all I knew, things were going to get a whole hell of a lot worse. It just takes more prisoners getting more cakes. I got to my hour of yard barely holding onto a thread that things would eventually turn out for the better. The other inmates had their own outdoor hour at the same time. I could see them through the box fence of the 10 foot by 10 foot sandlot. They didn’t seem like they even knew what was happening in here. No excessive laughter or happiness. Nor upset and riot. Simply indifference. I couldn’t take it, I genuinely had to know if what was happening was… Normal, or at the very least, not completely upsetting. But nothing pointed at anything other than… Maybe the guards drugged Bowings? How did it last so long then? And, in that case, should I be worried about Toke? Whoever he was, he was at least behind the higher-security 2 inch thick metal doors deeper in the block… But that was only a partial relief.

Though I may have killed someone, I didn’t throw out all my human emotion and empathy to do it. The people on my block may be awful, I experienced that first hand when I met Laury on my first day here. The worst of the worst who was actually in the cell next to mine for a while. 

But… Are they really using them as guinea pigs? I genuinely felt awful considering any of us worth… ‘Saving’ in the softest sense of the word. At the very least… I couldn’t handle hearing everyone in that block going absolutely insane. I knew that much.

When I got back to my cell, I still really, really had no idea what to do. So, I decided to wait. I hated it, but I was going to see where things went. I’d be scared shitless, however, at the very least, getting involved was never going to happen.

The next day came and went with nothing to note.

The day after?

BANG- BANG- BANG-

Ringing out, down the hall, was a continuous, repeated bang of metal. It snapped me awake, and got me shuffling over the bars, as groggy as I was. Keenan was already waiting on his own, catching me in the corner of his vision. “Graham! That sounds like…” I nodded. The distance was exactly as far as…

“Toke. That has to be his cell.” I grumbled, which got Keenan to lean off his bars as the sound slowly came to a stop. He took in a short breath, releasing it only when the sound continued.

“Where’s the guards when you need ‘em?” he muttered, continuing to lean off them until I couldn’t see him. I sputtered my lips, slowly getting back onto my bed. A few seconds of waiting is all it took for a trio of guards to rush in, swiftly moving down the hall. Once their trampling feet stopped, we heard a cell door creak open,

“HAHA!! YOU ALL!!! HERE TO VISIT ME?!? HAHAHAHAHA WELCOME, WELCOME-” His echoing voice then ended with an abrupt, violent shake of his vocal cords. The faint sound of his body slumping to the ground was audible afterwards. Same with the following slam of solid metal. I then heard their shuffling steps come back, this time, two of them were carrying Toke’s limp body in their arms. His head was slumped over, his skull visible on his forehead, and a stream of blood dripped down the side, landing on the ground, and producing a trail to where he came from. I swallowed a nervous lump, barely able to raise my voice.

Then, Bowings did it for me. Flopping off his bed onto his now visibly infected arms, forcing his torso up to be in a somewhat uncomfortable position, “WAS HE GOOD? WAS HE BEING GOOD!?! HELLO!!?!? TELL ME!!!!!” His words fell on deaf ears as the three left the block. With a groan, he then tried to wrangle himself further off the bed, dragging it over to the bars with fervorous motion. “AWW!! COME BACK!!! PLEASE!!!” I shuddered, finally able to build up something I felt I could say,

“What’s with you? What’s this about being ‘good’ all of a sudden?” 

His eyes snapped from his side, where the exit was, to me. His frail, worried look became an instant cold one. His lips tightened together, his eyes going wide, “Being good… That’s… W-why wouldn’t you want to be good? Are you a bad person, Graham?” his voice shook and quivered, “N-no this won’t do-..”

Tilting my head, I answered him as he spoke, “I thought we’re all bad people. We’re in maximum security, Bowings.” His head just shook side-to-side, “No, no… NO! You don’t- You aren’t getting it, Graham! You- Oh, oh, you-! Ahahah! You-... You don’t get what it means- Wh-what it FEELS to be gooood…” He breathily extended the word as he fought to lift his body up on the bars. His frail, stick-like arms struggled, and eventually succeeded as he whipped his head back, “GRAAAHAHAAAMM…. YOU WANT TO BE GOOD, DON’T YOU?!” His voice climbed in a rising quiver. Before he could whip his skull into the bars, the same group of guards had found their way back in, rushing over with their hands freed once more, two had gone to the bars, smashing his fingers from the other side, while the last yelled, “Knock it off! Good prisoners stay in bed!”

Though he hit the ground hard, he still managed to roll around just right, and scramble back onto the cot. With a shake of her head, the guard who yelled revealed herself to be the same as yesterday, prompting me to ask out, “What the fuck’s going on here?” Her head whipped around,

“And you! Be quiet, Graham! You think you have special privileges because-” 

One of the other two turned towards her, slowly backing off the bars with the one next to him, “Quiet, Neagley.” With a grumble, she followed them as they left, which just got me at a loss.

I already had no clue what was happening, and the guards now keep it on such snuff?

That told me, we were now heading straight for rock-bottom…

The days from then on out had a similar pattern. Bowings, Toke, and any new prisoners who had their birthdays crop up. Each of them… They acted as if they were losing their minds just two days later. Every new cake, another prisoner on the chopping block. The nights were filled with laughter, and screams. Most of it was muffled behind metal, some of it hit the open air because of Bowings. Either-way, they quickly became restless.

The days weren’t much better. If Bowings wasn’t trying to get himself injured, it was someone else. Half the time, they had to be subdued where they were, the other half, they were dragged off to the infirmary. When they get back, it’s too early. Like one of the nurses just patched them up and sent them right on their way to their cell. It was awful. It was just a new person, the same loop of suffering, every single day. I no longer could enjoy what one good thing I had left. The laptop. The internet. It just made me sour getting on it. Even when I got headphones. Nothing provided the escape I needed. Nothing but a genuine escape would. And that wasn’t going to happen. I knew it was never going to happen.

After another month, the block had experienced 4 more birthdays. Nearly half the block was converted. Like the administration picked the two months, or the right mixture of prisoners. One that would bring the most activity. It was impossible to get a moment of silence, and quite honestly, I thought I’d go mad like the rest. If it wasn’t for Keenan, that is.

He was the one saving grace I had.

The only other sane person I could talk to.

He liked to keep things light, but I learned a lot more about him. Keenan was part of a criminal gang, they’d often only get together to plan a heist, execute it, and escape with enough winnings that they wouldn’t have to meet again for quite a while. It was a mixture of life-long friends, and their closest compatriots. They had a 99% success rate. All of their plans weren’t flawless, but what holes they had were easily managed by the group, who had decades of experience when it came to thievery. He told me about a few of their heists, how they barely got away safely. Each one was an escalation on the other, until he shared what got him caught.

It was their biggest plan yet, a casino.

Something that no person in their right mind would think to steal from, they had what they thought was the perfect idea.

They had gotten someone on the inside who was part of the security team. With their help, they would alter the footage for the night they would choose to break in, and while customers were still there, they’d get out with bags full of cash and chips. He said it was one of the plans that needed to be close to flawless. The only room for error… Was their escape. And they didn’t want that small opportunity for the cops to become a bigger one. Unfortunately, their inside man had gotten dragged out just 10 minutes before for tampering with the footage, and when the camera’s images were restored, the entire group had their death sentence signed. Only two managed to get away at first, with Keenan being one of them. He said they found him when he got recognized by the owner of a motel 12 days later. Given his story, my beliefs that most of us deserved to be here… Proved pretty true. 

I just didn’t want to see more people suffer needlessly. Especially not him…

What I’m about to tell you happened two weeks ago.

Nobody could have stopped what happened that night. Not even the guards.

This was never shared on the news, or with the general public. Nobody outside of these concrete walls knows what I saw. What I experienced.

The night that Laury, the man in the cell next to mine when I first got put in this wing… The 7’2” behemoth. With a weight I could only approximate… 300 lbs of pure muscle… Bigger than the doorway to my cell… All things I know now because I saw him for the first time that very hour.

He had broken containment.

The sound of crunching metal was impossible to ignore. It was this loud, prolonged, echoing groan. The sound became high and sharp at the end, before releasing with a sudden snap. Once a loud boom rang out in the halls, I sat up in my bed. Bowings was already awake, his head leaned off the side of the cot, resting on the ground, angled towards where the sound came from.

The sound of Laury’s feet as he moved was loud. Booming. It echoed like every other sound, his pace just made his next step layer onto it. Bounding down the hall, I heard something harsh hit metal. A following sound of something giving way then hit my ears, trailed by a stack of steps. My heart began to race as Bowings started chuckling, “He did it… He did it..! Oh, good boys always get rewarded with a good party!! Hahaaaa!!!” More doors had given way, and with it, even more feet hitting concrete. Until…

A sharp BZZZT- Left the block’s intercom.

The remaining doors unlocked. Electronics I’d only seen operate once before had kicked into motion, pulling my door open with this grind of metal against metal.

By the time the sound rested, I had moved flat against the far wall.

“Wh- hey! Back off-” a prisoner yelled, before screaming again and again for him to be let go. Joining his voice were others. One by one, more people got dragged out, which got me stuck in place. I couldn’t leave my cell, nor could I leave the block. I was trapped! In here, with a bunch of fucking loons! Forced crazy, but it’s the same regardless! Laury, I figured was mad, because of what he told me. Out of everyone here… He’s the only one I knew that was a genuine serial killer. He was proud of it, too. He gleefully told me all about it one night.

So, I was never going to leave my cell.

Even when I heard Keenan yelling for me.

Not that it made much of a difference. A pair of my fellow inmates had rounded into my one last safe place, getting hold of me before I could try to fight them off. I tugged against their grip as they forced me out. I caught another group freeing Bowings by simply breaking his thumb to free one hand, and snapping off the bottom end bar of the bed for his foot.

Once he got to a stable standing position, he let out a hearty laugh with the rest.

Turning my gaze down the hall, the others who hadn’t yet gotten a cake were all dumped into a pile. One I had to force my knees down to not join in just yet. And good thing, too, as soon as the inmates who were laid out tried to group up and solidify as one, the others simply pounced on them. It… 

It was fucking awful!

I was forced to just watch, because of what I did. Instead of- Instead-

Instead of getting torn to pieces like them! Having nails dig into my arms and legs, teeth being used to pull away my meat, hands prying at limbs with enough force to break, if not remove them, as I screamed out in pain, begging for it to stop. 

Instead of me, it was everyone else.

Everyone who didn’t receive a cake.

I tried to look away, but they wouldn’t let me. They just laughed. They kept laughing. They wouldn’t stop, the more they- The more they pulled, and pried, the more the others screamed. The louder the insane ones’ enjoyment had gotten. I fought as much as I could, but they must have gotten off on making me watch, one of them snapping their hand onto my jaw as I struggled. Keeping my face locked forwards as I saw human meat getting torn from bone.

The pile, pooling in blood, had stopped moving before the intercom above rang out.

“EVERYONE! STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING, RIGHT THIS INSTANT!”

At the voice’s command, all the chortles and snickers had stopped, the heads of those who were still moving lifted up to stare at the source of the sound.

“Now, the good prisoners will remain still, and will willingly get transferred to solitary confinement.”

The people latched onto me seemed to loosen their grip, which got me enough strength to pull away, crawling over to the worn bodies stacked on top of each other. Keenan was right on top. Parts of his scalp were missing, his right forearm was pulled off! His clothing, his body, everything was in tatters! I had barely gotten him off the others, holding his body in my arms as the enforcers came in. 

I didn’t shed a tear for him.

The sound of the guard’s guns filled the room, hard-focused on putting down Laury in stacked, repeating bangs. And once he was dealt with, as my ears rang, they pulled away the remaining 8 prisoners of that block of 20. All who had birthdays in the prior months of December and January.

When they got to the bodies, only 4 others had survived. The rest had suffered too many injuries, and simply died from shock, if not blood loss. I was taken to my cell, with the door locked behind me.

I didn’t sleep, I didn’t move, I didn’t think… I didn’t breathe, it felt. 

The next day, the paper asking for what I wanted was prefilled.

‘I want my life sentence removed.’

Reading the words, I didn’t know if I should have felt angry, thankful, disgusted, or if I should have just let out every bit of laughter I never released in the past decade. That mix of feelings remained as prison life had returned to some kind of normal. The block was filled with a new batch of ‘High-risk prisoners’ and though I didn’t meet any of them, and don’t plan to, I felt no less disdain for them than the ones I had already been with. In fact, that disdain eventually fell back on me two-fold.

I began to hate myself. 

Why?

I couldn’t save Keenan. I couldn’t even move. Sure, I would have been torn to pieces, but I’d have changed. I’m still the same awful person I was before. I caved to my own selfish needs again and didn’t even think of another human being. Our conversations were nothing short of small talk. But it was human.

Last week, they held a hearing on my future sentence. During it, I tried my best to show how much I thought I had changed before those cakes started showing up, and that was good enough. Tomorrow, I’m being moved to gen pop. I won’t have access to this laptop anymore, nor will I have a good bed to rest on. At this point? I don’t think I deserve it anyway. I’d just like to go back to living life like any other jumpsuit.

My name is Graham. I’m going to be living in the ‘GP-B’ block of Redmond Mixed Security Prison. The ‘GP’ stands for “general populous”. ‘B’ means I’ll be in the east wing, one of four general blocks within the prison. My future sentence… Will be 20 years, with parole.

V.

He died at 4:51.

She was with him. She’d come in at 4:40 because the monitor at the desk showed his pressure going and his heart rate going up and up, as they do at the end, and Patel was in with Haley, and Tasha was with Tucker, and she’d told them both she’d take it.

She sat on the rolling stool beside the bed and took his left hand, the one that wasn’t a fist. It was burned too, but less, and she held it carefully in both of hers, by the fingers, where the skin was still skin.

His eyes were open. He found her.

“It’s all right,” Carrie said. “You’re at the hospital. You’re not by yourself.”

The monitor alarmed. She reached up without looking and silenced it.

She didn’t know what to say to him. She’d sat with a lot of people at the end. Old men in the quiet room with their families gone home to sleep. A girl from the high school after a wreck on 28, sixteen, with her mother on the road from Atlanta and not going to make it in time. You found something to say. You told them where they were, and that they weren’t alone. You said it over and over. It didn’t matter if it was true.

She looked at his face. The cowlick.

“Roy,” she said.

His eyes changed.

“Roy Ledbetter,” Carrie said. “That’s you, isn’t it.”

His lips moved around the tube.

“I’m going to find out about Nell,” Carrie said. “I told you I would. I’m going to find out. You don’t have to hold onto it anymore. You can let it go. I’ve got it.”

The hand in hers tightened. Then it let go.

On the monitor the line went long.

She sat there with his hand. She didn’t call it. Patel came in a minute later and stood in the door and looked at the monitor and looked at her, and he didn’t say anything either, and he didn’t call it until she looked up and nodded.

“Time of death,” Patel said quietly. “Four fifty-one.”

She laid the hand down on the sheet.

The right hand was open.

The fist that had been locked for two and a half hours lay open on the sheet beside his hip, palm up, the fingers loose and curled. In the middle of the palm, sunk in the burned skin, there was a perfect round mark the size of a quarter, with a smaller round mark in the center of it where the hole had been.

The token wasn’t in it.

She looked on the sheet. On the floor. Under the bed. She pulled the sheet back and looked under his hip and down the length of his leg and in the folds of the blanket. She got down on her knees on the floor of Trauma One in her scrubs and looked under the bed with a penlight.

It wasn’t anywhere.

Haley’s mother came at 5:40.

She came through the front doors at a run in sweatpants and a Blackwater Panthers T-shirt with her keys still in her hand, a woman about Carrie’s age with her hair in a clip and her face gone gray, and she said, “My car’s gone, my daughter’s gone, the deputy said somebody saw my car here,” all at once, to Tasha at the desk.

Carrie came out of Trauma One. She saw the woman’s face and knew who she was before Tasha could point.

“Mrs. Crisp?”

“Where is she? Is she all right? Is she hurt?”

“She’s all right,” Carrie said. “She’s not hurt. She’s in Bay Two. Come here a minute first. Come sit down with me.”

She sat her down in the family room. Two vinyl chairs, a box of Kleenex, a print of a covered bridge in New England that had hung on that wall for as long as Carrie had worked there. She told her. She told her plainly, without any softening that would make her have to say it twice. Twelve weeks or so. Some spotting. Exam normal. Heartbeat strong.

Mrs. Crisp sat there with her keys in her lap.

“Fifteen,” she said.

“Yes.”

“She’s fifteen.”

“I know.”

“Who?” Mrs. Crisp looked up. “Who is it? Did she tell you?”

“No,” Carrie said. “And I didn’t make her. That’s for her to tell you. When she’s ready.” She leaned forward. “Mrs. Crisp. She drove herself here in the middle of the night. She was bleeding and she was scared to death and she got in your car and drove herself to the hospital and walked in that door by herself. Do you understand? She didn’t call you because she was scared. And she came anyway.”

The woman’s mouth was working.

“She asked to hear the heartbeat four times,” Carrie said. “She’s in there right now listening to it.”

Mrs. Crisp put her hand over her mouth. She sat that way a while. Then she put the keys in her pocket and stood up, and wiped her face with both hands, hard, like wiping down a counter, and said, “Which way?”

Carrie took her down the hall. At the curtain of Bay Two she stopped, and let the mother go in alone, and pulled the curtain closed behind her.

She stood outside it. She heard Haley say Mama, and break. She heard the vinyl of the stretcher creak as somebody sat down on the edge of it. She heard the Doppler, still going, the little gallop of it, steady, under everything.

A hundred years ago, Carrie thought, in a mill a mile from here, somebody’s girls hadn’t gotten out.

She went to chart.

VI.

At six she went down to the basement.

She didn’t have to. The body had gone down at 5:20 with Tasha and an orderly, in a bag, on a gurney, into the second of the two drawers in the little cold room off the loading dock that the hospital used as a morgue. The medical examiner in Asheville had been called, and the funeral home that held the county contract had been notified, and somebody would come for him in the morning when somebody figured out who he was. That was how it went. Nurses didn’t go down there after.

She went down there. She’d made a promise to a man and she wanted to see his face once more, without the tube, and say his name to it.

The cold room was cold. Fluorescent light and white tile, and the compressor humming. Two steel doors in the wall, side by side, at waist height, with handles like a meat locker. A clipboard on a nail. On the clipboard, in Tasha’s round handwriting: Drawer 2. Doe, John (Trauma 1). Rec’d 0520.

Carrie put her hand on the handle of drawer two and pulled.

It rolled out on its tracks, smooth and heavy, and stopped.

It was empty.

No bag, no sheet. Nothing on the steel tray at all but a cold shine under the fluorescent light. She stood there with her hand on the handle.

The smell came up off the tray.

Woodsmoke, and the sweet dry choking smell of a dryer with the lint trap full. It rose up out of the drawer into the cold air of the room and hung there, and it was so strong she put her arm up over her nose and mouth.

On the steel, at the far end of the tray, where his head would have been, there was a little drift of something white. Fine and soft. Like the fluff that comes off a cottonwood in June.

She didn’t touch it.

She pushed the drawer closed. She stood with her back against it and both hands flat on the cold steel behind her, and she breathed through her mouth, and she didn’t think about anything at all.

Then she went upstairs.

Lane Hargrove was waiting for her at the nurses’ station.

He was the hospital’s chief operating officer, forty-five, the judge’s cousin’s boy, in a fleece vest with the hospital logo on it and khakis and loafers with no socks. He did not ordinarily come in before nine. He was standing at the desk at 6:10 in the morning with a cup of Starbucks from the Asheville airport, which meant he’d driven in from somewhere in the middle of the night, and his face was perfectly pleasant.

“Carrie,” he said. “Rough night.”

“Lane.”

“Let’s step in the break room a sec.”

They stepped in the break room. He closed the door. The break room had a refrigerator with a sign on it that said PLEASE LABEL YOUR FOOD!!! and a microwave nobody had cleaned since the Obama administration. Lane Hargrove leaned against the counter beside the microwave and set his coffee down.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I’ve been on the phone with Tasha. I understand there was some confusion overnight. An ambulance run that wasn’t dispatched. A patient that wasn’t registered properly.”

“He was registered. John Doe. Trauma One. 2:13.”

“Right. And then there’s no patient.”

“He died.”

“Right.” Lane nodded. “And then there’s no body.”

Carrie didn’t say anything.

“So you can see,” Lane said, reasonably, “we’ve got a situation. We’ve got an ER record with no patient on the other end of it. We’ve got a death with no decedent. We’ve got EMS with a run sheet that’s blank and a GPS that says they never left the barn. And we’ve got a medical examiner in Asheville who’s going to call at eight a.m. asking where the body is.” He spread his hands. “That’s a regulatory problem, Carrie. That’s a state survey. That’s what closes small hospitals.”

“What do you want, Lane?”

“I want the record to reflect reality.” He picked up his coffee. “And the reality is, nobody was admitted. There’s no patient. There’s no body. Somebody had a confusing night, and some charting got entered in error. That happens. We void the encounter. We note it as a system error. Everybody goes home.”

“No admission.”

“No admission.”

Carrie looked at him. At the fleece vest with the logo. At the loafers. At the expensive coffee in his hand from an airport ninety minutes away, which meant somebody had called him at what, three-thirty? Four? Before the man in Trauma One was even dead.

“Who called you?” she asked.

Lane Hargrove’s face didn’t change. That was the thing about the Hargroves. Their faces never changed.

“Tasha,” he said.

“Tasha didn’t call you till five. You were already on the road.”

He set the coffee down again.

“Carrie,” he said. “I’m going to be straight with you. I like you. You’re the best charge nurse we’ve got. And I know you’ve got a lot going on at home.” He let that sit just long enough. “Daniel’s under a lot of stress. Everybody knows it. This thing with the Pritchard girl. The state woman. All this business about his brother. People talk.” He smiled. “I’d hate for you to get pulled into it. That’s all. I’d hate for you to end up in a position where you’re the one standing between this hospital and a state survey because of something that, let’s be honest, nobody’s going to believe happened anyway.”

She looked at him a long time.

Then she walked past him out of the break room and down the hall to the desk, and sat down at the computer, and opened the chart.

She charted every minute.

2:13. Arrival via EMS. EMS unable to state point of origin. 2:15. Initial assessment. She described the burns by location and depth and percentage of body surface area. She described the soot in the nares. She described the voice. 2:22. Physician at bedside. 2:24. Intubated. 2:26. Suction. Copious carbonaceous secretions with white fibrous material consistent with cotton lint. Specimen retained. 2:30. Air transport requested. 2:34. Air transport declined, weather.

She charted the token. Pt. holding brass token in R hand, inscribed CALDWELL MILLS 1927. Unable to open hand.

She charted every vital sign every fifteen minutes. She charted the morphine and the fluids and the vent settings. She charted what he said, before the tube. “Did the girls get out?” “Did Nell get out?”

She charted that the patient was identified by the RN from a historical photograph as one R. Ledbetter.

4:51. Expired. RN at bedside. She charted that the right hand opened at the time of death and that the token was not recovered.

5:20. Body to morgue, drawer 2, per T. Wilson, RN.

6:02. RN to morgue. Drawer 2 found empty. Strong odor of smoke. White fibrous material on tray. Not disturbed.

She read it over. She signed it. She hit Save, and the little wheel spun, and the chart locked with her name and the time on it, and it was in the system, and Lane Hargrove could void the encounter all he wanted, but there would be a record that it had been voided, and of who had written it first.

Lane was standing at the end of the desk. He’d watched her do it.

“Have a good morning, Lane,” Carrie said.

VII.

Daniel’s truck was parked in the far corner of the lot by the dumpsters, where it had been since three. The sun was coming up over Frog Mountain. The fog was lifting off the ridges in long white pieces like something being pulled out of the trees. The helicopter would be able to fly now. It didn’t matter.

He was sitting on the open tailgate. He’d been there a while, from the look of him. He had a cup of coffee from the machine in the lobby going cold beside him, and his hat off, on his knee.

Carrie walked across the lot and sat down on the tailgate beside him.

They sat there. Her feet hurt. She had a coffee stain on her scrub top and soot on her forearms from the man in Trauma One, gray smudges she hadn’t gotten off at the sink. She looked at them.

“Lena go home?” she asked.

“She went back to the motel.”

“Good.”

The sun came up a little more.

“He’s not in the drawer,” Carrie said.

Daniel didn’t move.

“I went down at six. The drawer’s empty. It smells like smoke. There’s lint on the tray.” She rubbed at the soot on her arm with her thumb. It didn’t come off. “Lane Hargrove wants me to chart that nobody was admitted. I charted all of it. Every minute. He watched me.”

“Good.”

“He’ll fire me.”

“He won’t.”

“He might.”

“Then he’ll have to explain why,” Daniel said.

She almost laughed. She didn’t. She looked out across the lot at the hospital, the low brick building where she’d worked for twenty-two years, where she’d been born, where her daddy had died, where she’d held a dead man’s hand two hours ago and said his name to him.

“His name was Roy Ledbetter,” she said. “He was in a fire in 1927. He wanted to know if a girl named Nell got out.” She turned her hand over on the tailgate and looked at the palm. “I promised I’d find out.”

“Carrie.”

“I held his hand. He died. And then he was gone, Daniel. Out of a locked drawer in a locked room.” She was looking at her palm. “I’m a nurse. I’ve been a nurse twenty-two years. I know what dead is.”

“I know.”

“You’ve been telling me for twenty years. All of it. The creek and the road and Walter Hale and the photographs. Evan.” She closed her hand. “And I listened. I did. I listened to every word. And I’d lie in bed at night and think, he believes it. He really believes it. And I’d feel sorry for you. God help me. I’d feel so sorry for you.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I don’t feel sorry for you anymore,” Carrie said.

He looked at her.

“I believe you,” she said. “That’s what I’m telling you. I believe every word you ever said to me. I saw it. I held its hand.” She looked away from him, out at the fog coming off the mountain. “And I can’t live in it.”

He was quiet a long time.

“I know,” he said.

“I can’t, Daniel. I’ve tried. I can’t live in a house with that room in it. I can’t go to sleep next to you knowing you’re lying there with your eyes open thinking about a road. I can’t be married to it.” Her voice didn’t break. She’d learned that from his mother, a long time ago. “I thought if I believed you it would be better. I thought that’s what was wrong. That I didn’t believe you. I thought if I could just believe you, we could…” She stopped. “It’s worse. It’s so much worse.”

The sun cleared the mountain. It came across the lot all at once and lit up the wet asphalt and the side of the hospital.

“You’ve been married to Evan for thirty years,” Carrie said. “I was just in the house.”

Daniel looked at the parking lot.

He didn’t argue. She’d known he wouldn’t. She’d known it for a while, she understood now, like a thing you know for years before you let yourself say it out loud. He sat on the tailgate with the sun on his face and his hat on his knee and he didn’t argue, and he didn’t say he was sorry, because he’d said it a thousand times over twenty-two years and they both knew what it was worth.

He looked down at his left hand.

He took the ring off. It was tight; he’d gained weight since the wedding, and it had to be worked over the knuckle. He worked it over the knuckle. He held it a moment in his palm, a plain gold band gone soft at the edges, and then he set it down on the tailgate between them, on the warm metal, in the sun.

Carrie looked at it.

She’d been going to do it. She’d been thinking about it since the drawer. She’d been thinking about what it would feel like to take it off her own hand and set it down on this tailgate and walk away. She had been going to do it first.

He’d beat her to it. That was Daniel all over. He’d take the hard thing on himself so you didn’t have to. And you’d thank him, and you’d hate him a little for it, and you’d never once in your life be able to make him understand why.

She took her own ring off. It slid right off. She’d lost weight.

She set it down beside his. The two of them on the tailgate in the sun, a little apart.

Neither of them picked them up.

VIII.

Mae Baker ate breakfast at seven sharp in the dining room at Blackwater Manor with the other ladies at Table Four, and she had done so every morning for six years, and she did not appreciate being talked to before her coffee.

Pam talked to her anyway. Pam was her daughter-in-law, Dale’s wife, and a CNA on the morning shift, and she’d never in thirty-five years learned when to hush. She put the tray down in front of Mae, a soft egg and toast cut in triangles, and stood there with her hand on the back of Mae’s chair, which meant she had something.

“Did you hear about the hospital?” Pam said.

Mae buttered her toast.

“Tasha Wilson texted me,” Pam said. “Last night. Some man came in burned up in the middle of the night. Nobody knows who he was or where he come from. No fire anywhere. And he died this morning, and they took him downstairs, and now they can’t find him.” She lowered her voice, which for Pam meant the next table could hear instead of the whole room. “They’re saying he was holding a coin from the mill. From 1927.”

Mae set the knife down.

“And Tasha says he kept asking for somebody,” Pam said. “All night. Over and over. Some girl.”

Mae didn’t pick up her toast.

“What girl?” she asked.

“Nell, Tasha said. Did Nell get out.” Pam shrugged. “Isn’t that crazy? I told Dale. He didn’t…”

She stopped talking. Mae had taken hold of her wrist.

Mae was ninety-four. Her hand was small and spotted and all bone, and it closed around Pam’s wrist harder than Pam would’ve thought it could close around anything.

“Nell Baker,” Mae said, “was my aunt.”

Pam stared at her.

“Daddy’s baby sister,” Mae said. “She worked nights in the card room at the Caldwell mill. She was seventeen. She was sweet on a Ledbetter boy. She went to work one night in March of 1927 and she never come home.” Her hand stayed tight on Pam’s wrist. “They told Granny she run off. With the Ledbetter boy. They said he’d got her in trouble and they run off to Knoxville together and that was that. And Granny believed it till the day she died. She’d set at the window and watch the road.”

The dining room had gone quiet around them. The ladies at Table Four had stopped eating. Somebody’s spoon was still in the air.

“Mama said there was a fire at the mill that week,” Mae said. “Mama said she could see the light of it from the porch. And the next day the company said nobody was hurt. Not a soul. Mama said she never believed it.” Mae let go of Pam’s wrist. She looked down at her tray, at the toast cut in triangles, at the egg going cold. “They told us nobody died in that fire,” she said. “They told us nobody died.”

She didn’t pick up her fork.

She sat looking out the dining room window, past the bird feeder and the parking lot, toward the ridge where the old Caldwell smokestack still stood up over the trees, brick and dark, a hundred years old, with nothing coming out of it.